Johnny Damon and Manny Ramirez now Tampa Bay Rays
Johnny Damon AND Manny Ramirez are now both Tampa Bay Rays players heading into 2011. According to SI’s Jon Heyman on Twitter, the only thing holding up these deals is a physical.
According to Heyman, Johnny Damon will be paid $5.25 million this season plus a $750K attendance bonus and Manny Ramirez will get a salary of $2 million from the Tampa Bay Rays.
This is huge news for Tampa Bay Rays fans that thought this was going to be a club which could not win 70 games in 2010. If both of these players can increase their production 10-20% over the 2010 MLB season, they could be great numbers for the Rays in 2011.
It’ll be great to watch Johnny Damon and Manny Ramirez suit up against the Boston Red Sox and Carl Crawford this season.
Top 10 prospects for the Tampa Bay Rays moving forward
[picappgallerysingle id="9945144"]
The Tampa Bay Rays finished the 2010 season in dismal fashion and the doomsday soothsayers were out in force after their loss in the ALDS about how the Tampa Bay Rays were about to become irrelevant in Major League Baseball.
While the Tampa Bay Rays are going to take a hit, losing the likes of LF Carl Crawford and RP Rafael Soriano, all is not lost my Tampa Bay Rays friends. While the front office has been frugal with the payroll, all those lousy seasons added up to the stockpiling of some pretty amazing talent in the minor leagues.
Matt Hagen of the Hardballtimes.com, broke down the Rays top 10 prospects moving forward, and there should be every reason for optimism with the Rays in the future. In his estimation 7 of the top 10 prospects for the Rays are pitchers, a hot commodity in MLB.If Joe Maddon is retained in the longrun for the Rays as manager, his hit and run NL style of offense will need to be supplanted with strong pitching.
Hagen ranks OF Desmond Jennings and SP Jeremy Hellickson basically 1A/1B in the top prospects for the Rays and that goes without saying, both will be in the starting lineup for the Rays in 2011. At number four, Hagen ranks SP Matt Moore who should make some noise about breaking into the starting lineup next season. Moore struck out 208 batters in 144.2 innings this season in single A ball for the Rays organization, following a 176 strikeout in 123 innings performance in 2009. While he might not break into the starting rotation next season, I think at some point in 2011, you’ll see Moore with the Rays.
Hagen also ranks the top 10 players in the Rays organization under the age of 26 on April 1, 2011. Six, possibly seven of those players could be on the opening day roster for the Rays. So as disappointed as I was after this season and the way it ended prematurely, there is a lot of talent in the Rays pipeline. While fans will be quick to point out that the Tampa Bay Rays won’t be able to compete in the AL East, I’d have to ask New York Yankees fans what that 207 million dollar payroll bought this season? A trip home to watch the World Series on their HD TV’s, that’s what.
I think the Rays should move a pitcher, either James Shields or Matt Garza in the offseason in a trade and continue to re-load. Garza is the most likely candidate as his contract is not as friendly as Shields’ is. I am not buying into the fallacy that the Tampa Bay Rays are done for the next several years for post season play simply because they are going to have a reduced payroll. What’s the payroll of the Texas Rangers who are playing in the World Series right now while the rest of the AL sits home? $55,168 million, less than the Tampa Bay Rays and the Rangers club underwent bankruptcy this season, so spare me the garbage talk that Tampa Bay won’t be able to compete.
Carl Crawford to become a Boston Red Sox player?
[picappgallerysingle id="9533648"]
It is becoming more and more evident that the Boston Red Sox are going to go hard after Tampa Bay Rays LF Carl Crawford. ESPN analyst Peter Gammons said on WEEI radio yesterday that he fully expects the Red Sox to go hard after the speedy outfielder.
“There is no doubt in my mind that they(Red Sox) are going to go really hard after Carl Crawford. That will be a matchup with the Angels, and you know there will be some puffs of smoke coming out of New York that suggests the Yankees might go after him, even though their primary need is pitching.”
A column submitted to the Detroit Free Press suggests that the Detroit Tigers must sign Carl Crawford. The writer, Josh Huebner, suggests that because of all the money coming off the books of the Detroit Tigers this offseason, makes the Tigers a force to become a player in the offseason bidding for the Tigers.
Possible landing spots for Rays LF Carl Crawford
[picappgallerysingle id="9945119"]
As the season for the Tampa Bay Rays came to a close on the evening of October 12th, so did most likely the chance of ever seeing LF Carl Crawford ever wearing a Tampa Bay Rays uniform ever again. Personally, I wanted to see the Rays reach the World Series this season just for the fact that I wanted CC to earn a World Series ring with the Rays.
There really is little hope that Carl Crawford will sign a free agent contract with the Tampa Bay Rays and return next season. So where does he wind up? Hopefully not where ESPN’s Peter Gammons believes, the Boston Red Sox. The thought of Carl Crawford wearing that Red Sox uniform next year makes me suddenly want to vomit.
According to Mark Polishuk of mlbtraderumors.com, Gammons reports that the Boston Red Sox are going to go hard after Carl Crawford and they project him as a middle of the lineup type hitter instead of having him hit leadoff.
The website also lines up the usual suspects other than the Red Sox when it comes to high priced free agents. The Yankees and Los Angeles Angels are mentioned. But a few teams I think are wildcards are mentioned as well. The Atlanta Braves, the San Francisco Giants, The Los Angeles Dodgers, the Washington Nationals and the Cincinnati Reds.
It would be nice if the Tampa Bay Rays could find a way to keep Crawford and sign him to what most likely might be the last contract of his career, but with the Rays ownership clearly stating that they want to reduce the roster payroll, I don’t see them jettisoning multiple players while keeping a left fielder who is approaching 30.
Hopefully, wherever Crawford winds up, he’ll join a team which will have an opportunity to win a World Series, just as long as it isn’t with the Boston Red Sox or the New york Yankees.
Red Sox fans piling on the Tampa Bay Rays
[picappgallerysingle id="9603000"]
Tampa Bay Rays fans, as if we didn’t have enough issues, our good friends who are Boston Red Sox fans have now decided to pile on. Fellow network blogger Alistair Ingram for the Fenway Faithful has posted his comments about how the Tampa Bay Rays will simply pass into obscurity after they are swept by the Texas Rangers. In fact, our concerned friend from Beantown has written that the Tampa Bay Rays will slide into irrelevance after losing in the playoffs this season.
