During Friday night’s win over Baltimore, Andy Freed revisited this winter’s trade with Chicago and said “the Rays are never going to appear to win a trade in December.” And he’s right.
At the time, a lot of Rays fans thought the Garza deal was a sign that the Rays had given up on the 2011 season. Garza is a great pitcher that was a cornerstone of the 2008 and 2010 playoff runs.
But, two months into the season and I think it is fair to say that we should all be very happy with the outcome of the deal.
To date, we have been present for the birth of a Legend (who has fallen back to earth lately but, was red-hot at a time when this team was in desperate need of a spark and this fan base was in desperate need of good news) and met the first player in club history to homer in the first at bat of his first Major League game.
Here’s the best part: Fuld and Guyer (with all due respect to The Legend) were just gravy on the deal. The real meat acquired for Garza hasn’t even shown up yet. Will Chris Archer eventually replace the suddenly frustrating Jeff Niemann? Will Hak-Ju Lee (who woke up this morning hitting .414!) be the long-term replacement for instant-out Reid Brignac? Will Robinson Chirinos finally be the first catcher in franchise history that can, you know, hit? I don’t know, but add even one of those outcomes to the Guyer/Fuld mix and the Rays have a succesful trade.
Meanwhile, the Garza-less rotation is the second stingiest rotation in the American League allowing just 3.47 runs per game (imagine what that number looks like without the Niemann stinkers…). That confirms, in my mind, that the Rays dealt from a position of strength (starting pitching) to shore up some places they were thin (C, SS, Cult Hero).
In the words of Joe Maddon’s fashion inspiration…”Winning!”
Nobody could spit like goat boy, though.
Another good point. I think the five guys we got combine to spit as much as Garza. Right?
I always thought Garza bore an uncanny resemblance to Count Chocula. Sadly, no one bought any of my homemade “Count Garzocula” t-shirts.
Not sure about Count Chocula but, I always said he looked like The Count from Sesame Street. http://therayarea.com/breaking-garza-to-be-traded.
My feeling about being a GM and trading with you guys is something like my feeling would be if I were a young player and you guys approached me with an offer of a long-term contract. My feeling is that any deal the Rays want to do with me is not a deal that I would want to do with them. Are you with me on this one, Evan Longoria?
Also, if I’m a Rays free agent leaving the team after a nice run, and Andrew Feldman invites me and the other departing free agents into his office for a farewell drink, I’m not drinking. Garza drank, and he’s 1-4. Crawford drank, and he’s .211/.250/.301. Dan Wheeler’s on the DL with a double-digit ERA, Joaquin Benoit has an ERA+ of 49, and Raphael Soriano is playing at below replacement value. Either Friedman slipped these guys a “mickey” or else this is some kind of conspiracy to move Rays double-agents to competing teams where they can commit acts of sabotage.
Seriously guys. Nice turn-around. See you next week in St. Pete. When we’re facing …
… Price and Shields. Thanks a lot, guys. What did we ever do to you?
You won 27 Championships, built a training facility in our backyard, occupied every bandwagon fan in the area, and stole one of my buddies and brainwashed him into being a Yankee spin doctor. Other than that, nothing.
The thing I can’t get over is that it’s May 10 and we have played Boston just 3 times and haven’t played you guys at all. Put that on the long list of things Bud Selig has screwed up.
We’ve won only 4 Championships on your watch. Don’t exaggerate. Maybe we’ll build a 40,000 seat ballpark on our training facility and solve some of your problems. But I do apologize about your friend. You see, we didn’t realize he was your friend until we got to the point in the brainwashing where he believed that revenue sharing is a form of communism, and you just can’t safely reverse the process at that point.
I don’t know about your schedule, but Bud gave the Yankees 20 home games in April and 9 in August. Thanks, Bud.
The schedule is bizarre this year. We come home, play two against you, then fly to Toronto for 3 only to fly BACK to Miami for 3.