Click on above images to be taken to full standings, box scores or schedule…

How good was The Mad Australian this season? Grant Balfour put up some sick numbers this season. In 58.1 innings, Balfour allowed only 28 hits and 24 walks while striking out 82. He pitched to a 1.54 ERA. Certainly the best season by a relief pitcher in the short history of the Rays. But we wonder if there was a bigger context we could look at to see exactly how dominating he was this season.

We went to the “Play Index” at Baseball-Reference.com.

We did a search for every pitcher that has ever posted a season with at least 11 strike outs per 9 innings, while giving up less than 9 hits and walks combined per 9 innings with an ERA less than 1.70 (minimum 40 innings pitched). Three criteria for a dominating relief pitcher.

The results? The Mad Australian is just the 4th pitcher in the history of baseball to post such a dominating season out of the bullpen. The other three is a who’s who of dominating closer performances, including Eric Gagne (2003), Billy Wagner (1999) and Joe Nathan (2006). Gagne won the Cy Young Award in ’03, while Wagner finished 4th and Nathan finished 5th. The only difference between their seasons and Balfour’s was the number of saves. They each recorded at least 36 saves, while Balfour only had 4.

We knew Balfour had a strong season, but we had no idea that it was one of the best in the history of baseball.

DEVIL DOGS WEBTOPIA…

• In case you missed it yesterday afternoon, we ran a bunch of “Webtopia” links in the evening “Happy Hour” feature. [Rays Index]
• Remember the Rays fan that ended up with the Evan Longoria home run ball above the Monster at Fenway in game 3? He was kind enough to answer a few questions about the incident. [Rays Index]
• Congratulations go out to Gabe Gross and his wife Kelly, who are expecting their first child in May. [Celebrity Baby Blog]
• Rocco Baldelli could get the start in right field tonight with Gabe Gross struggling…Also, Joe Maddon is not worried about the Red Sox history of comebacks noting that he would rather concentrate on executing their own gameplan. [St. Pete Times]
• Joe Smith says the key to Scott Kazmir is surviving the first inning. Smith points out that Kid K tends to settle down after long first innings and gains confidence as the game moves along. [St. Pete Times]
• The Phillies won the NLCS 3 games to 1…The Rays aren’t there yet, but it is worth noting that every time a Tampa Bay franchise wins a championship they beat a Philadelphia team on the way. [The Fightins]
• This is worth pointing out again. 18 “experts” at ESPN.com predicted the World Series matchup prior to the playoffs. 2 picked the Rays to win the ALCS. None picked the Phillies. If the Rays win the ALCS, that will be 2 correct picks out of 36. Wow. [ESPN]
• Bugs and Cranks found a picture of the reverse mohawks from Fenway. [Bugs and Cranks]
• John Romano says Jim Hickey deserves much of the credit for the Rays success and points out that he came very close to losing his job last winter. [St. Pete Times]
• More evidence that the Red Sox Nation isn’t as devoted as they would like you to believe. Tickets can be had for ALCS games in Fenway for below face value. [Boston Globe]
• Dave Sheinin of the Washington Post says the Red Sox are being betrayed by their age and are suddenly old news. The perfect metaphor for this series is the young, speedy Carl Crawford beating out an infield single with the old Tim Wakefield scrambling on the ground trying to throw out Crawford. [Washington Post]
• Wallace Matthews seems to think the Yankees paid for the Rays success…Bitter much? [Newsday]
• John Tomase of the Boston Herald points out that this incarnation of the Red Sox is much different than the teams that made postseason comebacks. [Boston Herald]
• Tonight could be the last game for Jason Varitek in a Red Sox uniform. [Boston Globe]
• Fire Brand of the American League points out 5 keys to the Red Sox winning game 5. [Fire Brand of the American League]
• Awful Announcing gets it. We will fully admit that a Rays-Phillies World Series would not be FOX TV’s first choice. Thankfully, there is not a single mention of how Bud Selig is rooting for the Red Sox and the Dodgers. We have already pointed out how ridiculous that sentiment is. [Awful Announcing]
• The Rays signed four 16-year old players during the international free agent signing period. Among the players signed is a switch-hitting catcher from Venezuela named “Narvaez”. Coincidence? [Tampa Bay Rays Prospects]
• Stay classy Pink Hat Nation…How Youz Doin Baseball? Did this blog get their name from a line in “Friends”? That’s hot. Oh, and the only other Colby Alum we know is the guy in the bottom of THIS picture. We don’t think we have ever seen somebody more afraid of a baseball that was no where near them. [How Youz Doin Baseball]
• We are not sure where this person did their research. It is yet another attempt at showing how the Rays roster was put together. Two problems. The list of players traded by the Rays is short about 6 names. And nobody in baseball is acquired for “FREE”. What does that even mean? The Rays traded Josh Butler, a former 2nd round pick, for Gabe Gross. And Chad Bradford was acquired for a player to be named later. The Rays will likely send a player to Baltimore once the season ends. Cheap? Yes. But not “FREE”. For the complete list, check here. [Beyond the Boxscore]
• Kevin Gengler stops by The Hardball Times and gives an in depth review of the Rays farm system. [The Hardball Times]

