If you dont purchase season tickets, STFD? In this economy I think that is a pretty ridiculous comment. I’ve been to 7 or 8 games this season, and have watched 90% of the games on tv. I would say i am more then a casual fan. Spending money on season tickets isnt an option for me and many other fans. And we all have a right to comment on this team…good or bad.

and everyone always said ‘give us a winning team and then we’ll come’. Well, we do have a winning record. We are the defending AL Champs. The FO (outside of this) has done everything possible. But part of the concern does have to be how hard the economy has hit the St. Pete area. It’s one of the hardest afflicted areas in the nation. And that’s what makes this difficult. Is the area really doing the best in can considering the circumstances? Or do they just not care? I just don’t know.

But…the Rays could have afforded one of these players for THIS SEASON. And they have a whole offseason to figure out how to make next year’s payroll work and move pieces around. Even conceding that more should have come to the games, the Rays FO still dropped the ball.

they allowed their main competition for the WC to improve with a player they could have used. And it only cost them Justin Masterson. Either the Indians really dislike Wade Davis or Reid Brignac, or we didn’t pony up the prospects. The cost of these players was reasonably low. It’s one thing not to get Halladay. They expected a huge coup, plus Halladay makes 15+mil a year, neither of which we can afford. We could have put together a better offer than the Phillies for Lee. Same for Martinez. When the cost was low, it was time to utilize our deep farm system. This is where the FO appeared to drop the ball. Whether we end up winning or not does make the decision any less right/wrong. That’s the hindsight approach. But if the Rays do end up losing this week because of Martinez, it’s going to hurt that much worse.

Nor do I think that considering what others offered indicates we did not offer something of value.

I repeat, I think it entirely possible that the Indians might consider Davis, Jennings and Moore to be as good or better than the Phillies offer. You and I may not think that is so, but I think it is a defensible view. And given that the Rays are in the same league, the Indians may have wanted a premium to choose our offer over that of Philadelphia.

Naturally, I have no idea what was offered. Perhaps Friedman simply was not satisfied that the benefit of adding Lee was worth what was demanded, even if it was less than what I suggest above. I simply do not think it can be labeled a mistake. In fact, if the Rays miss the playoffs by a game or two, I am sure many will claim it was, but even then I think such a judgment would be superficial. There are simply too many imponderables and legitimate options to consider. That would really be the results based evaluation, something I think is usually superficial.

In any case, suppose the offer was Davis, Jennings and Moore for Lee. I wonder how many people on this site would jump to conclude the deal. And by the way, weren’t some of the rumors that some such demand was being made for both Lee and Martinez? But the Phillies deal was for just Lee, and they got 3 more pitchers just for Martinez. So would we want the Rays to sacrifice those 3 for Lee alone?

This is from mlbrumors.com:
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“We won’t know the true result of the Pirates’ firesale until 2011 or 2012, but the early returns on the Jason Bay trade are not good. Rosenthal says the Rays may have been willing to pay more for Bay at the time, possibly including the since-traded Jason Hammel and/or Edwin Jackson in a package.”
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 I don’t know if Rosenthal is right, but the statement highlights the problem with evaluating what a team tried to do by comparing what they might have offered to what was accepted from another team.

Shields, Garza, Kazmir, Price, Niemann, Sonnanstine, Talbot and Davis. I guess you could make an argument to leave Davis in the minors, but Talbot has no more options. Leaving Sonny in the minors or putting him in the pen is a horrible waste of value. The year after that we will have Hellickson. After that we have the next batch of guys that could be ready; Barnese, Moore, etc. I don’t find Hernandez or Cromer all too valuable. I don’t see them as anything close to major league average starting pitchers. I do see us having at least 8 major league average starting pitchers next year. That is too many.

Regarding Hammel and Jackson we most certainly did not maximize their value. Hammel I’d argue was more Friedman’s fault whereas Jackson was just a multitude of things. For whatever reason Jackson didn’t perform here. IMO Hammel would have been more useful if we traded him the previous deadline, perhaps in a package deal, to net someone of real value. I see Aneury as nearly worthless. What are the odds Aneury ends up as good as Hammel? 5%? That is nowhere near maximizing value. That is an epic fail.

FYI Hammel and and Jackson both have a FIP around 3.8 whereas none of our starters are under 4. They both are performing better according to tRA than any of our guys. This scenario from my POV has more to do with timing of trades (Hammel) than maximizing performance (Jackson), but either way there is no way you can remotely argue Joyce and Aneury as a return for those guys are even close to maximizing value.

I have the faith. Although I do think those players; esp Lee, would have helped tremendously in the playoffs.