SB Nation User Blog: RaysOfHope

With Rays on top, Scott Kazmir now considers trade from Mets a blessing

RaysOfHope — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 20:25:33 -0000

For a long time Scott Kazmir looked back on that July day in 2004 and considered it the worst of his professional career. No more. The day the Mets dealt him to Tampa Bay now ranks as one of his best.

"It turned out to be a blessing," said Kazmir, the first-round pick from 2002. "If that doesn't happen, I don't pitch in the majors as soon as I did. If that doesn't happen I'm not on this team, sitting in first place and hoping for October."

Kazmir's rapid ascent through the Mets' farm system ended on July 30, 2004, as he was stretching to make one of his first starts for Double-A Binghamton. Summoned to the office of then-manager Ken Oberkfell, he learned about the ill-fated trading deadline deal for righthander Victor Zambrano.

"I started laughing at the beginning because in our relationship we joked around a lot," Kazmir said of Oberkfell. "He looked at me with a straight face and said 'this is serious.' I didn't know what to think.

"It was the last thing I thought would really happen. It was a huge shock. I felt heartbroken. I really didn't get to prove I was worth the investment. I wanted to show them it was worth it to take that chance on me. I never got the chance."

Even though Tampa Bay averaged 97losses the past three years, Kazmir had a winning record in each and made the All-Star team in 2006. He is 7-3 with a 2.28 ERA as he faces the Red Sox tonight at Tropicana Field in a big AL East showdown.

The other thing everyone now knows is that Zambrano was anything but a savior. His failures contrast starkly with Kazmir's successes. Injuries limited Zambrano to just three more games in 2004 and he went 7-12 in 2005. His injury-plagued 2006 was his last with the Mets.

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/mets/2008/07/01/2008-07-01_with_rays_on_top_scott_kazmir_now_consid.html

jason hammel must go right now!!!

RaysOfHope — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 03:43:22 -0000

why in the hell do the rays still have this piece of shit, dont they know that shit is supposed to be flushed down the toilet!!! i hate to say it but even glover has done pretty good as of late and this should be an easy decision once reyes comes back from the DL soon, because now with the emergence of grant balfour and all of the other relievers are doing pretty damn good as of late, but i bet that they will find a way to keep this guy since he has "upside", but to me he is a AAAA player and that may be an insult to some of those guys!!

eric bedard?

RaysOfHope — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 18:01:54 -0000

hey everyone now that the mariners have fallen so far out of contention and their GM bill bavasi has been fired and today john McLaren has been fired, eric bedard is most likely on the trading block and i think that the rays should consider trying to trade for him and it wont be a rent a player type of deal since bedard cant become a free agent until after the 2009 season and i would do this deal for jeff niemann,jeremy hellickson and edwin jackson since they were interested in him early this offseason. i think that this could be enough for a deal to get done to get bedard and our rotation the rest of the year would be pretty good with sonny as the 5th starter where i think he would be better suited and have the rotation be kaz,shields,bedard,garza, and sonny. that rotation could bring some consistency to the rotation and the only weakspot in the rotation is whether or not sonny will pitch good or not. also jason stark says that the mariners are just about willing to give up anyone on their roster not named jj putz, ichiro, king felix and he forgot to mention brandon morrow who i dont think they would trade either

MLB Trade Rumors: Culling The Herd - Will The Tampa Bay Rays Be Buyers?

RaysOfHope — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 03:30:00 -0000

hey everyone i found this on faketeams a sbnation website and it says that the rays have the prospects to trade for cc sabathia? ya we know we do but there is no way that we could sign his fat ass and that trade just looks like a bartolo colon for sizemore,cliff lee and brandon phillips move in 2002 that backfired on the then expos who tired to add some extra pitching for the playoff push and came up empty and has since produced 3 allstars this year even though phillips is a red. i mean the rays just dont seem like a team that would trade for a rent a player to me and probably to all of us anyways here is the story...

Momentum is building in trade speculating circles for the Tampa Bay Rays to be buyers at the July 31st non-waivers trading deadline. A wild-card leading 39-28 record plus a stocked minor league system are the two factors fueling this excitement.