We may have figured out why Matt Garza and Dioner Navarro are communicating better these days…Is that a Babel Fish in Garza’s ear? How else would Navi’s logical orations be understood by Garza. Jim Hickey is a pitching genius.

THE GOOD: Matt Garza. Nothing we can write will give justice to just how dominating Garza was yesterday. 108 pitches, 76 for strikes. 1 hit, 1 walk. Faced only 1 over the minimum. 7 1-2-3 innings. Garza was strike-one to 19 of 28 batters (68%). On his bad days, that number is around 40% or worse…Also, we don’t won’t to overlook Evan Longoria who homered and doubled twice in his first 3 at bats.

THE BAD: Marc Lancaster deciding to blog about Matt Garza’s attempt at a no-hitter and then having Matt give up the no-hitter and the shutout, on the very next pitch. C’mon Marc. Let’s save the Live-Blogging to the professionals…

THE TELLING: This was the Rays’ 6th sweep of the season and 1st on the road…The Rays still have a 4-game lead over Oakland in the wild card. They are 4.5 up on the Twins and 5 games ahead of the Yankees. It is nice to see a 2-team bumper between the Rays and the Yankees.

DEVIL RAYS WEBTOPIA…

• Don’t forget to VOTE for Carl Crawford to start the all-star game. If you haven’t voted yet today, go NOW! [MLB All-Star Voting]
• Jim Hickey says that Matt Garza is capable of pitching as he did yesterday, every time he goes to the mound. [The Heater]

“The scary thing is this guy’s capable of doing that time and time again,” Rays pitching coach Jim Hickey said. “This isn’t like some game he pitched way above and beyond what he’s capable of doing. This is something, you hear people throw out (Braves great) John Smoltz and compare him to that, and you watch him do something like that, and it’s not all that farfetched.”

• Both Carlos Pena and Jason Bartlett are expected to be in the lineup tonight. It is expected that Ben Zobrist will be sent back to Durham. [Rays Report]
• Tribe Report believes that the Brewers and the Rays are the front-runners for CC Sabathia and they give the Rays a 40% chance of landing the lefty…Of course, losing Jake McGee to Tommy John surgery is only going to make it that much harder for the Rays to trade one of their pitching prospects. [Tribe Report]
• Bugs and Cranks’ latest power rankings are up and the Rays remain at #2. [Bugs and Cranks]
• Fielder’s Choice Baseball Card Blog has a good write-up about Josh Hamilton that sums up how we have felt about the Rays former prospect…While we root for Hamilton and he is a good story on many levels. There is most certainly a part of us that is still very angry with Hamilton for letting the organization, his potential teammates and the fans down. Say what you will about the Rays not protecting Hamilton (at the time we didn’t think it was necessary), but if you are going to assign blame in this situation, Hamilton deserves far more than the Rays front office. [Fielder's Choice Baseball Blog]

Ever since Andy Sonnanstine was in the minor leagues posting astronomical strikeout-to-walk ratios, there were always certain tenets that we have held to be true about the right hander that could dominate without a dominating fastball.

1. He throws about 46 different pitches
2. He has impeccable control
3. He can keep batters off-balance by changing speeds
4. He throws pitches from a number of different arm angles

These beliefs are so ingrained in what we know of Sonnanstine that it spawned the nickname “The Duke” because he seemed to be Orlando ‘El Duque’ Hernandez’ caucasion brother from another mother.

Unfortunately, the minor league numbers and pinpoint control did not translate to the major leagues last year, leaving many to wonder if Sonny was just a place-holder until until something better came along.

