Troy Percival Close To Deal With Rays

Great move by the Rays. They are going to look very good in very little time.

Along with the potential Garza - Young swap, the Rays are really making a push to get better. Unfortunately, they're in the same division as the Yankees and the Red Sox, so nothing they do - ever - will matter much in reality.

Poor BrewCrew, they are losing all of their bullpen targets.

Rays would be soo much to go right to compete regardless. Even to finish 3rd, they would need serious luck, and the Jays would have to face serious injury problems like last year.

Fact is, they're still going to finish 4th, but at least be near or better than a .500 team.

Orioles will stink so badly, it's going to be hilarious

And they had Pridie and Baldelli.

What is not so good about a 3.69 era? And Young only had a .316 obp last year.

Posted by: achilles17
"Jesus...are the Rays actually considering competing this year? At this rate, they very well could..."

...Shoot, the Yanks currently have 3 rookies penciled into the rotation and the same old ageing Vets spread around the field. The Rays may think they do have a good shoot at over taking them in 2008, and whos to say they would be wrong for thinking it until NY makes another move or two…

The crappy commenting system is a January initiative.

That's funny about the sumo guy. By the way if anyone ever sees a very annoying ad please send me a screenshot of it and I will get rid of it if I agree.

I thought Percival wanted to close.

Decent signing by the Rays. However, let's not forget that this guys arm did fall off a few times. He is old and doesn't come with a clean medical history.

As an Angels fan I love what Percival did for us. Just would be afraid of commiting $5m/year to him - especially on the Rays budget.

they had 70 wins in 2004 ;)

they should surpass that this year. Lots of young guys getting better. Lots of old players on other teams getting a bit worse.
75-80 wins would not surprise me in the least.

It let me post! There's no method to TypeKey's madness apparently.

I wanted the sox to go after him as a 7th inning guy/setup man to go with okajima , but if the yankees want to make him their primary set up man for the next 2-3 yrs than go for it , I doubt he can handle the workload that the yankees pen always gets , especially with all the rooks in the rotation this yr.

Also , id bet that the rays will be battling for 3rd with the jays this yr in the Al east , if even 1/2 of their young hitters can take the typical steps that solid young guys usually do than they will certainly suprise some people , but unfortunately theres only one wild card per league , so 3rd place teams still cant get in...on a side note , i still think they should try to deal carlos pena for basically a younger version ( ie 40 hr potential) so some other team can take a big risk when it comes time to sign him for 4+ yrs

Am I the only one who thinks that Percival will not hold up health-wise? Someone is going to get burned big time on a deal with this guy.

You would think that the Yankees would have learned their lesson with their recent Carl Pavano and Jaret Wright fiascos. It's amazing how good some of these guys look....until they have to take the mound!