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This Date in Team History!
In 1997, the Rays signed former Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher, Rick White, who had last appeared in the majors during the 1995 season, missing pretty much all of 1996 due to Tommy John Surgery. White spent all of 1997 in Double-A, then worked his way to the majors in 1998 spending most of the season in the bullpen while making the occasional spot start. He'd spend the next two year with Tampa Bay before being traded to the Mets along with Bubba Trammell for Paul Wilson and Jason Tyner.
| Rick White | W | L | ERA | FIP | K% | BB% | AVG | IP | G/GS |
| 1998-2000 | 10 | 15 | 3.81 | 4.14 | 15.7% | 8.2% | .264 | 248 | 145/4 |
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Trivia Time (Ian)
Going to have a little bit of a different trivia today, and ask for a list of players.
There are four players in Rays history who were more than a full win below replacement player (> -1 fWAR). All of them had decent careers elsewhere.
Player A: -1.3 fWAR with the Rays, 17.4 career fWAR.
Player B: -1.2 fWAR with the Rays, 12.9 career fWAR.
Player C: -1.1 fWAR with the Rays, 19.0 career fWAR.
Player D: -1.1 fWAR with the Rays, 11.4 career fWAR.
One of these players is a pitcher, the rest are hitters. So who are the four worst players in Rays history?
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There are 59 days until Opening Day!
That's the same number of runs scored by Eric Hinske during the 2008 season.
One of those runs scored on this two run shot that gave the Rays the lead.
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Links (Ian)
- Want to understand the slider? Eli Ben-Porat has a great visual explanation at The Hardball Times.
- August Fagerstrom broke down how every team was built, and the Rays have the second-highest projected percentage of their WAR acquired through trades (behind Oakland).
- Bryan Cole wrote up some of the new motion tracking tech entering the league. Things like this -- leading to injury prevention -- are the hotbed of baseball study right now.
- Drew Smyly will probably have his arbitration announced today (the hearing was yesterday, according to Topkin). MLBTR has a good explanation of why arbitration matters.
- Are good baseball and aesthetically pleasing baseball different things? I'm not sure I agree with this article, and I think it has to do with the difference between going to a game and watching on TV. At the game, a strikeout is boring. On TV, I think it's very exciting.
- Dae-ho Lee signed with Seattle, and he's interesting, if nothing else. And Jeff Sullivan is right, video three is a nonsense home run.