Time to bring back 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: JP Howell. Where would the pitching staff be right now without JP Howell’s recent work. In his last 12 appearances, he has only allowed an earned run once. Over that span he has thrown 13.1 innings and allowed just 2 earned runs on 7 hits and 4 walks with 19 strikeouts…Matt Joyce. Think this guy wants to be in the big leagues? Playing only his 4th game with the Rays, he homered for the second time and beat out an infield single.

THE BAD: Gross Day. Gabe Gross took one pitch to the wall and another was lined back up the middle. Both should have been hits. Both were outs and he finished 0-3…Youth Is Not Serving. With so many young players receiving playing time right now it is to be expected. But it still hurts to give away outs in a 1-run loss when somebody like Reid Brignac is picked off first base with 1 out in the 3rd…Evan Longoria. One reason he is leading both leagues in RBI is that he has come to the plate with more runners on base than anybody else. Yesterday he left 4 of them stranded in his 0-3.

THE TELLING: Willy Aybar started at third with Evan Longoria at DH and Joe Maddon managed to get the lineup card correct. With BJ Upton getting the day off it was Ben Zobrist leading off and playing second base. He moved to short later in the game. Reid Brignac started at short. And it was only 1 game, but Matt Joyce was not called up to play right field on Sunday. He was in center…The Rays won’t face Zach Greinke in the upcoming Royals series.

SUNBURST PLAYER OF THE GAME: Matt Joyce

DEVIL DOGS WEBTOPIA…

• Pat Burrell says he is “hoping to be playing some games — somewhere — hopefully by the end of this week, or next week.”…Also, Chad Bradford will begin his rehab assignment with Montgomery today. [St. Pete Times]
• Troy Percival was back with the Rays and in uniform on Sunday and has decided to try and get his shoulder fixed to pitch again this season. [The Heater]
• It was a whirlind couple of days for Matt Joyce and his family. [Tampa Tribune]
• Ben Zobrist says he is adjusting to the grind of playing everyday. [Tampa Tribune]
• John Romano says that the Rays decision to pick Josh Hamilton over Josh Beckett ten years ago today could end up being the right choice over the next 10 years…Maybe, but you can’t take away the fact that Beckett is still one of the great postseason pitchers. Ever. Even with his struggles a year ago. [St. Pete Times]
• The Rays Party shows that Lance Cormier has been most effective working on short rest. [The Rays Party]
• Landon Evanson over at Bugs and Cranks doesn’t understand why Raysheads boo Delmon Young. [Bugs and Cranks]

Time to bring back 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

No GBT or Sunburst today but wanted to take a moment to point out that the Rays are now one game over .500 at 23-22. This is the first time the Rays have been over .500 since they were 4-3.

As a result, we will no longer be referring to the team as the “Devil Rays.” We started this mini-protest on May 15th. At the time the Rays were 16-20.

Little did we know that it would only take them 9 days to get back above even, going 7-2 in that span. In those 9 days, we made 32 references to the “Devil Rays,” including one over at MLB Trade Rumors, where we moonlight from time to time. Since the run to a winning record happened much quicker than we expected, we will round up the fine to $100 for the Rays Baseball Foundation.

DEVIL DOGS WEBTOPIA…

• Evan Longoria was pulled from the game after being hit by a pitch in the arm. He did not require x-rays and is expected to be fine. [Rays Plays]
• Remember when Joe Maddon screwed up the lineup card last weekend? Turns out the umpires screwed up when they let Evan Longoria enter the game later…Also, Chad Bradford is expected to make his first rehab appearance today for Charlotte. [St. Pete Times]
• Rays the Stakes wonders why BJ Upton is still leading off, why Gabe Gross is not playing more and why the Rays can’t be in first place in a month. [Rays the Stakes]
• Rays Revolutionary has their reaction to the events of Friday. [Rays Revolutionary]
• Roger Mooney takes a look at how valuable Jason Bartlett has been for the Rays this season. [Bradenton Herald]
• The Rays Party takes a look at how James Shields has been using his changeup compared to seasons past. [The Rays Party]

Time to bring back 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: BJ Upton. Two games. Two home runs. Let’s hope that he has that same mojo he discovered in the playoffs last year. Upton has the ability to put this team on his back and carry them for 2-3 weeks…Matt Garza. In the previous 4 games, starters had thrown a total of 15.1 innings leaving 20.2 innings for the bullpen. While Joe Maddon would have loved 7 or 8 innings, Garza did well to get through 6 despite throwing 120 pitches…The Bullpen again. 3 more shutout innings yesterday with only 1 hit, 1 hit batter and no walks…Zorilla. The pitching staff can have aces in the bullpen. Joe Maddon also has an ace on his bench as Ben Zobrist once again came off the bench and produced a big late-inning RBI. This one was an RBI double in the 8th to stretch the lead to 2…Jason Bartlett. He is showing no signs of letting up. 2 more RBI. His 10th steal. His 1-3 actually droppped his average to .359. If Maddon is going to keep that hot bat burried at the bottom of the order, can’t Barty at least hit 9th as the “second leadoff.”…CC. 2 more hits and he is now hitting .338. He now has 7 multi-hit games in the last 8 and is hitting .424 in May.