With the chance for the team's 1st play-off appearance....no, its first ever play-off contending season, the team can revitialize its fan base by acquiring talent via trade as a signal the organization has arrived. Despite the team's torrid start, average attendence is up just to 18,444 from 2007's 17,148 per game. This would argue against making short-term decisions like depleting the farm system in hopes a splashy trade would drive attendence where the team's great start could not.

However, there may be a different reason to trade prospects for a big name player like C.C. Sabathia, and it is directly related to the wealth of prospects the Rays' organization possesses. With so many prospects, there is not enough major league roster spots for them to fill.

If the team can aquire a big name player in exchange for a few of its middle-tier prospects, then the organization will have opened up spots for players behind those traded prospects or will have freed the players blocked at the majors from stagnating the same way the Houston Astros wrecked their young hitting prospects by forcing them to sit behind major league veterans.

Trading from depth would have the effect of pre-emptively culling the herd before those prospects got to that point. As DB11 mentioned here , the Rays would still get draft pick compensation at next year's MLB draft if they acquired a player like C.C. Sabathia and let him walk. These picks could then be used to add quality prospects at the lower levels where they will no longer be bumping up against playing time issues about to be experienced by many of the Rays top level prospects.

Baldelli, out since '07 with hammy injury, could be ready for minor leagues

RaysOfHope — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 03:21:22 -0000

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- Rocco Baldelli could be ready for the next step in his attempt to play in the majors again.

Baldelli

The Tampa Bay Rays center fielder, sidelined since May 2007 because of lingering hamstring problems and what doctors have told him and the Rays is a mitochondrial disorder that causes extreme fatigue, is expected to meet with team officials in the next couple days about possibly joining one of Tampa Bay's minor league teams.

"This is probably the first time since the beginning of spring training where I actually felt that I was going to be coming back and playing," Baldelli said after going 0-for-5 as the designated hitter in his final extended spring training game on Wednesday. "We're going to sit down and decide what the next step is. Hopefully go out and get some [at-bats] on some kind of rehab assignment."

The 26-year-old Baldelli, placed on the 60-day disabled list during spring training, resumed playing as a DH for the Rays' extended spring team May 29.

When asked if he feels physically ready to DH in minor league games, Baldelli said "Yes."

"My body is responding pretty well, so I'm happy," he said.

Selected sixth overall in the 2000 amateur draft, Baldelli has a .282 batting average with 48 homers and 221 RBIs in 419 career games. His 26 assists during the 2003-04 seasons were the third most in the majors. However, he has been limited to just 127 games since the start of the 2005 season.

hey so is he going to go through every minor league level? from A to AAA and probably spend about a week in each spot since he has only 20 games to complete this rehab assignment?

here is the source http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3437979

garza and navarro are cool with each other

RaysOfHope — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 02:58:57 -0000

hey guys know need to worry about the team chemistry taking a hit after these 2 players got into it yesterday and know they can get back to playing baseball.

oh yeah patrick here is the source http://tampabay.rays.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080608&content_id=2875917&vkey=news_tb&fext=.jsp&c_id=tb

Garza did not return to the mound in the fifth even though he had thrown just 77 pitches, and Maddon confirmed the disagreement had been the reason for Garza's removal. And rather than find both parties equally culpable, Maddon said Navarro was "not the irritant." He summarized by saying: "They had an exchange of ideas."

After speaking to reporters, Maddon spoke to Garza in his office. Garza characterized the content of the meeting as "nothing about today."

"Just some stuff I have to fix, that's about it," Garza said.

Garza said "we definitely can fix [the problem]."

"Just heat of passion," Garza said. "We're both competitors. Whatever happened, we'll just keep it here and we'll fix it. ... This is a great bunch of guys and everybody is on each other's side. We can fix it."

Navarro said the problem was "just something that happened in the game."

"It happens in the family," he said. "I think everybody is going to be fine from this point on. It was really nothing."

