David Schoenfield, a writer I usually like, wrote a article on the top 5 rotations in baseball, and had the Rays seventh. In the top 5 was the Yankees and Diamondbacks. Without any biasness, HOW is that possible for a guy to be a professional writer with the major sports site, and have that type of opinion...... the article is here: http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/20057/ranking-the-five-best-starting-rotations

With 60% of the runoff votes, Robinson Chirinos has one the poll.

1. Matt Moore (100%)

2. Hak-Ju Lee (100%)

3. Alex Torres (53%)

4. Enny Romero (80% runoff)

5. Tim Beckham (64%)

6. Mikie Mahtook (63% runoff)

7. Brandon Guyer (50%)

8. Chris Archer (65% runoff)

9. Drew Vettleson (48%)

10. Taylor Guerrieri (80%)

11. Alex Colome (75%)

12. Derek Dietrch (40%)

13. Josh Sale (39%)

14. Ryan Brett (50%)

15. Parker Markel (43%)

16. Jake Hager (41%)

17. Tyler Goeddel (43%)

18. Jeff Malm (60%)

19. Oscar Hernandez (48%)

20. Tyler Bortnick (84% runoff)

21. Granden Goetzman (80% runoff)

22. Lenny Linsky (36% runoff)

23(T). Ryan Carpenter (32% runoff)

23(T). Russ Canzler (32% runoff)

25. Matt Bush (33%)

26. Robinson Chirinos (60% runoff)

This is a bit off topic, but I couldn't help but notice this note from Bullpen Banter:

Seth, I asked around about Hernandez after seeing your question. I had got a couple positive notes on him before that motivated me to rank him in the 20's on my Rays list but they were vague... like "that kid is a real sleeper," stuff like that... Not much sentiment for ranking him higher, as people seem to want to see what he can do against better pitching in a more difficult league first.

The response I got now after digging deeper was that he's a raw catcher with some impressive tools across the board. Excellent feel for hitting given his age and his approach gets very good marks from everyone. Hitting tools are still raw but he flashes the ability to hit for plus contact & plus power. Good arm and quick feet behind the plate. He projects as a good defensive backstop depending on how his body grows... and it looks like his bat could play at other positions, too. You can tell the Rays hold him in pretty high esteem by the fact they had him at fall instructs as a 17 year old.

Everyone seems to mark Hernandez as a guy to watch... but again, he's very young and still growing into his tool and body. Over the next year we'll have a much clearer image of where the tools are going, what kind of player Hernandez can be and if there's star potential here. Definitely someone I'll be keeping an eye on.

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Fantastic work by Mr. Maniac. This is going to be one heck of an exciting team. ~Slow

With many projections starting to float out there, I decided to post an in-depth projection for the 2012 Rays. My goal is to provide reasonable statistics for every position. Because of this, break outs and "down years" are not included. Every player's statistics were carefully regressed. While regressed is commonly defined and used as a word for "taking a step back," regressed also means, as is the case in this post, to return to a prior state.

This post should also, hopefully, dispel the rumors that the Rays rotation is "much better" than the Yankees' or that the Ray's positional players are much worse, if at all (and if not better), than the Yanks.

I am using a WAR spreadsheet that can be found here: http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2011/11/12/2557029/updated-team-war-spreadsheet

By adding the team's WAR, the amount of wins a player(s) would achieve more than a replacement level player over 162 games, tothe amount of games a replacement level team (0 WAR or bad players) would win (43 in this case), a strong idea of the 2012's team talent can be gained. In the past four years in the AL East, the WAR and win numbers have correlated to the 99th percentile.

Note: The numbers are not park neutralized. Since half the games are played in "The Dome," pitching statistics are better than they really are while hitter's statistics unfairly demote the hitter's true performance.

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With only one vote seperating the two, CJ Riefenhauser and Robinson Chirinos are going to a runoff.

C.J. Riefenhauser (LHP): A 20th round pick in the 2010 draft, CJ had excellent numbers in a little over 100 innings at Bowling Green. However, reports indicate that he lacks an above-average pitch. (http://www.baseball-reference.com/minors/player.cgi?id=riefen001cha)

Robinson Chirinos (C): Another catcher, Chirinos was nabbed in the Garza trade. Althletic for a catcher, Chirinos has shown eveything to be a good catcher, except a quick release. If he can get his throwing down, it is hard to see him not playing at the MLB level, even if as a reserve. (http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/chiriro01.shtml)

Seth Smith has been traded to the Athletics for Guillermo Moscoso and Josh Outman according to the Rockies Twitter feed.

Another bat off the board. Probably wouldn't have paid that price though.

And the Rest of this is Filler And the Rest of this is Filler And the Rest of this is Filler visit my blog at joaker5.wordpress.net :-) And the Rest of this is Filler And the Rest of this is Filler

With a third of the votes, Matt Bush is the victor.