But after a shaky start to 2008, Sonnanstine has been solid in his last three outings including a 3-hit shutout of the White Sox and an 8 inning, 1 run performance against the O’s.

We were curious as to what Sonnanstine was doing differently in 2008.

Imagine our surprise when we realized that The Duke was no longer throwing pitches from different arm angles.

Josh Kalk of The Hardball Times, uses the Pitchf/x system to track pitches from individual pitchers based on a number of factors including speed, location and pitch type among others.

Another factor that is recorded is release point. Here is the release point data from Sonnanstine’s 2007 player card in which 885 pitches were tracked.

Notice that there is a quite a range of release points used by Sonnanstine. This is consistent with what we know of Sonny.

Now, here is the release point data from Sonnanstine’s 2008 player card in which 334 pitches have been tracked to date.

Now let’s look both side-by-side…

A couple of points stand out…

1. All of the release points this season are much more clustered. Outside of a single fastball, he is not changing his arm angle in 2008. One of the first things a pitching coach will try to teach a pitcher is “repeatability”, the ability to repeat his delivery exactly the same on every single pitch. This helps a pitcher stay consistent and if anything starts to go awry it is easier to pinpoint and fix the problem. Sonnanstine appears to be using this approach in 2008.
2. His “standard” release point is much more over the top in 2008. Notice that the cluster on the right is higher than the main cluster on the left. Among other things, this makes Sonny’s curve ball a little closer to the standard 12-6 break. That is the curveball will not sweep across the strikezone as much as in years past. We see that when we look at the vertical and horizontal break charts on his 2007 and 2008 Pitchf/x cards (scroll down to the first chart on each page). In 2007, Sonny’s curve ball had little vertical break, but moved 10-15 inches horizontally. In 2008 the vertical break is now as much as 10 inches and the horizontal movement is only 5-10 inches.
3. His different pitches are now being released from the same point. In 2007 we can see certain pitches clustering in different areas. This could very well have been a mechanism for batters to more quickly determine what pitch was being thrown. Many batters train themselves to focus on the release point of a pitcher to more quickly focus on the ball. In 2007 almost every time Sonnanstine changed his arm angle, he threw a fastball. A good hitter might be able to use a deviation from the norm to predict a pitch more quickly.

But the lack of different arm angles is not the only thing Sonnanstine has changed this season. If we look at The Duke’s pitch-selection from 2007 versus 2008 we can see that he is no longer relying on the accuracy of his fastball…

As we can see here, in 2007, nearly half of his pitches were fastballs. That number is down to about 1/3 in 2008. It is more difficult to gain a grasp of the use of other pitches. The system used to identify pitches is not always very accurate and we assume it would be less so for a pitcher such as Sonnanstine. With the more sweeping nature of Sonny’s curveball, it is quite possible some curves are being mistaken as sliders. Also, the sinker and splitter may be the same pitch. We knew Sonnanstine was playing with a sinker last year, but are not familiar with him throwing a splitter. Even if the two pitches are actually one, we see that they are being used much less in 2008.

There was some idle chatter at the end of the 2007 among some Rays’ fans, calling for the Rays to remove Jim Hickey and install Xavier Hernandez as the Rays’ pitching coach. But given a full season, and a few more major league arms, Hickey has transformed the bullpen from the worst in the last 50 years, to one of the best in 2008. And Hickey also deserves considerable credit for the transformation of Sonnanstine as the 2008 numbers are more than just a new-found confidence or ability to hit the strike zone.

Tampa Bay Rays (28 days until Opening Day)

Yesterday: Tampa Bay Rays 9, Indians 7.

The Good: Scott Dohmann retired all 4 batters he faced, including the final out of the 6th inning with the bases loaded…Another errorless game for the Rays who have 21 in the spring. Only 6 teams have committed fewer…

The Bad: Rays pitchers had their streak of 21 innings without a walk end in the 3rd and then proceeded to walk 7 on the day including one with the bases loaded by Grant Balfour and hit a batter by Andy Sonnanstine….

The Telling: Elliot Johnson got the start at third base over Joel Guzman as Willy Aybar continues to nurse a sore hamstring. Either Johnson or Guzman will get the opening day assignment if Aybar is not ready to go.