THE BAD: Joe Maddon. This is barely a bad, but 120 pitches from Matt Garza in May? When Garza is throwing well, he is not putting a lot of stress on his arm, but that did not seem to be the case for him yesterday. One of the telling indicators for Garza is pitch-one. When he is on, he is strike-one to 70%+ batters. Yesterday he was ball-one to 14 of the 27 batters including 6 of the 7 batters faced in the 6th inning. To give Garza 120 pitches yesterday stinks a bit of desperation.

THE TELLING: The Devil Rays ($11) have stolen a base in 18 straight games, the longest streak in the AL since 1914…The Devil Rays ($12) are now 18-20, 6.5 games behind the Jays, 4.5 behind the Sox and 2 behind the Yankees. Since falling a season-low 5-games below .500 at 11-16 on May 4, they are 7-4.

SUNBURST PLAYER OF THE GAME: BJ Upton. This one was a bit of a toss-up, but Bossman’s home run could be bigger for this team than just the one game.

DEVIL DOGS WEBTOPIA…

• We are sure that many of you are aware, but the book “Moneyball” is being made into a motion picture with Brad Pitt in the role of Billy Beane. While much of the cast is known, we have been waiting for an announcement of who would play the Devil Rays’ ($13) Chad Bradford, who was featured prominently in the book. Well it turns out it might be Bradford himself…Which is too bad. We had been hoping for Mos Def. [St. Pete Times]
• Gary Shelton takes a look at BJ Upton’s resurgance. [St. Pete Times]
• The Rays Party takes a look at Scott Kazmir’s velocity. [The Rays Party]
• Jeremy Hellickson is back to throwing and feels he will be ready to return soon. [Biscuit Crumbs]
• Many think the Devil Rays ($14) will target a catcher in this year’s draft. The Rays Party takes a look at the top catchers available. [The Rays Party]

Welcome to the 1st Annual Tampa Bay Rays Trade Pool where we determine who is the best at predicting which members of the Rays organization will be traded this season (this contest is based loosely on the “Dead Pool“).

We have invited all members of the Tampa Bay Rays Blogosphere as as well as a couple of outside bloggers.

The Rules:

• Each blogger submitted a list of 5 players they believe have the greatest chance to be traded this season. All players in the organization are eligible.
• The bloggers ranked those 5 players, giving the highest rank (#1) to the player they think is most likely to be traded.
• If one of the players they chose is traded prior to the end of the season, that blogger will receive points based on where the blogger ranked the player. If Aki Iwamura is traded and a blogger has Aki ranked first, they will receive 5 points. If they have Aki ranked second, they will receive 4 points and so on.
• The blogger with the most points at the end of the season wins.
• We also want YOUR lists in the comments. Let’s see if you guys can beat the experts. And by “experts” we of course mean 11 people with too much free time on their hands.

Notes on the rankings can be found after the tables…

Notes on the rankings

• We have invited the individual bloggers to provide comments on their individual rankings in either the comments section here or on their own blogs. We will provide those links as they happen.
• The difficulty in these rankings is predicting whether the Rays will be “buyers” or “sellers” this season. If they are in the playoff hunt, they are more likely to trade prospects. If they fall off the pace they are more likely to try and move expensive veterans.
• Below we gave each player an MVP-style point total. That is, every time a player was given a rank of 1, we gave them 5 points. Every time a player was ranked 2nd, we gave them 4 points, and so on. This gives us a sense of which players the Blogosphere thinks is most likely to be traded.
• As we can see, Reid Brignac and Chad Bradford lead the way with the most first-place rankings (3), but Gabe Gross leads the way with 24 points total and is deemed the most likely to be traded by the group as a whole.
• Gabe Gross appeared on the most lists (7).
• 10 different players appeared on more than one list.