1. Matt Moore (100%)

2. Hak-Ju Lee (100%)

3. Alex Torres (53%)

4. Enny Romero (80% runoff)

5. Tim Beckham (64%)

6. Mikie Mahtook (63% runoff)

7. Brandon Guyer (50%)

8. Chris Archer (65% runoff)

9. Drew Vettleson (48%)

10. Taylor Guerrieri (80%)

11. Alex Colome (75%)

12. Derek Dietrch (40%)

13. Josh Sale (39%)

14. Ryan Brett (50%)

15. Parker Markel (43%)

16. Jake Hager (41%)

17. Tyler Goeddel (43%)

18. Jeff Malm (60%)

19. Oscar Hernandez (48%)

20. Tyler Bortnick (84% runoff)

21. Granden Goetzman (80% runoff)

22. Lenny Linsky (36% runoff)

23(T). Ryan Carpenter (32% runoff)

23(T). Russ Canzler (32% runoff)

25. Matt Bush (33%)

Continue reading this post »

Because the runoff could not determine the top players (voting was 8-7-7), all three players from the runoff will be elected. Linsky will be elected the 22nd, while Canzler and Carpenter will be tied for 23rd.

1. Matt Moore (100%)

2. Hak-Ju Lee (100%)

3. Alex Torres (53%)

4. Enny Romero (80% runoff)

5. Tim Beckham (64%)

6. Mikie Mahtook (63% runoff)

7. Brandon Guyer (50%)

8. Chris Archer (65% runoff)

9. Drew Vettleson (48%)

10. Taylor Guerrieri (80%)

11. Alex Colome (75%)

12. Derek Dietrch (40%)

13. Josh Sale (39%)

14. Ryan Brett (50%)

15. Parker Markel (43%)

16. Jake Hager (41%)

17. Tyler Goeddel (43%)

18. Jeff Malm (60%)

19. Oscar Hernandez (48%)

20. Tyler Bortnick (84% runoff)

21. Granden Goetzman (80% runoff)

22. Lenny Linsky (36% runoff)

23(T). Ryan Carpenter (32% runoff)

23(T). Russ Canzler (32% runoff)

Continue reading this post »

The 2012 Tampa Bay Rays Fan Fest presented by MetroPCS is scheduled for Saturday, February 18 from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. at Tropicana Field. The event is also sponsored by Chevrolet, Sweetbay Supermarket and Tradewinds Island Resorts. Admission and parking are free.

This year’s Fan Fest will feature an unprecedented number of activities for kids. Youth stations include clinics by Rays coaches, “Reading with the Rays,” kids running the bases, high five stations with Rays players, photos with Rays mascot Raymond and DJ Kitty, baseball interactive activities for all ages and appearances by Rays players and coaches at various stations throughout the day.

A donation to the ALS Association will allow fans to receive a wristband which grants the opportunity to get autographs from Rays players and coaches. Rays TV and radio broadcasters and more than 25 former major league players will also sign autographs for free throughout the day.

Also:

• Maddon will serve up his Thanksmas meal (for purchase via raysbaseball.com)
• Players will be reading to kids throughout the days
• The yardsale returns! Last year, it raised $80K for charity and marketing told me yesterday that they have unearthed some great surprises for this year's sale
• Interactive zone returns
• Kids can run the bases and get high fives from players
• Panel discussions will happen throughout the day

This time it is between three players: Canzler, Linsky, and Carpenter. These players are all fighting for the 8 or so votes between all the other candidates that have now opened up.

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Here is a look at some of the top comparables to the Rays top starting pitchers: David Price, James Shields, Matt Moore, Jeremy Hellickson and Wade Davis as per the MLB Depth Charts website.

In this exercise I used 2010-2011 data, looking at the skilled stats of K/9, BB/9 and GB/FB, while coming up with a similarity score based on these three stats for each Rays starting pitcher. The cutoff was having pitched at least 150 IP as a starter (exception for Matt Moore and Stephen Strasburg, Fans Projections FG) over the last two years. Matt Moore's stats were taken from the Fangraphs Fans Projections and modified slightly, so there is some uncertainty around what numbers would best represent his skill in these areas. Here is the top 25 list for each Rays starter. There is some bias when comparing NL pitchers with AL pitchers due to the slightly inflated strikeout rate for NL pitchers who don't have to pitch to a DH, so feel free to make a mental adjustment for those pitchers. If you wanted to take something like this to the next level, you could look at age, contract status, handedness etc... but I've chosen to look at these three stats which are highly controlled by a pitchers skill level.

It is kind of interesting to pick off the top one or two from each table and imagine your pitcher being replaced with that pitcher and how better or worse or the same your team would be.