Dec 28
If you have been hanging around these parts for a while, you know that the model for this site is to tell you what the Rays have done, what they are doing and try to project what they will do based on what we have learned. Think of RI as “Tampa Bay Rays 101.”
However, for the next 12 days we will step away from the standard, and we present to you 12 “presents” the Tampa Bay Rays should give to their fans. Looking back at last year’s 12 Days of Raysmas, we see that many of our wishes came true. Many did not. If we can get a couple of more this year, the Rays might just win it all.
Without further ado…
On the fourth day of Raysmas, the Tampa Bay Rays gave to us, FOUR ALL-STARS…
OK. Asking for four all-stars is a lot. But if the Rays are going to be in the race in July, they need at least four players that are at least worthy of all-star consideration. That means Evan Longoria needs to be healthy. And it means James Shields and David Price need to be pitching well.
Those three guys should be Read the rest of this entry »
Dec 26
If you have been hanging around these parts for a while, you know that the model for this site is to tell you what the Rays have done, what they are doing and try to project what they will do based on what we have learned. Think of RI as “Tampa Bay Rays 101.”
However, for the next 12 days we will step away from the standard, and we present to you 12 “presents” the Tampa Bay Rays should give to their fans. Looking back at last year’s 12 Days of Raysmas, we see that many of our wishes came true. Many did not. If we can get a couple of more this year, the Rays might just win it all.
Without further ado…
On the second day of Raysmas, the Tampa Bay Rays gave to us, TWO PLAYERS WITH 40 STOLEN BASES…
The Rays did a lot of things right in 2011. But make no mistake, the inability of the Red Sox to even be mediocre in September covered up a lot of problems, especially on the offensive side of the ball. And one of those problems was speed.
After losing Carl Crawford to free agency, the Rays speed numbers took a significant dip in 2011…
If we look at the Rays stolen bases and their Speed Total (doubles + triples*2 + steals – double plays), the Rays had their lowest totals since 2008, when Crawford was limited by an injury.
BJ Upton led the 2011 Rays with just Read the rest of this entry »
Dec 05
ESPN.com has released their annual list of the top 50 players 25 years old or younger. And the Rays two big rookies are both on the list.
Jeremy Hellickson, 24, who won the American League’s Rookie of the Year Award is number 42. And Desmond Jennings, 25, comes in at number 15.
On Jennings:
He finally stayed healthy in 2011 and shined in his first extended big league stint. (Although staying healthy for a full season might have led to fatigue that caused him to hit .160/.258/.245 in September.) Even with that final month, Jennings hit 22 homers, drew 76 walks and stole 37 bases in 585 plate appearances across Triple-A and the majors, while playing above-average defense in center (in Triple-A) and left (in the majors)…His ability to adjust to soft stuff away was particularly impressive. He’s not far from his ceiling — a solid-average glove, OBP in the high .300s, 20-25 homers, and 30-40 steals.
On Hellickson:
The AL Rookie of the Year won it largely because of performance in basic stats; he got a huge boost from Tampa’s defense this year, which resulted in a low batting average on balls in play and thus a low ERA…That said, I think Hellickson can boost his strikeout rate going forward and rely less on his defense. He’s already got the command and the out-pitch changeup, but needs to tighten his curveball, and has a cutter he barely used in 2011. He doesn’t have ace ceiling but could easily pitch up to the standard Tampa’s defense helped him set this year.
That’s all nice and everything. But why the hell is ESPN.com still using the old Devil Rays logo (see image above)?
Nov 16
How are the Rays spending their off-season? Well, if you are David Price, BJ Upton, Desmond Jennings, and Reid Brignac, you hang out with cheerleaders on the sideline for this past weekend’s Florida State-Miami football game.
Well played guys. Well played.
[Ed. note: No, we have not mistaken the guy on the right in the image below for BJ Upton. Upton was at the game. He can be seen in picture 2]
Photos via Facebook
Sep 27
It wasn’t quite as great as Sam Fuld’s diving grab in Chicago earlier in the year, but Desmond Jennings’ running grab off the bat of Derek Jeter in the fifth inning last night may have been more important. With the Rays holding on to a 4-2 lead, the catch kept the leadoff hitter off the bases and out of scoring position (VIDEO).
Here is the call by Dave Wills…
Desmond Jennings’ Great Catch
Sep 20
- Off-Day (click image for random Wikipedia page)
The GBT – The Good, The Bad and The Telling sandwich, where The Bad is nice and lean and the The Telling is ripe.
THE GOOD: Closer. The Red Sox and Orioles split their double-header yesterday, so the standings still say that the Rays are trailing by 2 games in the Wild Card race. But more importantly, the Rays now only trail by 1 game in the all-important loss column. Remember, a team can make up wins. They cannot make up losses.