Thanks to all who chose to participate including…

• Tim Dierkes of MLB Trade Rumors
• Rays Prospects
• Her Rays
• Rays the Stakes (LINK to their ballot explanations)
  
• Tyler Hissey of Around the Majors
• Rise of the Rays
• Trop Talk
• Tampa Bay Rays Fan (LINK to their ballot explanations)
  
• The Rays Party (LINK to their ballot explanations)
  
• David Chalk of Bugs and Cranks
• Rays Revolutionary

Also, you might be asking “What does the winner receive?” We have no idea. Any suggestions?

Above is a new Adidas commercial featuring BJ Upton and Ryan Howard. We find it a bit ironic that Upton argues that speed is what it takes “to get to the Series” while Howard says it is power. In the first two rounds of the playoffs, it was Upton that used power, hitting 7 long balls against Sox of White and Red varieties. Howard hit none. Just sayin’.

DEVIL DOGS WEBTOPIA…

• So much for trading Chad Bradford and so much for having too many arms in the bullpen. Chad Bradford injured his elbow during off-season workouts and had arthroscopic surgery last week. He will be out 3-4 months. [The Heater]
• Marc Lancaster takes a look at what Chad Bradford’s injury means for the bullpen. [Tampa Tribune]
• Baseball Prospectus has released their projected standings based on PECOTA projections. The Rays are projected to win 92 games and finish third. Interestingly, PECOTA projects the Rays to score as many runs as the Yankees, but their pitching is only projected to be the fourth best in the division…We will once again summarize the different projection systems once they have all been published. [Baseball Prospectus]
• The Rays still have not officially announced the Brian Shouse signing, nor do we know how much Shouse will make. Marc Lancaster speculates that the Rays are waiting because of the need to drop somebody off the 40-man roster…The Rays could be trying to make a deal. [Rays Report]
• Lisa Winston of MiLB.com interviewed Reid Brignac and recounted the injury that ended Brignac’s season in 2008. Oh, and if Briganc could be anybody for a day, he would be Lebron James. Yes, Lebron James. [MLB]
• Jerry Crasnick of ESPN.com says Morgan Ensberg, who signed a minor league deal with the Rays, has a shot at making the roster…In place of who? Ben Zobrist is needed to back up short, Shawn Riggans is he backup catcher and Gabe Kapler is part of the right field platoon. That leaves Willy Aybar. Anybody think Ensberg has a shot at making the roster ahead of Aybar? We don’t. [ESPN]
• The Lakeland Ledger profiles Matt Joyce’s childhood and and looks at what Rays fans can expect from Joyce in 2009 and beyond (thanks Steve). [Lakeland Ledger]
• Former Rays bench coach and Mariners manager John McLaren, has joined the Rays as a scout. [MLB]
• Scott Boras is blaming Pat Burrell and his agents for the poor market for corner outfielders, saying Burrell took a “bad deal.” [MLB Trade Rumors]
• MLB Outsider says James Shields is one of the top 10 starting pitchers in baseball. [MLB Outsider]

Chad Bradford

[Update 2:04pm] We just spoke with the Rays front office and they confirmed that the Rays paid the O’s the standard $20K waiver claim fee for Bradford.

This means that even though the Orioles pulled Bradford back from waivers and traded him to the Rays for a player to be named later, that has since been changed.

In other words, the “trade” never happened.

Our guess is that the Orioles did not like any of the players offered by the Rays (likely very low-level prospects) and have since rescinded the “trade” making the original deal a simple waiver-claim.

[1:42pm] The last time we heard about the enduring Chad Bradford-deal was in early November when Orioles GM Andy MacPhail announced that the “player to be named later” would be announced some time between the end of the World Series and the beginning of the Winter Meetings. Bradford was originally traded to the Rays in early August.

Nearly six months later and we are still waiting for an official announcement from the O’s and Rays on who or what the Rays sent to the Orioles to complete the deal.

But buried deep in a piece at the Baltimore Sun about the Orioles payroll, one writer may have the answer.

On December 27, while responding to comments on his blog, Peter Schmuck wrote the following:

Pete’s reply: …I’ve gotten the Bradford question dozens and dozens of times and I have asked Andy [MacPhail] about it. It started out to be a PTNL, but apparently turned out to be a cash payment, though they have never officially announced anything. Andy has conceded that the deal turned out to be a mistake, because nobody stepped up to take over that role.

So why are we still skeptical? Because that comment was written at 5:30pm. Four hours earlier, at 1:10pm, Schmuck wrote something a little different:

Pete’s reply: I’ve answered the Chad Bradford question about a hundred times. They almost certainly will get a cash payment, if they aren’t already. The alternative would be a player you’ve never heard of.