DEVIL RAYS WEBTOPIA…

• Obligatory Public Service Announcement: We will be hosting the 2nd Annual Opening Day Tampa Bay Rays Live Blog here at RI. So feel free to stop by and join in on the shenanigans as participation is certainly welcome.
• Want a good indication that Scott Dohmann will be named to the roster over Grant Balfour? Try this quote from Balfour: “It’s tough to go out there and pitch every time knowing that you’re either on the team or off the team…It’s tough, having that pressure on you, I must admit.” Excuse me? You know what else is pressure? Coming in to the game with a 1-run lead and runners on 2nd and 3rd. Funny…We thought pressure was something a relief pitcher needs to be able to handle. The whole point of this battle for the final spot in the bullpen is to send you guys out there every time knowing a job is on the line and seeing how you handle it. [St. Pete Times]
• The Rays are tied with the Cubs and White Sox for most hit batters in spring training with 17. James Shields has 4 all by himself, which is the second most in the spring. As per a discussion in the comments section a few days ago, on the surface it appears like Joe Maddon and Jim Hickey are emphasizing the importance of pitching inside with the benefit outweighing the occasional hit batter. Now we see that this is also being implemented at the minor league level as Durham pitching coach Xavier Hernandez is preaching the same method to the minor leaguers, in particular Chris Mason who was the AA pitcher of the year last year. Mason has hit 5 batters in camp this spring. [Montgomery Advertiser]

“I’ve always emphasized it,” Hernandez said. “Being at the Triple-A level and going to the major leagues at the end of last year, I realized that it’s not only important, it’s imperative.”

• Acording to Outs Per Swing Evan Longoria already has more AAA experience than all of the following third basemen combined: Albert Pujols, Alex Gordon, Ryan Zimmerman, Miguel Cabrera and Kevin Kouzmanoff. He also has the same experience as David Wright and is only 3 games short of Ryan Braun. [Outs Per Swing]
• Rays of Light picked up a nice not-very-surprising tidbit about Elijah Dukes. Apparently he went MIA from the Nats for “non-baseball matters”…We’ve said it before, we will say it again. We don’t care if Glenn Gibson never throws another pitch, the Rays made a great trade to get rid of that ticking time bomb. [Rays of Light]
• The Sports Illustrated Baseball Preview issue is out and here is a link to the Rays preview. [ESPN]
• David Pinto goes to PECOTA to show that the Rays have the best rotation in the AL East, and that takes into consideration that starting pitchers will miss time and uses Jason Hammel in place of Edwin Jackson. [Yahoo! Sports]
• Here is another projection for the Rays pitching staff. [Baseball Musings]
• RJ Anderson answers 5 questions about the Tampa Bay Rays at The Hardball Times. [The Hardball Times]

Tampa Bay Rays (32 days until Opening Day)

While Scott Kazmir is still aiming to be ready to take the mound on Opening Day in Baltimore on March 31st, Joe Maddon and Andrew Friedman are taking a much more cautious approach.

“I know, with pitchers, there’s a certain prestige that goes with something like starting Opening Day and everybody wants to be able to do that if they’re capable,” Rays manager Joe Maddon said. “I get all that, but the bigger picture is much more important right now, so we’re not going to be influenced in that regard.”

While Kazmir says he understands the importance of taking it slow, he has no concerns that he will be able to get back on the mound quickly.

“Definitely,” Kazmir said. “I’m going to take it slow, but I think this is something that is going to heal pretty quick and the inflammation is going to go down pretty quick. I’m confident I’m going to be out there pretty soon.”

But pitching coach Jim Hickey wants to make sure there are no further setbacks.

“Our goal is that once he retakes the mound that he never comes back off of it,” Hickey said. “I would rather him begin late and finish with all consecutive starts vs. maybe getting back a little bit early and have a two-week setback.”

Maddon in fact may already be resigned to skipping Kazmir on opening day by giving Kid K the fifth spot in the rotation. Maddon stated that the five pitchers fighting for the final two spots in the rotation will get more innings in the Spring with Kazmir out.

“Somebody’s going to benefit from this – in the short term, anyhow,” Maddon said.

With Kazmir and the Rays having clashed late in 2007 over his pitch counts, it will be interesting to see if the team will be able to reign in their young ace while they are erring on the side of caution.

