One year ago on Rays Index we discussed Stuart Sternberg’s most famous statement, “This is who we are.”

Sternberg On Kazmir Deal: This Is Who We Are [Rays Index]

This interview is about a week old, and most of the answers are very benign. But we don’t get to hear from Carl Crawford to often. He does field one telling question in which he is asked whether the Angels could be an option for him next season.

I have to keep my options open. You know, every team is an option, if that’s what happens. Like I said, I would like to try and see if me and the Rays can get something done first. But if that doesn’t happen, I’ll be open for whoever really wants me the most.

Maybe CC is just being polite and saying the right thing. But keep in mind, this is a dramatic change in tone from earlier in the year when he declared that he and Pena would be leaving. And don’t forget, his good buddy Torii Hunter thinks CC will re-sign with the Rays.

While this comment seems to leave the door open a bit, we still think it is a longshot that Crawford returns next season.

Carl Crawford : Keeping His Options Open [LA Angels Insider]

From time to time we are going to take a look at the 2010 attendance and see how this season stacks up against last year and whether the Rays can reach their goal of being average (in attendance).

Notes on the attendance follow the graph…

Notes on the 2010 attendance…

• In 2009, the Rays averaged 23,148 per game and drew 1.87 million fans. That was the most since their inaugural season of 1998 when they drew 2.5 million.
• While the Rays have not stated any attendance goals this season, last year it was league average. So far in 2010, MLB is averaging 30,230 fans per game. That is down 0.3% from last year’s average of 30,324.
• After 69 home games last year, the Rays were averaging 24,115. So far this year the Rays are averaging 22,679, 23rd in baseball, and are on pace for 1.84 million. That is down 6.0% from the same point last last year.

The GBT – The Good, The Bad and The Telling sandwich, where The Bad is nice and lean and the The Telling is ripe.

click above image for boxscore

THE GOOD: David Price. There was a time when David Price couldn’t hit 96 with one pitch. But last night, his 100th pitch was 96 mph. That was just the most obvious example of how Price got stronger as the night moved along. It started with 2 walks in the first, in which 10 of his 19 pitches were out of the zone. But in the next 7 innings, he threw only 20 balls…Ralph Soriano. He didn’t have the good stuff to start the 9th. Of his first 11 pitches, only 1 was greater than 93 mph. The 11th pitch was smacked for a 1-out triple. But then MFIKY found an extra gear. The next 10 pitches were 94-96 as he fought back to retire the last 2 batters and seal the win.

THE BAD: New Faces. Joe Maddon decided to go with his triple-A lineup, by throwing Dioner Navarro, Brad Hawpe and Desmond Jennings straight into the mix. It was a rough night, as the trio went a combined 1-10 with 6 strikeouts, leaving 9 runners on base. Brad Hawpe went 0-4 with 4 strikeouts, including a curious situation in which Joe Maddon left Hawpe in with 2 outs in the 8th and the bases loaded against a lefty.

THE TELLING: Grant Balfour was activated from the DL…According to CoolStandings.com the Rays have a 98.3% shot at the playoffs. The Red Sox are at 2.7%.

WHERE THEY STAND: The Rays are 82-51, 1 game behind the Yankees and 7 games ahead of the Red Sox in the Wild Card. After 133 games in 2008, the Rays were 82-51.

THE JUNKYARD DOGS WEBTOPIA…

• Joe Maddon on why the game-ending flyball was able to be caught by Carl Crawford: “I thought it was going to hit a catwalk…and because I think the building and I have made up since my last outburst…and for that reason alone, the ball avoided something.” [Sun Sports]
• Matt Moore is the first minor leaguer to strikeout 200 batters in a season since Francisco Liriano in 2005. [MiLB]
• Seth Livingstone points to Read the rest of this entry »

In the wake of the Major League Baseball’s leaked financial documents, Patrick Rishe of Forbes.com is the latest to call for the institution of minimum payrolls, often referred to as a “salary floor,” as a way to force teams to reinvest money received from revenue sharing…

Imposing league minimum team payrolls would ensure that money received through MLB’s general fund is re-invested into the major league product in a very direct way…The revenue sharing system in MLB was instituted to create a greater degree of competitive balance. Low payroll teams with persistently poor on-field performance that have the means circa their shared revenues to add $10-20M dollars in payroll – but don’t – are doing the system, and their fan bases, a major disservice.

First of all, Major League Baseball already has a salary floor of $10 million (25 player roster, $400K minimum salary per player).

Beyond that, what if MLB and the player’s union agreed to raise the salary floor? The theory sounds great. And for the first couple of seasons, it might actually work. But eventually, it will cause a problem bigger than the one it is attempting to fix.

In short, raising the salary floor will only serve to Read the rest of this entry »

Everywhere you turned yesterday, people were dumping on the Tampa Bay area for the lack of attendance at The Trop on Monday night. One example is Dari Nowkhah, a sportscaster for ESPN, who said the following (via Twitter)…

11,000 at last night’s #Rays game. 31 games over .500. Pathetic. Why would Carlos Pena and Carl Crawford re-sign?

Let’s ignore the fact that no player in the history of baseball has based his free agent contract on attendance. But in ripping the attendance, Nowkhah was not alone. Bashing of Rays fans could be heard on “SportsCenter” and on “Baseball Tonight” and many corners of the internet.

