Archive for the 'New York Mets' Category

Sep 23

[ATTENDANCE] Rays Should Take Cue From Mets; Just Lie About Attendance

Attendance, Baltimore Orioles, New York Mets Cork Gaines 8 Comments »

The Rays averaged 28,852 fans (80.0% capacity) for their 10 September home dates, including two sellouts in their final two home games of the season. And yet, as recently as four days ago, Mitch Stacy of the Associated Press, wrote a story that was carried in many papers across the country titled, “Question for 1st-place Rays: Where are the fans?”.

But the team is still playing to small crowds at Tropicana Field, a situation that’s starting to give fans a bit of national black eye. The lack of buzz has some commentators questioning whether the Tampa Bay area even deserves to have the team.

These stories continue to be written as if the Rays and their fans are a blight on baseball. The implication is that any other team in a pennant race would be selling out every game, with fans spilling into the aisles.

One of our good friends, a die hard New York Mets fan, alerted us that this is not the case.

The above picture was taken at Shea Stadium on September 14. It was a Sunday afternoon game against the Atlanta Braves. At the time of the game, the Mets had a 1 game lead in the NL East.

The attendance for the game was announced as 56,041, about 300 short of capacity. Take a closer look at the image (a larger version can be found HERE. An even larger version can be found HERE). It is easy to spot the empty seats. In the lower deck they are orange, in the middle deck they are blue and the upper deck they are green. Also note that this photo was taken during the 3rd inning (see scoreboard) with the score tied 1-1.

So where is the criticism of the Mets and their fans? A Sunday afternoon, on a beautiful day, in the middle of a late-season pennant race against the team’s biggest rival, in the biggest baseball town in the country…and it looks like they don’t have anymore than 35,000 in the stands (~70% capacity).

Our friend assures us that the above picture is typical of a Mets crowd for the last few weeks, and yet the Mets continue to announce crowd sizes of 50,000+.

And what about Baltimore? Last night the announced crowd was 12,489. That is at least twice the actual crowd. We wondered aloud if this was the first road game in Rays history with more Rays fans than home fans. A “Tampa…Bay” chant could even be heard on the TV broadcast. Yes, the O’s are 26 games back, but supposedly this is one of the great baseball towns in this country and they have one of the icon stadiums in the sport. And yet, two of the knocks against the Rays are that Tropicana Field is terrible and Bay Area fans care more about football.

Why is there no criticism of other teams like the Mets and Orioles? Because those teams bloat their attendance figures and their fans are fair-weather.

At times the Rays attendance has been disappointing, but our stance is that nobody should expect sellouts to occur overnight. At the beginning of the season, when fans make season-ticket purchases and corporations enter partnerships with the team, many still believed this was a losing franchise. All fans need something to root for. Now that the Bay Area has a team worth rooting for, the crowds will grow. And once they do, they will be loyal.

In the mean time, the only way the Rays and their fans will avoid criticism is to take a cue from the Mets and just lie.

Question for 1st-place Rays: Where are the fans? [Associated Press]

Mar 13

[BARRY BONDS] Exploring Exactly What Barry Bonds Would Mean To Rays

Barry Bonds, Cliff Floyd, Jonny Gomes, Moises Alou, New York Mets, Rocco Baldelli Cork Gaines 16 Comments »

According to one projection system, the Rays are a 92-win team with Bonds…

A few weeks ago, news broke that the Rays had brought up Barry Bonds’ name in internal discussions of available free agents. At the time we made it clear that it was highly unlikely that the Rays would pursue the all-time home run king. We cited the recent clubhouse headache cast-offs, Delmon Young and Elijah Dukes as well as the overall image-conscious nature of the Rays front office.

While we argued that the Rays wouldn’t sign Bonds, we never said whether or not the Rays should sign Bonds. The truth is we truly understand both sides of the argument. We loathed Keyshawn Johnson but we were sure glad he was around to help the Bucs win the Super Bowl. Would we feel the same about Bonds? If he helped the Rays make the playoffs, then ‘hell yes’. And now that we know that Rocco Baldelli will start the season on the DL and his career is in jeopardy, signing Bonds may no longer be a luxury item, he might be a necessity. And as they say, ‘necessity is the mother of Barry’s Barcalounger’ (or something like that).

Many argue that Bonds is a difference-maker. They argue he is the type of impact player that could help put the Rays over-the-top and into the playoffs. But what isn’t clear, is exactly how much of an impact one team could truly expect from adding Bonds to the lineup.

To answer this question, we contacted Chone Smith of Anaheim Angels all the way. Smith is the creator of the CHONE projection system. Smith uses those projections to run a full simulation of the 2008 season. In those projections, the Rays are predicted to win 89 games and finish in third place, 3 games behind the Yankees and the Red Sox. They noted that the vast improvement was do in most part to improved pitching and defense.

So we asked Smith to insert Bonds into the Rays lineup and rerun the projections. He obliged, removing Baldelli from the roster and making Bonds the most-days DH.

According to the CHONE projection system, the Rays would score 36 more runs in 2008 with Bonds in the lineup. In the field the Rays would surrender 7 more runs on defense due to increased playing time for Gomes and Floyd in right field. Overall the Rays would be projected to win 3 more games which ups their win total to 92…smack dab in the middle of the playoff hunt.

As a point of comparison, we also asked Smith to run the same projection if Bonds were signed by the Mets, another team in need of outfield help. In this case, he removed Moises Alou and inserted Bonds. The change meant 30 more runs for the Mets and an increase from 92 to 95 wins in the standings.

This seems to indicate that even though he will be 43 years old and has two bad knees, Barry Bonds is still worth at least 3 wins over the course of an entire season over an above-average player. That number may be more like 5-7 wins over a replacement-level player. According to Baseball Prospectus, Bonds was worth 6.2 wins in 2007 over a replacement-level player. In only 126 games, the 42 year old Bonds hit .276-28-66 with a .480 OBP. His 170 OPS+ would have led the NL had he not come up about 30 plate appearances short of qualifying.

Should the Rays attempt to sign Bonds if they can get him at a discount rate? If you think that the Rays are indeed an 88-89 win team, then the answer should be ‘Yes’, because Bonds might indeed be the difference between the 2007 Brewers (just missed) and the 2007 Rockies (World Series).

[Ed. note: An excellent question was brought up in the comments that we don't have the answer for, but raises a good point. The Rays were an 89-win team (projected) with Rocco. They are probably more like an 86-87 win team with Jon Weber or John Rodriguez. So right now, Bonds would actually be worth approximately 5-6 wins if you consider that he is in reality replacing Weber or Rodriguez.]

Marc Topkin Wants You To Believe That It Is Possible For Barry Bonds To Sign With The Rays [Rays Index]
Signing Barry Bonds Would Go Against Everything The Rays Have Done The Past Two Years [Rays Index]
Finally, the hitter projections [Anaheim Angels all the way]
AL projected standings [Anaheim Angels all the way]
The Devil Rays, how they will go from the cellar to contenders [Anaheim Angels all the way]
Barry Bonds [Baseball Prospectus]