Yesterday, the American League players voted David Price the league’s top pitcher in 2010.  (Story here) I don’t know if that is a precursor to Price winning the 2010 AL Cy Young Award but, frankly, the Cy Young feels like a long shot.  The old bulls of the Baseball Writers Association likely voted for CC  [ Read More ]

As soon as the World Series ends we will be mired in the long winter slog of the hot stove league.  During that time, AL East fans will again be relegated to speculating how much money the Yankees and Red Sox will spend to get back to the top. The bidding for Cliff Lee, Carl  [ Read More ]

Marc Topkin has a nice story in this morning’s St. Petersburg Times detailing his efforts to get Pat Burrell to explain the stark contrast in his offensive performance in Tampa Bay and San Francisco. The basic conclusion is not news.  Burrell was bad at staying mentally engaged when he wasn’t playing in the outfield. Topkin  [ Read More ]

Joe Henderson wrote a column yesterday outlining the decisions facing the Rays this offseason. For reasons passing understanding, that column opens with a summary of the ALCS (for those of you scoring at home, the Rays are not participating in the ALCS).  Then, Joe writes: Since they’ll have to go through Cliff Lee even if  [ Read More ]

In case you missed it, Seth McClung wrote an op-ed admitting that he wasted his time with the Rays.  Basically, McClung does a nice mea culpa for his sins and concludes with this sentiment: But I was wrong. I never thought Tampa Bay would turn it around. I didn’t buy into their new way of  [ Read More ]

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post reminding everyone that Andrew Friedman and Gerry Hunsicker don’t get enough credit for their shrewd decisionmaking and ability to identify value where other teams missed it. But, they make bad decisions too.  I was talking with a few friends Wednesday night who were bemoaning the Rays’ offensive  [ Read More ]

The Platoon Advantage, a sister blog on the Sweet Spot Network, wrote a good post yesterday surmising that Bud Selig is actively covering up proof of umpire mistakes in Game 5 of the ALDS. I wasn’t going to link to it yesterday because, even if Bartlett scores and we get the double-play, we probably lose  [ Read More ]

The body of the 2010 Rays is still warm but, naturally, the world has turned its eyes to the 2011 team. I will try to write more about this later but here are a few quick thoughts. -As I wrote in September, the $22MM the Rays need to drop from payroll is easy to get  [ Read More ]

Both local newspapers led this morning with eulogies for this “era” of Rays baseball.  That’s just lazy. Here is a link to Gary Shelton’s eulogy and a link to Martin Fennelly’s eulogy. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.  Officially closing the Rays “window” is the easy column to write.  Both papers have to know that  [ Read More ]

Here is a shot from the upper deck of a deciding LDS game. I guess we need to just contract the franchise, or demand a new stadium, or just move the team to a city that appreciates October baseball like Portland, San Antonio, or Central Connecticut.  Right? What’s that?  It’s not the Trop?  Oh.  Well  [ Read More ]