First of all, as a commenter (Thad) correctly pointed out, most of the parks in action on Monday night had very small crowds. With schools back in session it is hard to expect big crowds for weeknight games. The difference for the Rays is that they don’t have a large core of season-ticket holders. So when other teams have 10,000 people in the stands, they can still report a bloated attendance number that includes season-ticket holders that did not show up. And those figures don’t have the same emotional impact that ESPN is looking for.

But, none of those other teams have the best record in baseball. So why should the Rays be exempt for this criticism? Because a team’s current record has little to do with how many fans show up to the park.

In Baseball Between the Numbers, edited by Read the rest of this entry »

Without a doubt, the Rays have attendance problems. But with the Rays ranked in the top 10 in local television ratings, interest in the team is at an all-time high.

At the other end of the spectrum we have “The Red Sox Nation,” baseball fans that are smarter and better than regular fans and would never bail on their team! The group that can trace their Red Sox lineage back to a relative that wore a Red Sox cap on the Mayflower. The holier-than-thou “Red Sox Nation,” that can actually improve the potential of their team! Yeah, not so loyal after-all…

On the eve of September 2010, here’s the problem: you now see through it. Whether one measures the Red Sox’ Q rating through television ratings, talk-show volume, web hits or that intangible buzz, the Sox took a major hit this year. Broadcast ratings have plummeted. Secondary ticket sales have slowed to a crawl if not stopped altogether. Fenway Park has gone from among the most fashionable places to be seen to just another ballpark, and the timing could not be worse for a Red Sox administration that might have been planning for another lean year.

All this for a team that some believe still has a shot at the playoffs.

To us, there are two different types of “bandwagon” fans. The first kind Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, we expressed our fear that Randy Choate might actually be able to give up a bases-empty grand slam in a 4-run game. Immediately, several commenters came to the defense of Choate, correctly citing his rough April (10.50 ERA) for his ugly 4.42 ERA. One commenter pointed to Choate’s 3.27 FIP as evidence that he has pitched much better than his ERA (click here for an explanation of FIP).

FIP can indeed be a better indicator of a pitcher’s performance. And a 3.27 FIP is generally considered good.

But is a 3.27 FIP good for Choate? More specifically, is it good for a lefty-specialist that will normally only face batters in which he has a very strong advantage during the matchup?

Let’s take a look at how lefty-specialists* in the American League have fared this season (ranked by FIP versus left-handed batters)…

As we can see, Choate is far from
Read the rest of this entry »

The GBT – The Good, The Bad and The Telling sandwich, where The Bad is nice and lean and the The Telling is ripe.

click above image for boxscore

THE GOOD: Magic Numbers. The Rays lost, and looked bad doing it. But the good news is, the Red Sox lost also, lowering the Rays’ magic number to 24 with 30 to play.

THE BAD: Jeff Niemann. Things looked promising for the first 5 innings. It looked as though maybe Niemann shed the rust that plagued him in his first start back from the DL. But then the 6th inning happened. Niemann faced 6 batters in the 6th and retired none of them. All 6 would eventually score…Over-Aggressive. Dan Johnson’s double in the 5th gave the Rays a 3-1 lead. But with 2 outs, we still have no idea why he decided to stretch the double into a triple, considering Johnson was rounding second just as Aaron Hill fielded the relay about 20 feet in front of Johnson (Ben Zobrist was going to score easily).

THE TELLING: Andy Sonnanstine was demoted to short-season Hudson Valley to make room for Brad Hawpe. Since the Renegades’ season ends Sunday, the Rays won’t have to wait 10 days to bring him back…Grant Balfour will throw a simulated game today…Stephen Vogt, Matt Moore, Joe Cruz and Zach Quate were named to the FSL post-season All-Star team…Elliot Johnson joins Dan Johnson and Jeremy Hellickson on the IL post-season All-Star team.

WHERE THEY STAND: The Rays are 81-51, 1 game behind the Yankees in the East and 7 games ahead of the Red Sox in the AL East. After 132 games in 2008, the Rays were 81-51.

THE JUNKYARD DOGS WEBTOPIA…

• Joe Maddon on what went wrong with Jeff Niemann (Video). [Sun Sports]
• Matt Bush will have surgery on a nerve in his throwing arm. The move will require 6 weeks of rehab. [St. Pete Times]
• A scout on Jeremy Hellickson: “Minnesota, or whatever team they get [in the playoffs], would much rather see the kid [in the bullpen] than the prospect of seeing him start in a short series.” [SI.com]
• Peter Gammons is at it again. This time saying
  Read the rest of this entry »

Color Joe disturbed.

Man, everything seemed to be going so well in this game, especially Red Sux killer Dan Johnson — seemingly forgetting he wasn’t playing Boston — doubled to deep center, giving the Rays a 3-1 lead.

Sure, starter Jeff Niemann struggled a little bit in the previous inning but he got out of it and it seemed a near slam dunk that MFISUO and MFIKU would do their typical eighth and ninth inning dances and subsequent pulling out the shirt tail.

Rather, Niemann completely came unglued in the sixth. Niemann, in his first start back from the disabled list last week, was simply shelled by the Angels. After five innings, Niemann seemed fine. But is he?

Joe’s very concerned there’s still something wrong with Niemann. Joe’s trying to convince himself that Niemann just needs a little work and a very strict, limited pitch count through the next two weeks.

This is something Jim Hickey and Merlot Joe need to keep a very close eye on. Sure, it would be nice to have Niemann for the playoffs. But Joe would truly hate to see Niemann go under the knife and miss the entire 2011 season too.