Five Things About Last Night's Yankees-Rays Game

1.87 FIP in high leverage situations vs LHP and hold batters to a .185 average. I knew it was going to be bad when Curtis Granderson got a base hit – someone who hits about 10 points higher vs LHP than I do.

I’m starting to slide to toward a feeling of apathy about Upton. I’m not sure that a change of scenery isn’t the best thing for him at this point in time or in the offseason.

At this point in time, I feel like BJ’s true level of play lies somewhere in between where I, and others on this site believe, and the low level that a lot of the people that in the community think.

It’s amazing the amount of people who will not just criticize his failures, but actually celebrate them.

Point two I tend to agree with Collette’s point above, but there is definite need for someone else who can throw left handed (and hopefully with some more skill) in our pen.

Ah BJ Upton:
I certainly don’t know this, I don’t know how the measure it, and I don’t know what the baseline is, but it really seems to me that the greatest failing of this Rays organization is its ability to deal with psychological, personal, and personality issues in players. I’m not super equipped to debate this point, and Jonah, Tommy and the other unknown insiders probably have more insight that anyone else in addressing it, but there is a pretty concrete list of failures or miss-steps here. (Again, it could be that they are no worse than other teams, but I don’t experience other teams to this degree so I wouldn’t know):

Josh Hamilton – Perhaps a completely untenable situation, and they certainly stuck with him enough to “right his ship,” so perhaps a bad example. The only reason I put him on this list is the questionable decision not to protect him on the 40 man. Was that because of mistrust of his demons, or because of his injury history?

Elijah Dukes: Obviously a guy with serious problems, and maybe someone that no team was equipped to help, but I felt at the time we got rid of him, and maybe more so now that he was just given up on. Rather than have a system in place to deal with and help him, the Rays used the “change of scenery” excuse and shipped him out for virtually no return. The rumors of how the AAA Club treated him are even more concerning to me.

Delmon Young: Certainly no one is going to complain about the trade, but he was a guy with an obvious attitude issues that that seem (from an outsiders perspective) to never have been adequately addressed. He never had any off the field issues that I know of, but there was certainly personality management that failed to take place.

Now BJ Upton: This is a guy that by all accounts is a good person. Grew up in a good and stable family, has only ever had one off-field issue that we know of. The problem is that personality management thing again. I’m one of the worlds biggest BJ defenders and I still wouldn’t go to the level of “I’m done with Upton” as our undiplomatic hoser friend has, but there is obviously an issue that needs to be addressed here.

I don’t know if things describe here fall on the shoulders of the manager, or “clubhouse leaders” or specialists, but ultimately they are the responsibility of the organization. There may be a calculus that says it simply isn’t worth the time or resources to deal with this, but that strikes me as callously inhumane.

Perhaps the next market inefficiency that this small market team can exploit is troubled-but-talented players. It’s not like the Rays are risk adverse here, signing borderline monsters like Julio Lugo and Wily Aybar. I just feel (again I don’t think I can back this up) like this is a big area of failure for the Rays.

He made a nice catch, but if he didn’t get to it Swisher would have gotten a double with Upton being right there to help. Also, there were no runners on base.
Kapler faces one type of pitcher and still has a wOBA of .266. I’m all for the platoon but Joyce should have been playing right field or we could have had Brignac at second and Zobrist in right.
People can make cases for BJ, but not for Kapler. The ceilings for Brignac and Joyce are still high and they both need more playing time. I think their statistics are still too small of a sample size and will change with more playing time. Even though I want Brignac in as an everyday SS, I can still understand why Maddon gives Bartlett more playing time. However, starting Kapler over the talent on this roster when this is our all in year is mind boggling. Hell, bring up DJ to play right to platoon with Joyce. I don’t want to start his clock early but I do want the Rays to do anything within reason to win a championship.

I hate questioning him because I wouldn’t choose any manager to replace him. However, he’s made some stupid mistakes in the last two games.
I went to the Indians game and the bullpen didn’t start warming anyone up for Wheeler until he gave up two hits and there were no outs. Sonny or Cormier should’ve been warming up the minute he got in there, even if Maddon planned to leave him in there for the whole inning. Wheeler allowed the Indians to tie the game back up because we couldn’t warm up anyone fast enough (a mound visit would’ve helped). Then his management of the bases loaded situation (not calling for the bunt and not subbing Pena, when he was on 2nd, for Bartlett).

But I’m kind of getting tired of it. Its probably my own fault for expecting way too much from the guy. Its just getting frustrating at this point waiting for him to “break out” like some people say he will. I still think he’s being crucified a little too much though, even if this is Upton he’s fine for this year. Worth the money, worth the defense, its just his bat that is a handicap for now. I’m not sure trading him and installing Jennings would even be a solution in a pennant race since he might not be much better adjusting to ML pitching. I’ll give him till the end of the year and if he’s still the same, trade him. If he blossoms elsewhere that would be great for him.

Additional note: Maddon made some terrible calls last night that probably cost the game too. Probably more than getting picked off in the 9th.

I’ve come to expect that this is the real him and he won’t ever be the BOSS I hoped/thought he would become. He is still valuable though but at the plate its frustrating to watch and then crap like last night happens. Still a fan but lowering expectations a lot.

But we lost and that’s that and I still have faith that the people in the dugout have a better clue on how to run this game then I do and they’re are where there at and I’m sitting in my easy chair just shaking my head laughing at this.

We hear about his potential and his stuff/tools, and he shows glimpses, but when you get down to it… he ain’t that good. And the same argument gets used against them, that they’re somehow dumber than the average player. Upton’s not striking out because he isn’t smart and doesn’t understand things, the same way Jackson doesn’t walk as many as he does because he’s too stupid to throw strikes(granted, this isn’t as prevalent, but I do remember some posts during a great Sonny-EJax debate that called Sonny the smarter pitcher when in fact they’re just different pitchers). It’s just that in spite of their worldly potential, and in fact BECAUSE of that tantalizing fastball or speed or raw power, that we tend not to think about their limitations.

because he pitched in the ASG.