Jump to content

Great article on the Rays


SouthRider

Recommended Posts

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?columnist=crasnick_jerry&id=5217782

How refreshing to see the Rays go old-school and have their pitchers all have goals of getting 200 innings each year. Interesting to note how long it took them to finally find a quality rotation and the number of guys they whiffed on over the years. It's a reminder that the O's are still very early in the process. What worries me is that it isn't only about selecting talented players. It's coaching them in the minors/majors and getting them to develop to their fullest. That's the big difference between the Rays and the Orioles.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Posts

    • Those numbers don’t include Stowers’ performance today, so his WAR will be up when you look tomorrow morning.  He’s earned himself some more playing time, but he’s not going to go from bench warmer to everyday player overnight.     
    • One of the amazing small plays of this game came in the 8th inning when Cowser caught a fly out with a runner on 3B and made a throw home that was about 15 feet up the the 1B line.  Adley raced up the line to grab it, but one of the infielders deflected it in the opposite direction of where Adley was running back towards home plate.  Adley somehow stopped his forward momentum and dove backwards on his back and snagged the ball. By the way, that’s the third time in the last few weeks that Cowser has made a terribly inaccurate throw to home plate.  It’s one thing to make the catcher move a step or two, but these throws have been 15+ feet off target.   
    • Kyle Stowers has 12 ABs and is already worth.1 bWAR. Hays is -1.0, and Mullins and Santander combined are .7 (Cowser, despite his exciting throwing, is 1.1) So there is ample reason to play Stowers….and to sit Hays/Mullins/Santander.
    • After watching Hernandez for years it became obvious that for most close calls he'd just flip a coin in his head and hope for the best. IMO the straw that broke the camel's back was the Mets / Tigers game where Angel ruled a pitch to Spencer Torkelson was a foul tip, which is reviewable. When the Tigers' manager came out to challenge the call Hernandez all of a sudden changed his call to a check swing, which isn't reviewable. Replays showed the pitch wasn't a foul ball and Torkelson never came close to swinging at it. It is reasonable to conclude that Angel Hernandez changed the original bad call to an even worse call just so he wouldn't be overruled by replay officials.    
    • Great, I’m heading to the Balkans in a few days anyway.  Im not saying I enjoy cock fights or dog fights, I am just saying I enjoy the collisions. I don’t want either guy to get hurt any more than, that sucked and am going to feel that in the morning. I thought it was great when they came in hard to second and the double play wasn’t automatic. Now you have the ghost tag of the base and the runner just jogs out of the way. I guess it is hard to explain but it is the difference of the NBA 30 years ago and now. Or NFL or MLB. 
    • Well, my personal spin on what OOO was saying is that Mike shouldn’t be adding guys like this one, and should instead be adding guys who will be a net positive. If there’s a glut, do something about the glut.
    • Tweaking guys is for the off-season and spring training not for when you really need guys who know what they’re doing already. Our pen is weak and this fellow doesn’t make it better, but worse. There’s nothing in his portfolio to indicate anything else. I realize the trade was probably actually for the other guy, but this fellow could easily have been immediately designated, cleared waivers, and then added to Norfolk, and then they could play around with him all they want. I remember when Brian Matusz was traded to the Braves along with a competitive balance pic which Dan did not value, and the Braves immediately designated him. They weren’t going to let him anywhere near a mound. Thats what should have been done with this guy.  Mr Vespi must be in tears, because he’s thinking “they wanted THIS guy more than me???”
  • Popular Contributors

×
×
  • Create New...