Big League Stew Gives Us Reasons To Sign Jonny Gomes

by Tommy Rancel on Dec 22, 2008 1:58 PM EST

I guess in our case it would be reasons to keep Jonny Gomes, but nonetheless here are two of their reasons.

2. Shot pourer: Gomes had a special bottle of Patron at the ready when the Rays beat the White Sox in the playoffs. Joe Maddon drank some — of COURSE he did — and James Shields' esophagus might never recover. The tequila again surfaced after the ALCS.

5. Athletic supporter: Gomes gave Major League Baseball its own version of the Stanley Cup by drinking Bud Light (nobody's perfect) shooters out of Dioner Navarro's jock.

No mention of the rally robe or any roosters.

This post was written by a member of the DRaysBay community and does not necessarily express the views or opinions of DRaysBay staff.

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He seems like he is going to be a coach one day

when his playing days are over. He would be a player’s coach, providing neverending excitement to the clubhouse.

The Rays Party

by therayspartyleader on Dec 22, 2008 2:19 PM EST reply actions

I like this

I am a Cubs fan and i would be glad to sign him instead of Gathwright because of Gomes’ power and the fact that he is the best signable free agent within the Cubs range except Jake Peavy.Honestly Peavy is a little washed up.

Christ, Cubs fans have cornered the market on unfiltered stupidity.

by kericr on Dec 22, 2008 2:33 PM EST reply actions

Almost as bad as those who bitch about the McGriff trade.

by R.J. Anderson on Dec 22, 2008 2:36 PM EST up reply actions

Cub fans that is.

by R.J. Anderson on Dec 22, 2008 2:36 PM EST up reply actions

These are the same group of fans who collectively rooted for the Phillies under the justification that the Rays, as a baseball team, didn't 'deserve' to win a championship because the team hasn't 'suffered enough'.

Feel-good-story my ass, I absolutely will never ever want this team to ever come close to a championship. I may not like Red Sox fans for the arrogance that they’ve displayed, but if the Cubs ever win a championship again, it will be worse by at least a factor of 10.

by kericr on Dec 22, 2008 4:25 PM EST up reply actions

I agree.

I do not want to see the day that the Cubs win the series.

Curse FTW

"And you just don't get it, you keep it copacetic..."

by Blicks on Dec 22, 2008 4:48 PM EST up reply actions

Scary fact:

Not only is Jason Smith still an active major leaguer, but he’s gotten major league at-bats every year since he joined the Rays. Over 8 major league seasons, he has about a full season’s worth of at-bats on his resume at a .221/.259/.377 clip.

Vogt early, Vogt often.

by Brickhaus on Dec 22, 2008 2:55 PM EST up reply actions

Why is that scary?

by Erik Hahmann on Dec 22, 2008 3:59 PM EST up reply actions

He still gets major league playing time

And that people are dumb enough to keep signing/playing him despite a career 62 OPS+ and sub-par defense.

Plus, until I looked at his BBRef page a few hours ago, I had no idea he’d played in the majors at all since we got rid of him.

Vogt early, Vogt often.

by Brickhaus on Dec 22, 2008 4:18 PM EST up reply actions

Tomas Perez has 1896 career AB's and a career OPS+ of 64.

Maybe Jason Smith throws a good pie.

by Tommy Rancel on Dec 22, 2008 4:22 PM EST up reply actions

Tomas Perez can at least defend

Jason Smith was more like Brendan Harris IIRC. He could play all the infield positions, but wasn’t actually good at any of them.

Vogt early, Vogt often.

by Brickhaus on Dec 22, 2008 6:31 PM EST up reply actions

who the hell is Jason Smith? and when did he join the rays?

by davidsmarch on Dec 22, 2008 4:40 PM EST up reply actions

In one of the stupidest deals LaMar ever made,

the Rays received Jason Smith as the player to be named later (Manny Aybar I think was the other acquisition) in the deal for Fred McGriff. It was pretty much at that point that I stopped giving LaMar the benefit of the doubt. While McGriff was winding his career down, he was still a valuable player and had a solid year and a half for the Cubs while the Rays received nothing of value at all. I still seethe with anger over that trade. It represents to me all that was wrong with the old front office.

by bobr on Dec 22, 2008 5:07 PM EST up reply actions

Pure salary dump.

They didn’t care what came back, they just wanted to find a trading partner acceptable to McGriff (due to his no-trade clause) and get rid of him before his option year kicked in.

All this was going on about the same time rumors were rampant that the ownership group was at each others throats and the team was in serious financial trouble, which led to the hiring of John McHale to run operations. Those rumors probably didn’t help matters when everyone knew the team had to eliminate payroll.

The circumstances and trade results pretty much encapsulated everything that was wrong with not just LaMar, but the entire organization: a player friendly contract, dealing from a weak trading position, poor talent evaluation, ownership mismanagement, a lack of leadership or vision, etc. It’s all there in some form.

The 2002 season was extremely painful, but this may have actually marked the lowest point.

by RATW on Dec 22, 2008 6:06 PM EST up reply actions

Indeed

It didn’t help them that McGriff was very well liked in the community at all, but I think most fans knew that he needed to be traded; but when they essentially gave him away, I’m pretty sure that was the point where the community collectively turned on the organization and wanted to have nothing to do with them anymore.

