SB Nation Tampa Bay Editor's Pick

25 for 25: Rays

by Solanus on Aug 21, 2010 4:59 PM EDT

I'm actually a St. Louis Cardinals fan, but over the past few months I've been working on a roster for each franchise in the majors, composed of players over the last 25 years*. The way this works is that I pick one player from each season and I have to fill out an entire roster (for AL teams, 2 catchers, 2 infielders at each position, 5 total outfielders, one designated hitter, 5 starting pitchers, 4 relievers). I can't take more than one player for each year, I have to take one player each season even in the bad years, and I can't use the same player for multiple positions or years. If a player played the majority of his games at one position, I can't use that season for another position even if he's played it before. And I used basic minimums of 60 innings or 250 PA's (prorated for strike seasons).

*Because the Rays have only been in existance since 1998, I picked two players for each season, with 2009 getting three players, otherwise the rules are the same.

The interesting part with this are the decisions that have to be made, whether it is, "Dang, there are some really nice outfielder seasons to choose from, who gets left out?", or, "Does this team even have two decent catchers in a 25-year span?", or, "This guy had so many great years - which one do I choose?" Sometimes a great year gets left out, sometimes a fluke, partial season gets tabbed for the team. I actually posted a fully researched extended version for the Cardinals from 1910 to 1934. The NL versions for this era are there as well (linky, linky, linky, linky).

You're welcome to pick apart my choices and make suggestions of your own. I'm looking forward to hearing from everybody.

C – Toby Hall (2003), Dioner Navarro (2008)

1B – Fred McGriff (1999), Carlos Pena (2007)

2B – Brent Abernathy (2001), Ben Zobrist (2009)

3B – Aubrey Huff (2004), Evan Longoria (2009)

SS – Julio Lugo (2004), Jason Bartlett (2009)

OF – Greg Vaughn (2000), Randy Winn (2002), Rocco Baldelli (2003), Carl Crawford (2006), B.J. Upton (2008)

DH – Jonny Gomes (2005)

SP – Rolando Arrojo (1998), Albie Lopez (2000), Tanyon Sturtze (2001), Scott Kazmir (2006), James Shields (2007)

RP – Jim Mecir (1998), Roberto Hernandez (1999), Esteban Yan (2002), Danys Baez (2005)

Notable exceptions: Jose Canseco (1999), Matt Garza (2009), Grant Balfour (2008), J.P. Howell (2009)

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

Tweet Comment 16 comments | 1 recs |

Do you like this story?

Comments

Jorge Cantu's 2005 season - he played 2nd base

by save_the_trop on Aug 21, 2010 5:45 PM EDT reply actions

Also, BJ's 2007 was much better than 2008

by save_the_trop on Aug 21, 2010 7:53 PM EDT up reply actions

Sure was, but there is no room for him in 2007.

Plus, going by the numbers, Upton (4.5 WARP1 / 4.7 WAR) is inferior to both Pena (6.4 / 5.3) and Shields (5.6 / 5.3) in ‘07. Upton slots better into 2008, where both Pena and Shields suffered bigger dropoffs from the year before. (The one option that you might have had to move B.J., using the 3-slot year in 2007, can’t work because you have the best 2B, the best 3B, and the best SS seasons in your franhise’s history in 2009.)

I was reading about how countless species are being pushed toward extinction by man's destruction of forests. Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us. - Calvin, Scientific Progress Goes "Boink", Watterson

by Solanus on Aug 21, 2010 10:24 PM EDT up reply actions

Cantu was replacement level in '05

According to Baseball-Reference’s WAR numbers, he was worth -0.3 wins above replacement level. BP has him at a whopping +0.1 WARP1. I couldn’t take that season in good faith.

Even if you wanted to switch that one in for Brent Abernathy’s ’01 (certainly not a high-quality year), then you would end up swapping Danys Baez ’05 for Victor Zambrano ’01 OR bump Greg Vaughn from OF in ’00 to DH in ’01 and take out Jonny Gomes in 2005 for Steve Cox in 2000.

by Solanus on Aug 21, 2010 10:18 PM EDT up reply actions

Sorry. I didn't really read your criteria.

Hard to believe Cantu’s 2005 rated so poorly. I know he didn’t walk much and played poor defense, but 40 double, 28 hr and 117 rbi sure seemed valuable when it happened.

by save_the_trop on Aug 22, 2010 12:23 AM EDT up reply actions

He was a GIDP machine

by Lurch's Lobbyists on Aug 22, 2010 6:40 AM EDT up reply actions

He was an rbi machine too. It's not easy to get 117 rbis.

by save_the_trop on Aug 22, 2010 7:57 AM EDT up reply actions

But not a monumental achievement if Crawford and Lugo are getting on base ~35% of the time in front of you.

by Lurch's Lobbyists on Aug 22, 2010 10:13 AM EDT up reply actions

I disagree. 117 rbi is impressive no matter how you look at it.

It was a team record at the time and even Pena’s sick 07 barely eclipsed it.

by save_the_trop on Aug 22, 2010 12:08 PM EDT up reply actions

he only was worth 1.6 WAR that year largely because of his terrible defense

R.I.P. Scott Kazmir 2005-2008

by raysfan81 on Aug 23, 2010 12:09 PM EDT up reply actions

WAR / WARP1 was a necessity

The counting stats are good to look at, but their value is all over the place and it’s too difficult to weight them properly for each player. Plus it doesn’t factor in defense. Also I didn’t plan on devoting 25+ hours per team to slog through those kind of numbers. WAR / WARP1 give me a nice round figure to easily judge worth across the seasons.

by Solanus on Aug 22, 2010 7:54 AM EDT up reply actions