Hi, I’m Jordi Scrubbings. You may remember me from such links as “Where are Carl Crawford’s triples?” and “Tropicana’s Where I Lost My Heart”. Cork has brought me aboard to spice up your weekends and add my own perspective on a few things Rays-related. Of course, in typical Rays fashion, I was signed to a very, very team-friendly deal.
Today I am going to talk about all things BJ Upton. I am not going apologize or attack, defend or denigrate. What I am going to do is tell why he is the most interesting player on the Rays.
The Devil in BJ Upton
One of the biggest problems with baseball is that it’s long season tends to grind out all sense of personality. While players start the season with pep and vigor, by the dog days of summer most of their individual uniqueness is all but washed away. There are some traits however that endure the season. Some of these labels even stay attached to a player for their entire career.
These traits and how players perform under their guise is what makes a player’s career all the more interesting. If we say Derek Jeter is a leader, and he fails to motivate the Yankees to overcome some obstacle, is he still a leader? If so, how will he be defended? If we say David Eckstein is a scrappy hustler, how do we react when he doesn’t dive during a day game in August in St. Louis where the temperature is over 100 degrees? Do we let him slide? And then of course, there is a label of “clutch”, which seems to have a life of its own, clinging like kudzu to players who have come up big at some point in their career.
There is no more labeled player Read the rest of this entry »
The Rays will have at least two starters in Tuesday night’s MLB All-Star game (Evan Longoria, Carl Crawford) with David Price a leading candidate to be the starting pitcher. And tonight, top prospects Jeremy Hellickson and Desmond Jennings will also be all-star starters in MLB’s Futures Game. Jennings will lead off and play center field while Hellboy will take the mound, both for the US squad. The game will be televised on ESPN2 at 6:00 ET.
The rest of the 29 teams in baseball have long been viewed as a farm system for the Yankees by that segment of The Evil Empire that believes they should have a future Hall-of-Famer at every position. And really, it is hard to argue, considering the Yankees rarely fail to land a player they target.