Read the rest of this entry »

Marc Topkin is reporting that the Rays have signed relief pitcher Lance Cormier to a one-year, $675K contract. To make room on the 40-man roster, the Rays designated Dewon Day for assignment, whom was just claimed off of waivers last week.

We have updated the 40-man roster projection to reflect this signing.

This move means one of two things:

1. The Rays expect Troy Percival to start the season on the DL. As of right now, all spots in the bullpen are spoken for and there are no candidates for demotion. The low-man on the proverbial Totem Pole is Jason Hammel and he is out of minor league options. Or…
2. The Rays are expecting one of their bullpen arms to be traded prior to opening day. The likely candidates are Chad Bradford, whom the Rays have tried to trade, Jason Hammel, who is out of minor league options or Jeff Niemann, if the Rays start the season with David Price in the rotation. If the Rays can move Bradford (or Dan Wheeler), signing Cormier would save the Rays over $2 million on the 2009 payroll.

Cormier appeared in 45 games (1 start) for the Orioles last season, posting a 4.02 ERA while striking out 46 and walking 34 in 71.2 innings.

He also posted a career-high 56.8% ground balls in 2008 which could go a long ways towards a solid season with the Rays solid infield defense. And for the last three seasons, Cormier, a right-hander, has actually been harder on lefties. In 2008, his OPS against lefties was .667, 95 points better than his mark against righties (.772).

Back in September we heard rumblings that the Rangers might be interested in Gerry Hunsicker to be their new general manager. The feeling was that if the Rangers decided to make a change, team president Nolan Ryan, would look to Hunsicker, with whom he has worked in the past with the Astros. It appears that Ryan has opted to stick with the incumbent GM, Jon Daniels, as any move would have been made by now.

Hunsicker was also rumored to be on the short list for the GM position of the Mariners and the Phillies. The M’s hired Jack Zduriencik, while the Phillies went with Ruben Amaro Jr. as their new GM.

Hunsicker, who is “Teller” to Andrew Friedman’s “Penn” (or “Silent Bob” to Friedman’s “Jay” for the younger crowd), is the quiet partner, but by all accounts just as responsible for the product seen on the FieldTurf. It is with great relief knowing that the front office nucleus will remain intact for at least one more season.

DEVIL DOGS WEBTOPIA…

• Marc Topkin of the St. Pete Times has a Q&A with Andrew Friedman that goes into a little more detail than the tidbits we discussed yesterday afternoon. [St. Pete Times]
• Can we all calm down a little about the recent report from Peter Gammons that suggests teams have only recently discovered more telling defensive statistics. Will Carroll says teams have been looking at defensive stats and studies for years and that a lot of the work the teams do “simply blows away things you’d call the state of the art in sabermetrics.”…We are not sure why some think that most front offices are filled with old men that do nothing but read scouting reports from people in the field. If a blogger sitting in his mom’s basement can measure how many runs and wins a poor defensive player costs a team, we are pretty sure the people running a $500 million organization can figure it out also. So no, it is not such a “novel idea.” [Baseball Prospectus]
• Joel Sherman of the New York Post says the Mets are not interested in trading for Chad Bradford, saying his $3.5 million salary is too much for them. Sherman also notes that “at least a half-dozen teams” have shown interest in Rocco Baldelli. We know of four, including the Rays, Phillies, Red Sox and Yankees. [New York Post]
• The Rays have set in motion plans to open the first MLB operated baseball academy in Brazil. The goal appears to be to increase the popularity of baseball in Brazil and attract athletes that might normally opt for other sports such as soccer or volleyball. [MLB]
• Rays Prospects has an update on winter league stats for current and former Rays farmhands (and Willy Aybar). [Rays Prospects]

Some sobering news today. Via RaysProspects we learn that Wade Townsend has been shut down in the Arizona Fall League due to a shoulder injury that is expected to “sideline him for an indefinite period of time into 2009.”

This is a huge setback for Townsend, who will be 25 in February, and only has two starts above single-A. We can’t imagine he will be full strength again until 2010, when he will be 26 and likely back at single-A. The bitter irony is of course that Townsend suffered his first major injury in the Arizona Fall League back in 2005 when he blew out his elbow and needed Tommy John Surgery. We have to wonder if this latest injury will mark the end to Townsend’s career in the Rays organization.

On a personal level, this is especially difficult because Mrs. Professor and her sisters grew up with Wade and we have to deliver almost weekly reports on his progress to the in-laws. We are not looking forward to that part of dinner this weekend.

