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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Hmm. Irrelevance huh? His proof, the Rays don’t have money. And that has stopped the Rays in the past? Mr. Ingram has not followed the Rays since their inception as I have and is unaware of how this franchise manages to produce a quality team despite their regional market. He claims that trying to compete for a division title beyond this season would be a “pipe dream”.

Ingram states that Carl Crawford, Carlos Pena and Rafael Soriano might all be gone after this season. True. Crawford will sorely be missed, along with Soriano. Carlos Pena, there is the exit out the front door of the Trop my man, a clean-up batter cannot be batting under .200.

But what the writer of the post states is that there is no way that the Rays will ever come close to challenging for the AL East title after this year because of the Rays payroll. I totally disagree. The Rays had a 73 million dollar payroll this season, well below that of the 207 million dollar New York Yankees as well as the Boston/Pawtucket Red Sox and they didn’t win the division.

Money does not buy championships. Ask Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder how that 100 million dollar contract for Albert Haynesworth is working out for him. Game play elevates during the playoffs in every sport regardless of payrolls, the Texas Rangers were in bankruptcy court for most of the season this year. The San Diego Padres which were in contention until the final game of the season have an entire payroll which is half of what Minnesota Vikings QB Brett Favre will make for just 16 games this year.

Yes, Carl Crawford will likely head off to another team and sign a contract upwards of over 17 million for a season and great for Carl, he’s proven himself in the majors and deserves to get paid. Desmond Jennings will replace him in left field. Carlos Pena will be gone and I’m perfectly fine with that. Dan Johnson can platoon at 1st. Wade Davis or James Shields might be shipped out in a trade with another team, I’ve been a fan of what the front office has done for the most part regarding trades. Jeremy Hellickson will most likely be in the rotation next season, and why not? And for those of you who don’t follow the farm system all that much, there is Matt Moore who will make an appearance with the Rays at some point in 2011. Moore struck out 211 batters in only 144.2 innings and held opponents to a .211 BA and he is another lefty.

I appreciate the Red Sox fans giving the Rays such valued information, and I’ll file this away as useful, errr….useless information as I expect regardless of the outcome of the Rangers/Rays series, the Tampa Bay Rays will continue to put a quality product on the field in 2011. Mark Kriegel of Foxsports.com called the Tampa Bay Rays the best run sports organization in ALL of professional sports. You can read his report here.

You Boston fans which are so caring about the future of the Tampa Bay Rays, simply worry about your own team and your 22nd ranked team ERA and bloated payroll. We could care less about your chowda and your concern about our team. Talk of the Red Sox takes me back, oh I don’t know, almost three years ago now to a reporter named Mike Duca. A reporter at that time which wrote for the nearly irrelevant Cape Cod Times. Duca was covering the Red Sox while they were trying to extort my local county commission to build a new spring training facility and wrote a scathing article about how horrible my home town is. No Duca, I haven’t forgotten your comments, and you will live forever, as long as I write this column or a different one you jackass. Duca in his own words is a typical New England elitist and despises my hometown, I no longer think he writes for the rag so I don’t know what has become of him.

So Red Sox fans, I appreciate your concern for the Rays well-being, but I think you have your own in-house issues to address this offseason. Move along and address your own in-house issues. I don’t see the Red Sox in the playoff boxscores, maybe I missed that.

Regardless of what happens later this afternoon, the Tampa Bay Rays have won the AL East for 2010 after the Boston Red Sox defeated the New York Yankees 8-4 this afternoon. The Boston Red Sox pitched John Lackey (14-11 4.40)  this afternoon and he threw a very nice game, pitching 7.2 innings, struck out 10 and only allowed 2 earned runs.

This now means that the Tampa Bay Rays will start the post season in Tampa, taking on the Texas Rangers on Wednesday. Tampa Bay is currently tied 2-2 in the 9th inning with the Kansas City Royals, but the game now is inconsequential.

I certainly would like t see the Rays win this last regular season game and go into the playoffs with a couple game winning streak.

Are the Tampa Bay Rays simply content to start the playoffs as the AL wildcard team? They certainly aren’t playing with any sense of urgency. The Rays managed two hits last night. TWO, as the Rays once again managed to make an average pitcher look like a Cy Young contender. Veteran left hander Bruce Chen pitched a 7 strikeout 2 hit complete game and his first career shutout for the Kansas City Royals.

Last nights game should prove to Tampa that James Shields should play no role whatsoever in the playoff pitching rotation. Shields was rocked again last evening for 12 hits and 6 earned runs in just 5 innings pitched. Shields has only three wins in his last 10 starts and now has an ERA of 5.18. Shields ERA for the month of September is at 7.00.

The New York Yankees moved ahead of the Tampa Bay Rays bu a 1/2 a game by virtue of their game being postponed due to the remnants of Tropical Storm Nicole moving through the area. The Yankees and Red Sox will make their game up this afternoon in a doubleheader starting at 4pm EST.