THE BAD: The Oops Factor. What if the Rays come up a game or two short? Will we applaud their ability to just be competitive enough to make the Red Sox sweat? Or will we remember that Andy Sonnanstine made four starts for the Rays this season and the Rays were 0-4 in those starts? Or will we remember that big league-ready Desmond Jennings languished in the minor leagues for 1,000 at bats while the Rays continued to start Sam Fuld, even though there was nothing in Fuld’s past that suggested he could keep up his early pace for an entire season?
THE TELLING: The Rays are 20-11 in games started by James Shields this season…The Rays have yet to decide on a starting pitcher for Saturday’s game against the Blue Jays.
THE JUNKYARD DOGS WEBTOPIA…
- Another one of Fenway’s quirks may have cost them the first game of yesterday’s double-header. Where is the outrage? [Big League Stew]
- Wade Davis is excited to make today’s start in Replica Yankee Stadium. [TampaBay.com]
- John Romano explores how the Rays have been able to close the gap on the Red Sox. [TampaBay.com]
- Marc Topkin takes a look at how the Rays have approached this pennant race with a “light-hearted approach.” [TampaBay.com]
- Carl Crawford is worried about the “haters” at the Trop? What about the Red Sox fans that already want him traded? (thanks Rg) [Boston.com]
- Back in the preseason, one Boston newspaper declared this Red Sox team the “best team ever!” [@hawthe]
- Mark Simon breaks down James Shields’ season. [ESPN]
Sep 08
- Rays 5, Rangers 4 (10) (click image for boxscore)
The GBT – The Good, The Bad and The Telling sandwich, where The Bad is nice and lean and the The Telling is ripe.
THE GOOD: Flash. Desmond Jennings only needed one pitch in the bottom of the 10th inning to end the game. His lead-off trot-off home run was the game winner. Jennings is now hitting .302 with 9 home runs and 15 stolen bases in just 44 games. Our only fear now is that the Rays will feel that Jennings is still not ready for the big leagues. Maybe they will send him down for another 1,000 triple-A at bats. Heck, the International League playoffs began last night, and we all know how important those are for the Rays organization (these last couple of sentences are sarcasm…partly).
THE BAD: Back-End Bullpen. The Rays, whose bullpen ranks 9th in the AL with a 3.78 ERA and 11th with a 4.20 FIP, has been a sore spot this season for the most part. But, if there were two bright spots it has been Joel Peralta and Kyle Farnsworth. But yesterday, those two each gave a home run and blew a 4-2 lead in the 8th and 9th innings…Sean Rodriguez. At this point, we would rather see BJ Upton playing shortstop than Rodriguez. Wait. We take that back. No, really! Is it too late?
THE TELLING: The Rays now have 1,000 wins in franchise history.
THE JUNKYARD DOGS WEBTOPIA…
- Guess who is now just one step away from the big leagues. [Business Insider]
- Baseball America named Mike Trout the 2011 Minor League Player of the Year, and not Matt Moore. [Baseball America]
- More end of the year charts for the Durham Bulls. [WDBB]
- Busted Coverage wondered if this was Jeremy Hellickson’s lady friend. One of our followers on Twitter suggested she might be a friend of Alex Cobb’s, who is #53, but is not currently on the roster. [Busted Coverage]
DOWN ON THE FARM…
Aug 31
- Rangers 2, Rays 0 (click image for boxscore)
The GBT – The Good, The Bad and The Telling sandwich, where The Bad is nice and lean and the The Telling is ripe.
THE GOOD: Hellboy. Let’s just pretend that Josh Hamilton home run never happened. And yes, we hate it when managers defend an outing by saying “he made one bad pitch.” In this case, that one bad pitch didn’t make a difference. The Rays weren’t scoring last night if the game went 18 innings. And any pitcher will take 6 innings and 2 runs against the Rangers offense. If there was a black mark it was the walks. Once again Hellickson struggled with his control walking 4 (1 intentionally). When Hellboy is great, he is a control and command wizard. But this season his strikeout-to-walk ratio is only about 2-to-1. He needs to be at least 3-to-1 and maybe more like 3.5-to-1.
THE BAD: Sunk by the Sinker. Prior to the 9th inning, the Rays hit a grand total of 3 balls out of the infield. And one of those was a groundball single…Not My Longo. It is not often you see Evan Longoria get cheated on swing. But with 2 outs in the 9th, two runners on base, and 2 strikes, Dirtbag got a cutter down-and-away and while just protecting the plate, hit a weak groundball to second base for a game-ending double-play.