Rays Notes [RaysProspects]
Rays boast deepest system in Majors [MLB]

DEVIL DOGS WEBTOPIA…

• That story we posted yesterday about Evan Longoria and his offseason in Long Beach? Well, during the interview a waitress interrupted to tell Longoria that she would be attending an upcoming party hosted by Longoria. Thanks to some stalking nifty interweb research by ‘Duk over at Big League Stew, we now know that the young lady in question, Paloma Soto-Castillo, was a contestant on the latest season of “Survivor”. And there is a picture…Is there anything Dirtbag can’t do well? Nice pull kid. [Big League Stew]
• Evan Longoria as Brad Pitt? Fine. But “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” as a “chick flick”? Not even close. Listen. We have no problem with “chick flicks”. They serve a purpose. Some are even good. We have over 300 DVDs and there are more than a few “chick flicks” in there that we would never admit to owning in public. The problem with “chick flicks” is the plot has to be very, very good. If the plot sucks, the movie has nothing to fall back on. On the other hand, take a typical guy movie. If the plot sucks, it is not the end of the world. There will still be explosions and car chases and aliens and girls in lingerie. In other words, there are plenty of distractions from a disastrous plot. And that is what “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” offers. Plenty of distractions. Love story? Sure. But there are enough explosions and gun fire to distract you from the sappy parts. Not to mention, the use of the song “Mondo Bongo” in the climatic fight scene is one of the great movie song/scene combinations ev-ER. Besides, can it be a “chick flick” if the filming led to one actor cheating on his wife? But we like where Her Rays is going with this. [Her Rays]
  
• MVN Outsider plays the role of Andrew Friedman and looks at a few moves the Rays should make this offseason. The big suggestion is trading Andy Sonnanstine and Chad Bradford for Andre Ethier…Not terrible, but the Rays would prefer to add a right-handed bat and would probably like to avoid an arbitration-eligible player that comes without cost-certainty. [MVN Outsider]
• David Chalk writes a guest piece over at Big League Stew breaking down the World Series odds for various teams in 2009 and let’s you know how stupid it would be to wager on the Yankees. Really, really, really stupid. [Big League Stew]

Doug Krikorian of the Long Beach Press-Telegram sat down with Evan Longoria in Long Beach the day after winning the AL Rookie of the Year award. Of the topics covered:

• His preference for Monarch Clothes: “They have great stuff.”
• Facial hair: “don’t have any blades at the residence…”
• Dating: “he doesn’t have a girlfriend at the present time.”
• The World Series: “Picked a nice time to go into a slump…”
• Phillies fans: “the Philly fans get more personal with you than those from other cities…It’s unbelievable the things they say to you. They must go to Facebook and find out about who you’ve dated…“
• Buying a home in SoCal: “he likes to entertain large groups of friends…”
• Rock Band and Guitar Hero: “I can do that at home for hours…”

DEVIL DOGS WEBTOPIA…

• BJ Upton had successful surgery on the labrum in his shoulder and expected to be 100% by the time Spring Training rolls around. Joe Smith also reports that it is still not known if Troy Percival will require surgery on his back and/or knee. [The Heater]
• Joe Maddon had to interrupt his honeymoon in Italy to hold a conference call with the media about winning the AL Manager of the Year award…Poor Jaye. [MLB]
• Jon Heyman of SI.com has nominated Joe Maddon for Sports Illustrated’s “Sportsman of the Year”. [SI.com]
• Baseball America has released their Rays’ “Top 10 Prospects” list. No surprises in the top 5. A little surprised to see two 19 year olds without any experience above short-season (Matt Moore, Nick Barnese), ranked ahead of Jeremy Hellickson. [Baseball America]
• Rise of the Rays has their list of Top 10 prospects (scroll past the Baseball America list). [Rise of the Rays]
• Fangraphs review a few of the Rays top minor leaguers from this past season and take a look at who is on the rise, who has fallen and who could breakout in 2009. [Fangraphs]
• Joe Smith has a response from the Cleveland writer that gave the lone first place vote to somebody other than Joe Maddon. [The Heater]
• David Chalk at Bugs and Cranks is none-too-happy that Joe Maddon was not a unanimous choice for AL Manager of the Year. [Bugs and Cranks]
• Even a Red Sox site was amazed that Joe Maddon was not a unanimous choice. [Sully Baseball]
• The Orioles will have “Baltimore” on their road unis in 2009. That leaves the Rays as one of only five ballclubs that will not have their locality (Tampa Bay) represented on their home or road jerseys. [Big League Stew]
• The Hardball Times takes a look at why pitchers like Chad Bradford are effective as sidearm pitchers. [The Hardball Times]