Earlier this week, Rays Prospects had a great breakdown of Hak Ju Lee (recently acquired from Chicago) and Tim Beckham (drafted ahead of Buster Posey – poor kid is going to be the Rays’ equivalent of Sam Bowie unless 
something changes for him and for Posey).
Based on RP’s statistical analysis it looks like Lee is better than Beckham both offensively and defensively. (Incidentally, you should be reading Rays Prospects. It is an awesome resource.) That seems to confirm our speculation that the Rays have decided Beckham is not a big-league shortstop.
According to the experts, Lee is a year behind Beckham and won’t make it to the majors for 3 years (or, the year known in the Rays’ front office as Reid Brignac’s second arbitration year). If everything goes according to plan, that leaves the Rays with the kind of flexibility the build around. If Brignac pans out, the Rays can buy out his arbitration years and have a nice franchise cornerstone. If he doesn’t pan out, or gets too expensive (see Bartlett, Jason), the Rays can move Brignac for prospects and replace him with Lee, a young gun ready to play three years at league minimum.
That leaves the question about Beckham’s ultimate future. I suppose it is possible that Beckham will go the way of other draft busts and turn into a 6-year minor league free agent. But I think the Rays have a different plan. Beckham will probably join the ranks of failed Rays shortstops turned super utility players. The Rays have had success converting BJ Upton (who was a Super-U guy before becoming an elite CF), Ben Zobrist, and even Eliot Johnson when it became clear that they were never going to be everyday shortstops. Why not give Beckham the same opportunity?
Everyone seems to agree that Beckham is a great athlete. In fact, it looks like the only reason the experts think that Beckham is a “bust” is because he was drafted first overall and projected to be at shortstop and hitting in the 3-hole everyday. If we lower those expectations, doesn’t Beckham look a lot more promising? Also, if we take the pressure of playing shortstop everyday (something he doesn’t seem to be up for defensively) off him, would he flourish at the plate and turn in the kind of power numbers we expected?
I don’t know, but I bet the Rays organization gives us a chance to find those answers in the next 2-3 years.
How do you trade a moonbeam for Buster Posey?
Brix schooling me on the words to the song I parodied in the headline. This comment through me for a loop. Nice work.
I still dont see why we didnt pick posey the guy once as a senior in college played every position on the field in one game for a division I school that wins games. this guy was big league ready hitting 463 with a 1445 ops in his last year. this guy tore up the ACC theres still time for this pan out time will tell.
Almost everyone agrees with you. Someone asked Friedman this direct question on 620 the other day (was it you?) and he said that they projected Beckham as a sure-fire middle of the order bat. If I remember right, there were questions as to whether Posey would ever hit for power in the majors. Questions he seems to have resolved last fall.
Either way, there is no way that the budget wasn’t a consideration in light of Posey’s representation.
See the Sound of Music, “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?”!
By the way, IMO one of the most overrated “classics” of that era. Stuck in the horrors of WWII, the Von Trapps struggle with the task of figuring how to make love survive when you are really wealthy. Great cinematography but give me a break.
I wish I could remember her exact language, but Pauline Kael considered it an evil movie and suggested that its popularity might be a good reason for all movie goers to just give up on any attempt to make sense of things.
What I remember is that she did not just think it a bad movie but an offensive and dishonest one, and not because it did not tell the truth about the Von Trapps but because its entire attitude was so phony. Seems to me she speculated that at least one of the children might have objected to be trotted out to sing good night to the guests or to put on a puppet show for her father’s intended.
There is this quotation: “sugarcoated lie that people seem to want to eat”. Her review of it was titled “The Sound of Money”.
As often was the case, I thought she overstated her point a bit and did not give credit to some of its virtues, but overall I agree(d) with her. The treacle is bad enough, but for the last half hour or so it tries to get serious and forgets it is a musical altogether. Even leaving aside the entirely unhistorical view of Austrian attitudes towards the Nazis, that last music-less segment is unbearable to me.
How great is the Ray Area? Where else does a discussion of the Rays’ 2014 shortstop involve a historical analysis of The Sound of Music? This is going to be a fun summer.