Kazmir, Rays see different plans [Tampa Tribune]
Rays planning to hold a tight rein on Kazmir [St. Pete Times]

DEVIL RAYS WEBTOPIA…

• James Shields and Matt Garza each worked one inning in yesterday’s intrasquad contest. Both pitchers allowed one hit. [Herald-Tribune]
  
• Rocco Baldelli was originally scheduled to play the outfield in yesterday’s intrasquad game, but was moved to DH due to inclement weather. Now Joe Maddon says that Baldelli will not see action in the field until next week. [Tampa Tribune]
• David Price felt fine yesterday after missing a pitching session on Tuesday with shoulder tightness. Price says he is day-to-day and pitching coach Jim Hickey said the move was purely “precautionary”. [Tampa Bay Rays]
• The Giants suddenly find themselves devoid of any major league shortstops. McCovey Chronicles thinks Ben Zobrist could be the answer. We glanced over their system and we are wondering if Pat Misch would get the deal done. Misch is a lefty that like Zobrist, posted outstanding minor league numbers that have yet to translate in the major leagues. [McCovey Chronicles]
• Willy Aybar finally arrived in camp and thanked the team for their support and apologized to his teammates for the distraction. [Bradenton Herald]
• Rays of Light takes a closer look at Al Reyes in their ongoing “Player Spotlight” series. [Rays of Light]
• DRays Bay has put together a “DRB Season Preview Guide” that is free to download. We have not yet had a chance to look through it. [DRays Bay]

Tampa Bay Rays (42 days until Opening Day)

Joe Maddon stated that Shawn Riggans is the favorite to be the backup catcher on opening day. Papa Joe then commented on what his criteria is for a backup catcher.

“The backup guy should be pretty effective defensively,” Maddon said. “It’s not an easy position. The guys that do it well make it look easy, but it’s not easy. Part of their job really is to help the starting catcher. … It’s like a good backup quarterback in football.”

This only surprises us because Maddon actually commented on the situation, but it does not surprise us that he named Riggans even though we project Josh Paul to win the job. Keep in mind that Riggans is the only candidate that is actually on the 40-man roster at this point. Paul and Mike DiFelice are in essence getting “tryouts”. They are on minor league deals and have done nothing yet to earn a major league contract. If the team had absolute confidence in one or the other, they would not be on minor league deals.

The team has made it clear that they prefer a veteran backup catcher to help further the development of starter Dioner Navarro. Just don’t expect Papa Joe to admit that publicly because he would have to say that he prefers a player that is not on the team over a player that is on the team.

At the end of the day, we still feel Josh Paul will be the Rays backup catcher and it is Riggans that needs to “win” the job. Paul has the edge in experience, better defensive abilities and a strong familiarity with the pitching staff and Navarro. Riggans would have to outperform Paul defensively in Spring Training to make the roster and we are not convinced he can.

Notes: Iwamura ready for second base [Tampa Bay Rays]

DEVIL RAYS WEBTOPIA…

• Marc Topkin takes a look at the Rays trio of young talented starting pitchers. Jim Hickey feels that 26 teams in the league would prefer to have Scott Kazmir, James Shields and Matt Garza as their top 3 pitchers. [St. Pete Times]

As Rays officials went back over the last several decades, they came up with only a few teams that had three starters who were so young with the chance to be so good. There were the A’s of the early 2000s with Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder and Barry Zito. The Marlins of the same era with Josh Beckett, Brad Penny and Dontrelle Willis. The Braves of the early 1990s with Steve Avery, Tom Glavine and John Smoltz. And not too many others…”It’s certainly a rare commodity,” senior vice president Gerry Hunsicker said, “to have three young pitchers with the talent level that we’re going to run out there.”

• A quick video interview with David Price as well as a look at him throwing off a mound. (Link will open a video player) [Tampa Bays 10]
• Rays of Light begins a series in which they will spotlight certain Rays. First up is Akinori Iwamura. [Rays of Light]
• Beyond the Boxscore makes an argument for Fred McGriff to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. We think the Crime dog was a very good and very consistent player, but he was what Mike Francessa would call a “compiler”. His numbers look good because he played for a long time, not because he was a great player. We witnessed most of McGriff’s career and never once did we watch McGriff and think “There goes one of the greatest baseball player’s ever”. Sorry. Great guy, very good player, but when the voting comes, we would be surprised if he cracks 25%. [Beyond the Boxscore]
• We were in Austin this weekend. Apparently so was Matt Silverman. He was running in the Austin half-marathon. We were sitting in the front yard drinking Mimosas watching the half-marathoners and marathoners run by. [Rays Report]
• Baseball Prospectus projects the Rays to finish 82-80. The biggest change will be in the pitching. They project that the Rays will increase their scoring from 782 to 788 runs in 2008 and will decrease their runs allowed from 944 to 776. [Baseball Prospectus]
• Sean Deveney of The Sporting News feels the Rays and the Nationals have a special kinship because they have both sucked recently. The similarities are a stretch and include small fanbase (usually goes hand-in-hand with sucking), long odds to win the 2008 World Series (again, sucking), good young third basemen (1 spot out of 25 is similar), and both teams want to improve their image (as do most sucky teams). [The Sporting News]

