The Sports Banter attempted to rank the off-season improvements of every MLB team. Despite the Rays filling their one hole (closer) with a proven commodity (Rafael Soriano) and only having to pay for the player with a four-A pitcher, the Rays are near the bottom of the rankings…

(25) Rays: I was critical of Tampa Bay last offseason and have no reason to ease off the gas here (insert lame Toyota joke here). The Rays – essentially – traded Akinori Iwamura for Rafael Soriano and his $7.25m salary. They also acquired C Kelly Shoppach from the Indians for a PTBNL… and that’s about it.

Solidifying the back end of the bullpen will help (albeit at a hefty cost), but for a team on the cusp of competing, more could have and should have been done. Now, the Rays need to depend on their farm system to produce, and to produce quickly, if they have any hopes of playing deep into October.

Rule #1 for any writer: Research is your friend! Try it some time.

First of all, Aki Iwamura was traded because Ben Zobrist can do the second base job much better (8.6 WAR vs 1.3 WAR) at a fraction of the cost ($450K vs $4.25M). Considering the alternative was declining Aki’s option, getting anything for him was a “win.”

Read the rest of this entry »