THE TELLING: It looks like Jose Lobaton is the catcher the Rays want to call up on Thursday, but he might not be ready…It is not even September, and the 8 teams that lead the playoff chases all have at least a 79.4 percent chance at making the playoffs. That means there is a 60.1 percent chance that all 8 playoff spots in baseball are already decided. It is going to be a boring month…Tim Beckham will be one of the seven prospects that will participate in the Arizona Fall League.
THE JUNKYARD DOGS WEBTOPIA…
- 3B Russ Canzler was named International League MVP. Prior to last night, Canzler was 4th in the IL with a .312 avg, and leads with a .932 OPS. Canzler joins Dan Johnson, Kevin Witt, Toby Hall, and Steve Cox as Rays prospects to win the IL MVP award. [@SteveCarney]
- Dirk Hayhurst writes about his release by the Rays. [DirkHayhurst.com]
- John Romano jumps on the Desmond Jennings-for-Rookie of the Year bandwagon. [TampaBay.com]
- Dave Schoenfield of ESPN.com wonders if Read the rest of this entry »
Aug 30
We have made a big deal around these parts recently about the great play of Desmond Jennings. He has come a long ways from when we were wondering if the Rays still considered Jennings a top prospect.
Jennings has been so good in his first 35 games that we are beginning to wonder if he is doing enough to make a case for Rookie of the Year, in a season where there is no clear-cut favorite.
Of course, the biggest factor working against Jennings is his late call-up. If Jennings plays in all of the Rays remaining 29 games, he will have played in just 64 games this season.
There is precedent for a player winning Rookie of the Year with limited playing time. In 2004, Ryan Howard won the award having played in just 88 games. But to find a position player that played in less than half of his team’s game, we have to go all the back to Willie McCovey in 1959, who played in just 52 games on the way to top rookie honors.
In the cases of Howard (22 home run), and McCovey (.354 avg, 13 HR) they dominated in limited action. The same can be said for Jennings. Let’s take a look at how Jennings’ numbers compare to some other Rookie of the Year candidates*…
If we look at Wins Above Replacement (WAR), we see that in just 153 plate appearances, Jennings has already been worth 2.3 Wins to the Rays, which is tops among the rookie position players. This tells us that Jennings numbers are so much better than the other hitters, that it makes up for his limited playing time.
The only player that might have a Read the rest of this entry »
Aug 29
- Rays 12, Blue Jays 0 (click image for boxscore)
The GBT – The Good, The Bad and The Telling sandwich, where The Bad is nice and lean and the The Telling is ripe.
THE GOOD: King David the Dominant. David Price’s fastball usage was back up a little yesterday (69.4%), but that’s ok. With the threat of the changeup and slider, his fastball becomes that much more dominant. Prior to yesterday, Price averaged 6.5 swinging strikes on his fastball per game. Yesterday he had 11. And his 17 total swinging strikes was well-above his average for the year (9.3). The result was a career-high and franchise-record 14 strikeouts with just 2 walks in 7 shutout innings. Of course, he will need to remember to keep the change and slider in his arsenal. Otherwise, too many days like this (70% fastballs) and the batters will start to catch up again…Flash Jennings, A-Ah, The Savior Of The Universe. It took a masterful performance by Price to keep Desmond Jennings from getting number one star honors. Flash went 4-5, including 2 home runs in each of the first two innings. The first was Jennings’ first career leadoff home run. Projecting his numbers over a full season would give Jennings 38 home runs and 67 stolen bases. The steals might be on target (speed never slumps), but obviously the home runs are bloated. Still, it gives us a sense of just how good he has been in his first month as an everyday player.
THE BAD: The Big Tease. For a little while there last night, it looked like the Rays had a shot to pull within 5.5 games of the Yankees (6 in the loss column). That is significant because the Rays still have 6 games left with the Yankees. But the Yankees were able to split their double-header and now the Rays still trail by 6.5 (7 in the loss column). CoolStandings.com still only gives the Rays a 3.7 percent shot at making the playoffs. The Rays are staying just close enough for us to raise our eyebrow, but not close enough to get excited.
THE TELLING: Yesterday marked just the 5th time this season the Rays have scored 12 runs. And their 12-run winning margin tied their season-high when they beat the Twins 15-3 back in April…Prospect Matt Moore recorded his 200th strikeout yesterday. He is the only minor leaguer with 200 strikeouts since 2005 and (see comments for explanation) Moore has now done it two years in a row…Desmond Jennings is now tied for 6th on the Rays with 8 home runs despite playing in only 34 games.
THE JUNKYARD DOGS WEBTOPIA…
If you have been hanging around these parts for a while, you know that the model for this site is to tell you what the Rays have done, what they are doing and try to project what they will do based on what we have learned. Think of RI as “Tampa Bay Rays 101.”
