Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
January 06, 2008
Perry on the Rays

Dayn Perry sees improvement on the Horizon for the Tampa Bay Rays, unless they take the Marlins route:

More critically, the Rays, since they have so much young talent in place, are going to be faced with a cascade of salary escalation in the coming seasons. As all these young players head into their arbitration and free-agency seasons, the Rays will need to pay the going rates or else fall into a perpetual state of rebuilding. Already rumors have it that Tampa is open to trading Kazmir. Suffice it to say, doing so would be a mammoth mistake and a regrettable sign of things to come.

Rays ownership obviously wants a stronger revenue base before it begins making such investments, but investing in the product is the necessary first step. As history has proved time and again, fans will support a winning team. The Rays, if they do what's necessary to keep guys like Kazmir in place, will find success on the field. Then the fan base -- and the coffers -- will grow. But it's incumbent upon ownership to make it happen.

The trick is to determine the three or four real stars on the team and sign them to long term contracts. That protects the Rays from the salary shock that comes when these players hit arbitration.

Perry also points out the difficulty of competing in the AL East. There is a window of opportunity, however, as the Yankees and Red Sox both committed themselves to staying old offensively for the next couple of seasons at least. New York re-signed many of their free agent veterans, while Boston will have Ramirez, Ortiz, Drew, Lowell and Varitek making up their lineup for a while. As Arizona and Colorado showed in 2007, young teams can get good fast as they mature together. Tampa Bay needs to be ready to take advantage of this possibly brief opening to knock off the division leaders.


Posted by David Pinto at 09:11 AM | Team Evaluation | TrackBack (0)
Comments

Manny and Varitek are only signed thru '08 with some club options for Manny. They are, however, stuck with Lowell, Ortiz, and Drew for awhile.

Perhpas "stuck" isn't the right word.

Posted by: Boomer at January 6, 2008 09:46 AM

Boston fans are hoping that "stuck" isn't the right word, anyway.

Manny's not a problem; if he continues his decline of last year, they let him go (and maybe even resign him). If he rebounds to his former levels, they pick up a year and try again.

If Drew continues to decline, they'll have to eat money or live with his performance.

Ortiz and Lowell are the wild-cards. I expect a bounceback from Manny next year and slight regression from Lowell and Ortiz, but nothing significant until 2009. That's when life gets interesting ...

Posted by: Subrata Sircar at January 6, 2008 08:43 PM

I would think that at this point the biggest worry for the Yankees is Jorge Posada... obviously counting on a catcher over 35 is never a good idea. but not like there are realistic alternatives these days... and at least it's good to know that he's career lines up very well with Carlton Fisk.

The biggest declined guy on the team is obvious Giambi, the good news is that he's also done after 08. i'm guess that the Yankees would take at least one of Mark Tiexira or Adam Dunn (or both) next season. which would be adding two more guys that's not too old.. (but probably will be when their contract is up... pratically big Teix)

Posted by: RollingWave at January 7, 2008 04:54 AM

Both Shields and Kaz were good last year - Shields gave up a lot of HRs - Garza gave up a lot of hits - there's no indication that he's ready to be a frontline starter next season - not familiar with their ML prospects - easily said that they have a lot of holes - it still looks like Jackson and Sonnastine in the rotation and either Reyes or Percival at the end, Navarro was bad both at the plate and behind it - One problem they have is that Upton can't play in the infield - so either they go with him in CF where he looked pretty good or DH - hard to see what they do with Baldelli and other CF prospects then. Pena was tremendous last year - we'll see if he can repeat. They need a lot of things to go right to look at .500 in a tough division.

Posted by: Bandit at January 7, 2008 10:14 AM
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