Tampa Bay Rays (18 days until pitchers and catchers report)
Just the links today as we mourn the 15th anniversary of the passing of one of our childhood faves, Andre the Giant, and wish a happy birthday to another one of our childhood faves, Keith Olbermann. What better way to celebrate then to bake a chocolate cake on National Chocolate Cake Day!

DEVIL RAYS WEBTOPIA…

• In Marc Topkin’s latest piece, he speculates on what James Shields’ deal means for Scott Kazmir. Kazmir says that the deal has little bearing on his contract status as they are in difference situations (Kazmir is in his arbitration years). Later on in the piece Topkin raises a good point we had not considered before in regards to the recent deals for Shields and Carlos Pena. He states that even though the deals only take away a minimal number of free agent years, the contracts will also keep the Rays from being forced to trade one or the other at any time during their arbitration years. So while the players were locked up for X number of years prior to the deals (five years in Shields case) the deals do make it easier for the team to keep the players during those locked-up years. [St. Pete Times]

Shields’ deal technically would only keep him around for two extra free-agent seasons, but another benefit of these type of deals is cost certainly during arbitration years, which could prevent the Rays from having to trade him, as the Marlins did when arbitration-eligible Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis became too expensive.

• The Bradenton Herald says that the moves made this off-season are not a ploy by the team to earn support for a new stadium, and the timing is just a coincidence. [Bradenton Herald]
• Jim Hickey expects the bullpen to be much better in 2008 (Couldn’t be any worse). But what is interesting in the piece, when Hickey speaks of Troy Percival, Al Reyes, Dan Wheeler and Gary Glover. “When I end up talking about bullpen guys, you always talk about if you’re comfortable sending a guy out there, and right there are four guys I’m comfortable sending out there in pretty much any situation at all.” It is pretty clear from that quote, that Glover will be on the opening day roster. In our most recent 25-man roster projection (in the sidebar), we did not have Glover’s position listed as “secure”. We will have to change that in our next evaluation. That leaves three spots in the ‘pen. Long Reliever is likely to be one of the starting pitchers that does not win a spot in the rotation. Lefty-Specialist is a player-to-be-signed later. The final spot is up for grabs with Juan Salas and Scott Dohmann being the leading candidates (Salas has a minor league option remaining). [TBO]
• DRays Bay takes a look at every player invited to Spring Training and what each player’s chances are of making the team. [DRays Bay]
• Fox Sports lists Andy Sonnanstine as one of ten players that could break out in 2008. [Fox Sports]

With guys like Scott Kazmir, James Shields and Matt Garza in the Tampa Bay rotation, it’s easy to forget about Sonnanstine. However, he’s impressive in his own right. Sonnanstine boasts a low arm angle, an array of pitches, and an ability to change speeds. None of his offerings wow scouts, but in four minor-league seasons he logged a 2.56 ERA and a stellar strikeout-to-walk ratio of 6.2 to 1. Last season in Tampa, Sonnanstine struggled in terms of keeping runs off the board, but he did strike out more than three times as many batters as he walked. Given his command skills, Sonnanstine is one to watch in 2008.

• Evan Longoria will wear #3 in Spring Training. He wears #6 in the minors.
• The Rays have signed relief pitcher Scott Munter to a minor league contract. Munter was a 47th round selection of the Giants in 2000 and somehow has managed to earn three different stints with the Giants despite a career minor league record that includes almost as many walks (134) as strikeouts (175 in 334.1 innings). [Baseball America]
• RotoAuthority has their projection for James Shields numbers in 2008. Interestingly, the projection calls for a year not quite as a good as last year, with 13 wins and a 4.06 ERA. [RotoAuthority]

Team USA 3, Peo Saguaros 0.
Evan Longoria was 0-3 and is now hitting .308 in the Arizona Fall League. Justin Ruggiano did not play. On Wednesday, Longoria went 2-4 with 2 doubles and 2 runs scored in Team USA’s 5-3 win over Surprise. Ruggiano went 1-4 with a triple and an RBI.

