Rays Pony Up

Looks like the Rays will have the number 1 pick again next year. I don't think a team has ever had the top pick 2 straight years. You have to figure with all these high picks, and their young pitching coming around, the Rays have to start being good soon, even without adding much to the payroll. Not all of their young starters in the minors will pan out, but some of them could be transformed into very good relievers.

If they draft Pedro Alvarez, where the hell would he play in a few years?

An extension for Pena may not be too smart. I believe Boras is looking for something like $14M per year.

If I'm not mistaken, he's arbitration eligible for one more year, and would probably jump up to about $6M or so.

Might be a better idea to simply keep him for next season, and spend the rest on some bullpen arms.

There is a slight slight chance the Rays could content next year with all their young players, but if not, he can be dealt at the deadline for some real good prospects.

I see two scenarios if they just sign him for one year.

1) He continues to hit like this. Then you trade him, get some prospects, and then if you want, sign a big name free agent for 2009 - Pena would cost as much as him anyway.

2) He doesn't hit like this. You trade him, get some lesser prospects, and you're glad you don't have the long-term committment.

Either way, an extension is a bad bad idea.

If your the Devil Rays GM, you almost can't mess up. 35 is pretty stingy...even with the low attendance they should just make a splash, now's the time to pony up. 40-45 sounds nice, and that paired with their lethal prospects is going to challenge for the playoffs by the end of the decade. They need to keep Crawford and Kazmir, their stars, by 2009/10. Just use Pena until his arbitration years are up. With some good relief help they could be very good the next two years. And last, no Carl Crawford isn't at his peak value. He's better than Ichiro Suzuki, and he just signed for 100 million dollars.

The chances of the Rays making the playoffs in 08 are 0%.

Until management decides to bump payroll up to at least a $60-70m they will not be able to compete against the Red Sox and Yankees. I don't care how good their young talent is. When you have payroll disparity of 7-1 (comparing them to the Yankees this year) the gap is too large to overcome.

No one knows, but most pundits are saying 2009/10 is when they'll make the playoffs. We dont know what their payroll is then...they've only announced it for next year. NO, they probably won't make it next year but they could be very good.

Win-win situation for two last placed teams:

Giants trade Matt Cain and Brad Hennessey for Carl Crawford and Reid Brignac.

TB gets a dominant CHEAP pitcher to round out a top 3 for '08 of Cain, Kazmir & Shields and a solid CHEAP reliever / back of the rotation starter in Hennessey.

Giants get two middle of the order hitters they desparately need. Sure they'd miss Cain, but they need to get butts in the seats after Bonds, and Crawford would definitely help.

TB won't miss Brignac too much, seeing as in essence, he was never in that lineup. Sure they'll miss Crawford, but they could sure use Cain more and replace a chunk of Crawford's production with a healthy Baldelli.

mymrbig: In 2005, FLA finished 9 games back. In 2006, 17 games back. Right now, 18 games back. That's not exactly competing.

I understand what you're saying and I also agree with your point that low payroll teams can compete with high payrolls - hence the A's. But do you think the A's would've been a playoff regular if they were in the AL East? I don't.

Inversely, if the Rays were in the AL West, could they be considered early '08 favorites? Maybe!

The Yankees and Sox spend 100-150 million dollars more than the Rays. While the Rays improve themselves, so to will the big two. The disparity is just too large. But step one to closing that gap is to generate more of a market. Get your fans excited. That's what Sternberg's trying to do here.

I agree with BJ. i have said it before and i will say it again: in that division they cant compete with that payroll & soon enough some of those good young players are going to leave for more money.

Interesting comments here to say the least. While I'm not a true D-Rays fan, I have been monitoring their situation for a couple of years now. First off, I believe that Pena should have two years of arbitration left bobo, at least according to mlbcontracts.blogspot.com-so a three or four year extension wouldn't be terrible in my mind, if by paying him a bit more in years one and two you get a discount in years three and four.

As for when the D-Rays will contend for the playoffs...I'd say sometime in the next 2-4 years is very possible. They have so much positional talent in the bigs and the minors that they need some time to gain experience and gel as a unit. Once Brignac and Longoria join Pena, Young, Upton, Crawford, and Iwamura they are going to have one of the most fearsome lineups in baseball. There is also such an abundance of quality young pitching in the system(albeit lower minors for the most part) that it tends to get overlooked. Kazmir looks like an ace in the making, Shields is #2/3 type, and Jeff Neimann is likely to join the rotation sometime next year. That doesn't even include young studs Jake McGee and Wade Davis, both of whom have ace potential, or other youngsters like Chris Mason, Jeremy Hellickson(a personal fav), or a handful of others. Will all these guys pan out? Of course not, but the Rays have drafted very well(partially due to high draft position) and have a very deep talent pool to draw from.

Now, can they compete with the Yanks and Sox without going out and landing a bunch of free agents? Sure, that's how the 90's Yankees were built-a very deep and strong farm system. The Rays will have to continue to up payroll to retain the talent they have, but this bump for 2008 is a positive sign and it only reinforces what I've believed about the Rays ownership for a while now--when it comes time to really spend the cash to keep their core together, they will. To me, that is as important if not more so than throwing millions of dollars at average or slightly above average free agents(the majority of the market). Taking a low risk approach on guys like Pena is a good thing to do also, they still need a young catcher and a more solid bat for DH(not a fan of Gomes personally, Baldelli struggles to stay healthy). The nice thing is though, a healthy Baldelli would be a huge trading chip next--possibly landing an overlooked bat like Jason Botts for DH and maybe Taylor Teagarden to put behind the dish(not a full deal there of course, but the ground work could be laid for one).

I guess the way I see it is the Rays are definitely headed in the right direction, doing things the correct way in my mind(Brian Sabean should take some notes here). How the talent develops and how it fits together will be fun to watch over the next few years.