Tampa Bay defied convention yesterday by actually going out and signing a free agent. Good for them!
Buster Olney loves the deal and now sees Tampa Bay as the team to beat in the AL East. The best thing about his article is he has the audacity to talk about the injuries that plagued the Rays in '07. Injuries? Please.
The Rays opening day rotation started 154 games. The Yankees opening day staff started 99. Yeah, Carlos Pena, Evan Longoria, BJ Upton and Carl Crawford were dogged with nagging injuries. But so were Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Johnny Damon, Hideki Matsui and Jorge Posada. Aki Iwamura hit .220 in April. Aww, poor Aki. Too bad I was busy watching Robinson Cano hit .151 in April.
Do your homework, Buster. Especially if you're seriously trying to make the claim that Tampa is the much improved team heading into '09.
There's no real fair comparison to make on paper. Assuming that C.C. and A.J. make around 30 starts apiece, 7 less than both Pettite and Mussina, and the rest of the rotation holds on a little longer than 99 games, I like our pitching more and I still don't know who the 5th starter is. In other news, bye-bye Andy.
And if you're measuring the Burrell acquisition against the Teixeira deal, the only place the numbers match is in on-base percentage. The guys a career .257 hitter. Tex is a career .290 and has played in 3 less seasons. The only people in Philly who'll miss the guy are little girls who think he's dreamy. Trust me. I lived in Philly, the people there hated him for most of his tenure, The monniker Pat "the bat" was used more sarcastically than earnestly, especially in 2003 when he hit .209 and played in 146 games.
Let's also conveinantly avoid the fact that the Tampa bullpen is virtually non-existant. Let's also avoid the fact that the Yankees beat the Rays 11 games to 7 in the head-to-head match ups last year. Why isn't anyone in the media clamoring for David Price to solidify that bullpen like they still do with Joba? This is the same team that couldn't hold a tie in a 3 inning elimination game.
Run for the hills, here comes Pat Burrell. Not hardly.
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3 comments:
I only wish an injury goes down in the Tampa outfield and they're forced to put Pat the Bat and his -10.8 UZR in 2008 out there. His defense reminds me so much of Abreu's. Yeah, strong arm, decent fielding %age and a good number of assists, but how often do they get to the ball in time for that to matter? Also, lets expect his career .257 BA to drop slightly with the stellar pitching not only in the AL, but specifically the AL east. I hope he gets booed out of whatever crappy stadium they play in.
I am a fairly new reader to this place, I gotta say I am impressed. Keep up the good work, and try to post more often.
Thanks for the kind words. Keep coming back, bookmark me, tell your friends, and link it in chat rooms. I'm trying to be more consistent with the posts and definitely more interesting and entertaining than some of the other blogs that are out there. It was much easier when I was out of work on disability and the Winter Meetings provided more news than I knew what to do with, but there always something going on and I'm going to make an effort to update more as the season gets underway.
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