Scottsdale 6, Surprise 0.
Mike Prochaska started and pitched 5 shutout innings, allowing only 2 hits and 1 walk with 3 strikeouts. Evan Meek and Calvin Medlock each pitched an inning of relief striking out a combined 3 batters and allowing 2 hits. Each pitcher threw a wild pitch.

DEVIL RAYS WEBTOPIA…

• The Devil Rays are currently in negotiations with Disney to play a a series at Disney’s Wild World of Sports for the second consecutive season. If a deal can be reached, the games will be played in the newly named Champion Stadium after a deal was reached with Hanes clothing. The Devil Rays playing home games in “Champion” Stadium? There is no way this ends well in the Blogosphere. [Orlando Sentinel]
• Jim Hickeywill be back in 2008 as the Rays pitching coach. [TBO]
• MLB4U has a list of all the free agents that the Devil Rays will not be pursuing this off-season. [MLB4U]
• Does Matt Silverman have a new girlfriend? Nadya seems to think so. No details though. Damn it. [AOL Journals]
• ArmchairGM takes a look at Evan Longoria. [ArmchairGM]
• When we first read that Rays announcers Dewayne Staats, Joe Magrane and Todd Kalas were all up for the Frick Award we were taken back a bit. The award is presented annually during the Hall of Fame induction ceremonies and is given to a broadcaster that makes major contributions to baseball. We were a bit surprised. They are decent, but never have we thought that they added very much to a game. Not bad. Not great…Then we read the fine print and realized that the only reason they are “up for the award” is because every announce with 10 years experience is up for the award. A final list of 10 candidates will be announced in December. We are still wondering why Bill Chastain decided that this deserved its own piece on DevilRays.com. [DevilRays.com]
• Wanna meet Kevin Costner? Here is your chance. If we win, we are showing up dressed like his character from “The Postman”. [DevilRays.com]
• Tampa Bay Sports Fanatic takes a look at how all the Rays farmhands are performing in the Arizona Fall League. [Tampa Bay Sports Fanatic]
  

Team USA 3, Peo Saguaros 0.
Evan Longoria was 0-3 and is now hitting .308 in the Arizona Fall League. Justin Ruggiano did not play. On Wednesday, Longoria went 2-4 with 2 doubles and 2 runs scored in Team USA’s 5-3 win over Surprise. Ruggiano went 1-4 with a triple and an RBI.

Scottsdale 6, Surprise 0.
Mike Prochaska started and pitched 5 shutout innings, allowing only 2 hits and 1 walk with 3 strikeouts. Evan Meek and Calvin Medlock each pitched an inning of relief striking out a combined 3 batters and allowing 2 hits. Each pitcher threw a wild pitch.

DEVIL RAYS WEBTOPIA…

• The Devil Rays are currently in negotiations with Disney to play a a series at Disney’s Wild World of Sports for the second consecutive season. If a deal can be reached, the games will be played in the newly named Champion Stadium after a deal was reached with Hanes clothing. The Devil Rays playing home games in “Champion” Stadium? There is no way this ends well in the Blogosphere. [Orlando Sentinel]
• Jim Hickeywill be back in 2008 as the Rays pitching coach. [TBO]
• MLB4U has a list of all the free agents that the Devil Rays will not be pursuing this off-season. [MLB4U]
• Does Matt Silverman have a new girlfriend? Nadya seems to think so. No details though. Damn it. [AOL Journals]
• ArmchairGM takes a look at Evan Longoria. [ArmchairGM]
• When we first read that Rays announcers Dewayne Staats, Joe Magrane and Todd Kalas were all up for the Frick Award we were taken back a bit. The award is presented annually during the Hall of Fame induction ceremonies and is given to a broadcaster that makes major contributions to baseball. We were a bit surprised. They are decent, but never have we thought that they added very much to a game. Not bad. Not great…Then we read the fine print and realized that the only reason they are “up for the award” is because every announce with 10 years experience is up for the award. A final list of 10 candidates will be announced in December. We are still wondering why Bill Chastain decided that this deserved its own piece on DevilRays.com. [DevilRays.com]
• Wanna meet Kevin Costner? Here is your chance. If we win, we are showing up dressed like his character from “The Postman”. [DevilRays.com]
• Tampa Bay Sports Fanatic takes a look at how all the Rays farmhands are performing in the Arizona Fall League. [Tampa Bay Sports Fanatic]