When asked if he was "square" with Garza, Navarro replied: "Yeah, we're fine. We're a whole family here. [Little] brother fights against older brother, stuff like that. Everything's straight now."

Trial set, Bonds searches for job

RaysOfHope — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 03:42:27 -0000

sign him right now rays!!!!

Now that a trial date has been set for next year in the perjury case brought against Barry Bonds by the federal government, his agent said on Friday that he wonders whether the market will open for the former San Francisco Giants slugger.

Bonds, Major League Baseball's all-time home run king with 762 homers, is still a free agent. Bonds said recently that he won't retire and is eager to continue his career.

"Barry still hopes he will receive a phone call from me saying that I got him a job and he can resume playing the game he loves," said Bonds' agent, Jeff Borris, in a telephone conversation from his Los Angeles office.

"If any team was fearful that Barry would not be available during the 2008 season, they can now put those fears aside after the events of today," Borris said.

Bonds hit his 756th home run to pass Hank Aaron into first place on the all-time list into the bleachers just to the right of dead center against the Nationals on Aug. 7 of last year at AT&T Park. He played his final game for the Giants there on Sept. 26.

Bonds finished last season with a .276 batting average, 28 homers, 132 walks and a .480 on base percentage in 126 games. He will be 44 on July 24.

if the rays want to go all out and prove that they want to win this year they should go after the HR king who still can rake with the best of them and his on base percentage was almost 50% last year and it would bring more fans to the trop and i know that everyone in this blog would just go nuts!!!! i know i would!!!

Poll

do you want the rays to pursue bonds?

Baldelli plays in extended spring game

RaysOfHope — Fri, 30 May 2008 03:52:40 -0000

sorry to do another rocco baldelli post but him playing in est i couldnt resist lol

ST. PETERSBURG -- Rocco Baldelli played in an extended spring training game on Thursday, which is the first he has played in any sort of game since early in Spring Training.

Baldelli, who has been showing up at Tropicana Field for home games, went 1-for-5 as the team's designated hitter.

this is huge rocco baldelli news and this really kick starts the hope that rocco will return this year, him starting his rehab in est right now is a start and probably will advance to A ball rehab assignment and then so forth and maybe he could be back by the end of june? maybe the allstar break? i really hope it is one of those 2.

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080529&content_id=2795233&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb

here is the source where i found this on mlb.com

Baldelli eying return; role undetermined

RaysOfHope — Thu, 29 May 2008 17:50:18 -0000

Baldelli currently is on the 60-day disabled list with a mitochondrial disorder, an abnormality that has kept him in a constant stage of fatigue.

"I plan on coming back [this season]," Baldelli said. "I don't know when it will be. Like I said, the discussion of the role that I'm going to have when I come back will probably be a pretty important discussion, because it's obviously not going to be what I've been used to while I've been here, and I'm fine with that. I just want to come back and help this team any way that I can. I'm perfectly OK with doing anything I have to do."

The question is: When will he come back?

"I'm going to talk to [head athletic trainer] Ron [Porterfield], and [Maddon] and Andrew [Friedman, Rays executive vice-president of baseball operations] and everybody," Baldelli said. "Throughout this whole thing, we've worked pretty well together as far as formulating a plan. We don't just wing it. It should be fairly soon [when he is available to play], but I don't know exactly how soon."

Rocco has always been one of my favorite rays players when he has heatlhy because he is capable of hitting for both power and for a high average and even if they have to use him as a spot starter i think that in time he could become the rightfielder that everyone has said that we need to trade for or sign, but the rays are doing a wait and see to see if rocco can come back and right away become a bat off of the bench and a spot starter and gain some confidence in himself that he is back and not afraid to get hurt again and eventually become maybe a RF/DH on a everyday basis so i am really looking forward to see how his rehab is going and maybe he will have to go on a rehab assignment, all of us would be amazed if he came back this year.

also im adding a poll to for everyone to decide if they think that rocco is coming back this year

Link

Poll

do you think that rocco is coming back this year?

haha look at rocco!

RaysOfHope — Thu, 15 May 2008 05:00:17 -0000

Rocco Returns To Trop

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