A Sign of Things to Come?

In 2009, Rays fans watched the Yankees spend $423.5M to acquire A.J. Burnett, CC Sabathia, and Mark Teixeira in the same off-season prior to the opening of their new palatial version of Yankee Stadium

In before pudieron

Then again before last season I would’ve said this about CC and man is it a good thing we let him go

they will probably spend the money on keeping homegrown talent home. Resigning Longoria, Price, Moore, etc. would be just as big as bringing in new free agents, and much more in line with the way I perceive the rays thinking.

To Eric Hinske, without whom Evan Longoria would be Arb 3 this offseason

All of these moves can backfire and there’re not finised yet, They still have no starting pitching to speak of and to get more its either expesive free agents/long term or trades that will cost them their good youg players.
Will Pujoles still be treated like the king and get everything that he wants? How long will he produce at this high of a level?
Will Reyes ever stay healthy? Ramiriz will either pout and quit or he will be gone too. 3 years for a closer at 9 million/year could go bad in a hurry. Hell Ozzie might blow everything up in the first year. There’re not finished yet so lets see what else they do. Win or lose they are going to need alot of money to sustain these moves.

This could turn out as one of baseballs largest irresponceable screwups in modern history.

even were the money available. I like rooting for a team that makes rational judgments about talent rather than one that simply tries to buy up talent hoping to harvest the jewels. It is like a fisherman being so concerned with getting lots of fish that he throws dynamite into the lake rather than dropping a line. Where is the sport?

As others have said, extending home grown talent would be nice. And certainly it would be nice not to be hamstrung by a very low budget. What I would like would be to use the extra money to fill holes or supplement talent with good bargains-not in the sense of cheap contracts but in the sense of assessing needs and projecting talent properly.

For example, suppose the Rays had the funds this year. I would avoid Pujols, Fielder, Wilson and the rest who will receive multi-year offers and would hate to pay premium prices for a closer. But I might like the Rays to bid on Beltran if they could get him for 1 year or even 2 and a team option. In that case, should the Rays outbid other teams in dollars, perhaps paying somewhat more than analysis suggests he is worth, it would be ok. Even if it is a risk with Beltran because of his fragility, that would be fine. The upside combined with the possible uses in the OF or as a DH would make the risk palatable, and it would not feel like trying to overwhelm the division by accumulating all-stars on the hoof but rather like supplementing what the Rays already have.

And of course, with funds available, if Beltran flops, there would still be other options available to the Rays come the trade deadline, options not there with the current limited budget.

I’d like to see the Rays take the infusion of cash and lock up their superstars, but also be willing to overpay for the kind of elite talent they don’t have on the near horizon in their farm system. So, for example, if you had an extra $30-40MM per season to play around with, you could lock up Price, Moore, and Hellickson and still go out and sign Prince Fielder.

Yes, he’s going to be an overpay, and yes, he’s going to be a DH halfway through the contract and a likely albatross at the end of it. That’s the price of doing business in free agency. But in the interim he would fill a need that the Rays simply can’t fill anywhere else.

The one thing that I thought everyone — except the Dodgers, it seems — recognizes as stupid is signing a bunch of $8MM guys.

Padres get Street (and pay his full $8MM salary) for a PTBNL.

but I don’t agree with this statement:

“But in the interim he (Fielder) would fill a need that the Rays simply can’t fill anywhere else.”

I read a review of Hendry’s tenure in Chicago, and one point made struck me. It said his weakness was that he would identify a need and then focus on a specific player to fill it even if it meant overpaying or creating more inflexibility rather than considering multiple options.

Of course, the Rays cannot match the performance expected of Fielder by signing another first baseman (besides Pujols), but that does not mean they can’t improve the offense in other ways, and do so enough to make signing Fielder superfluous. There might be upgrades at multiple other positions or using current players differently and signing someone to fill in elsewhere or any number of other possibilities. I think one of Friedman’s strengths is that he does look at numerous ways to solve specific problems.

$2MM

But does anyone think the Giants would be willing to shop Belt? Given that they need OFers would a “Brandon swap” (Guyer for Belt) get it done? Belt is strictly a 1st baseman now right?

Marlins sign Buehrle instead of Fielder, meaning that a) they have less need for a SP and b) they don’t have to trade Morrison or Sanchez. Oh well.