I don’t think that the media at large had any idea how much work the NRO had to do (and still has to do) to re-establish the trust that the old DRO so hapazardly abused and desecrated. Maybe the NRO itself underestimated the breadth and scope of this damage when they tried to hustle through the new stadium proposal. Even with the amazing season last year, I don’t think they’re there yet. They still need to show that they’re willing to spend good money on free-agent players to fill needs (like this DH spot) and show that they will be a team to reckon with for more than a year (not saying they NEED to make the playoffs, but they need to be contending into September). I personally feel confident that they’ll get there. The NRO in my eyes really hasn’t made any major mistakes yet (and no, Josh Hamilton doesn’t count as a mistake), and every time I’ve said something will come back to haunt them, I’ve been wrong, so until they do something that jumps out as a bad decision, I’m wholeheartedly going to trust this FO’s judgement.

by kericr on Dec 23, 2008 10:28 AM EST up reply actions

Oh GOD. This reeks of so much stupid its hilarious.

"And you just don't get it, you keep it copacetic..."

by Blicks on Dec 22, 2008 4:47 PM EST up reply actions

Sigh.y so dumb

Brad Ziegler had a scoreless inning streak. Brad Ziegler had not met BJ Upton.

by P Brady on Dec 22, 2008 4:49 PM EST up reply actions

If he wants a minor league deal and wants to wait for a Sept call up

and then hopefully we are back to a Raytober, he can sit in the dugout being insane.

Eh, someone will give him a major league deal.

Evan Longoria and David Price - the fight for my heart

by joeybw on Dec 22, 2008 7:54 PM EST reply actions

If some other team had released Gomes

People here would be pining to get him over Griffey or Anderson.

Vogt early, Vogt often.

by Brickhaus on Dec 22, 2008 11:02 PM EST up reply actions

Absolutely.

by R.J. Anderson on Dec 23, 2008 12:18 AM EST up reply actions

Are we sure we still wouldn't want him over Griffey or Anderson?

I mean, if it boils down to signing someone wholly ineffective, might as well go with the evil you know over the evil you don’t.

by kericr on Dec 23, 2008 10:13 AM EST up reply actions

I would definitely want him over Griffey or Anderson.

Three reasons.

1. He’s cheap. Just because Rays nontendered him doesn’t mean they can’t resign him at a cheaper rate. He won’t hamper the Rays’ abilities to get a real DH.

2. He’s actually decent in a platoon, IF you think he returns back to pre-2008 form.

3. I have an irrational hate of Garret Anderson, and have had for a while.

"And you just don't get it, you keep it copacetic..."

by Blicks on Dec 23, 2008 1:50 PM EST up reply actions

If he wants to be a capable player in the league again, he has to do a ton to get there

This ‘high-maintanence’ cluncker of a swing he has needs to go. He needs to sit down with a coach this off-season and work on his swing, making it fluid and more compact.

He also needs to stay out of the weight room for, oh I don’t know, about 2 years. He’s too bulky and inflexible, which is why his swing looks like crap.

He could stand to lose about 50lbs.

If his eyes really were messed up, maybe he’ll see the ball better, but he needs to really really improve his fielding prowess, taking better lines to the ball and playing deeper then he does; he has a tendancy to play about as shallow as BJ Upton and moves about half-speed. Singles become doubles when you have to run in to get them, they become triples when you have to run back.

I think he’s made it quite clear that he’s got some mental thing that keeps him from being a good hitter if he’s not regularly playing the field if he continues to play defense like he did last year, he’s too much of a liability in the OF for anybody to want to play him.

by kericr on Dec 23, 2008 2:07 PM EST up reply actions

I am emphatically not in favor of getting Griffey, but

why is there such intense opposition? The past two years he has had some success. In 2007, he hit 30 home runs and over 528 ABs had an OPS+ of 119. In 2008 he slipped to a 101 OPS+ and just 18 home runs (and 30 doubles) in 490 ABs, but his OBP was still .353 and while he has been awful against lefties, last year his line against righties was .272/.379/.462.

So as a DH, he gets on base at a pretty good rate and hits for some power. If he is really cheap, allowing the Rays to supplement the team in other ways as well, while he is hardly a preferable choice, why might he not be a decent fall-back option?

by bobr on Dec 23, 2008 12:35 PM EST reply actions

The problem I have with him is that I don't think he'll buy in as a DH

And will almost insist on being in the field at an at-least semi-regular basis. As for the cheap DH argument, I think we can all agree that the team’s hole in DH is most glaring, and there isn’t another position on the team that is in need of such a major upgrade. I personally want to see the team put down good money for a top-flight option in FA, not just because of the upgrade factor, but because I want to see that the team is willing to continue to expand payroll as long as they continue to make money.

by kericr on Dec 23, 2008 1:46 PM EST up reply actions

If that is the case

I certainly agree he is not for us. I do not want him patrolling the outfield. And I also think there are far better options still available. But at this point, we are still estimating the costs. And we may be underestimating what teams will be willing to pay for a Burrell or Dunn despite their limitations and the sense there is a limited market. So my point was simply that given his recent production and relatively healthy streak, and assuming he is willing to be a regular DH and not cause problems for Maddon and the team, I don’t think our response to signing him should be as negative as it appears to be.

by bobr on Dec 23, 2008 3:36 PM EST reply actions