The Rays have now lost 5 of their last 6 games and their feast or famine offense continues plodding along. With last nights 2 hitter, Tampa Bay has now been held to 6 hits or less 56 times in 2010, the most in the majors. That really is an odd statistic for the team which held the best record in baseball for a long while this season.

Tampa has two games remaining on the regular season schedule. The Rays are starting Andy Sonnanstine in tonight’s game but will find a way to get David Price into the game for 30-40 pitches in a final tuneup before the playoffs start. The appearance by Price might allow him an opportunity to reach 20 wins this season depending on how the game unfolds.

With last night’s loss to the Royals the Tampa Bay Rays failed to post a winning record against all of their AL opponents for the season. This is not the way I would like the Rays to be heading for the post season, hopefully in these final two games, the Rays can generate some offense and record  two wins.

The start of the playoffs are a wwk away and the teams in the American League don’t appear to be playing very good baseball right now. The Tampa Bay Rays and the Texans Rangers are the only two AL teams which have played .500 ball in their last 10 games. The Minnesota Twins are in the midst of a 4 game slide and the New York Yankees are winners of only 4 of their last 10 games.

Last week, it appeared that the Minnesota Twins might wind up with home field advantage in the playoffs, but they ended up getting swept by the Detroit Tigers, and lost a 10-8 slugfest to the lowly Kansas City Royals last night.

Tampa Bays magic number to clinch a playoff berth remains at just 1 game after being shut out last night by the Baltimore Orioles of all teams. Heading into Sunday’s game against the Seattle mariners, Tampa held a 1 1/2 game lead over the Yankees but let another game slip away, losing 6-2 to the Seattle Mariners.

The New York Yankees aren’t playing any better either. New York defeated the Boston Red Sox on Sunday 4-3 to snap a four game losing streak. The Yankees have not had a very good month, and will end September with a losing record. Currently, the Yankees have 11 wins and 14 losses for the month of September.

You would hope that your team would be playing a bit more inspired baseball at this time of the season and not struggling to finish the month at .500. Tampa is 12-12 for the month so far with two games to go.

I realize once the playoffs start, the intensity level is ratcheted up to the next level, but you also are disappointed to see your team playing so poorly against teams they should easily beat.

The Tampa Bay Rays defeated the Seattle Mariners 9-1 last evening, extending their winning streak to four games and extending their A.L. East lead over the Yankees to 1.5 games. I can’t believe I am typing this, but I’ve suddenly become a Boston Red Sox fan, as the Boston Red Sox defeated the New York Yankees again last night, as the reeling Yankees dropped their fourth consecutive game.The Texas Rangers secured a playoff berth for the first time since 1999 with their win last evening.

Rays starting pitcher Matt Garza collected his career high 15th win and pitched an exceptional game, allowing 8 hits in 7 innings one earned run and striking out 5.

Tampa’s offense continued rolling, managing 12 hits last evening. The 26,247 fans at the Trop last evening were able to see home runs from Matt Joyce and B.J. Upton. Upton also contributed a triple.

Tampa’s magic number to secure at least a wildcard berth is now down to 2 games. Any Combination of Tampa Bay Rays wins or Boston Red Sox losses which add up to two, means the Rays will see post season play for just the second time in their short career.

Sunday afternoon will be the final game of the season against the Seattle Mariners. The question is, will there be more folks at the Trop or over in Raymond James Stadium? At least one Bay area team is going to the playoffs this season.

Luke French (4-6 4.23) will be on the mound for the Seattle Mariners against James “You never know What you’ll Get” Shields (13-13 4.96) This certainly has been a very disappointing season for Shields and he is coming off two losses and two no decisions in his last four starts.

The Tampa Bay Rays came away from Friday night’s game with a win but a win which looked a lot more probable after the first inning than it did in the 9th inning. Tampa Bay jumped out to a 6-0 lead in the first and led 7-1 after they pounded Toronto Blue Jays starter Brett Cecil for 7 earned runs and chased him from the game after 54 pitches in just two innings. Ben Zobrist and B.J. Upron both hit home runs for the Rays. That is Upton’s 4th home run in his last five games. That’s a good thing because quite frankly as inconsistent as the Rays are playing right now, Tampa needs each and every run they can muster.

After leading the Blue Jays 8-1 after the top of the 4th inning, the Rays allowed the Blue Jays right back into the game. Shields departed after 5 innings allowing 4 runs, Randy Choke, I mean Choate gave up two earned runs and before you know it, the game is tied 8-8 heading into the 9th inning.

Tampa managed to win the game without a hit. Three straight walks and a bobbled throw allow Sean Rodriguez to score from third. Soriano entered in the bottom of the 9th to collect his 41st save. He is now one away from tying the all-time save record for the Rays.

As scary a win as it was for the Tampa Bay Rays, it was a beneficial win as well. Never mind it was a Friday night win, it was a win which was coupled with a New York Yankee and Boston Red Sox loss so the Rays picked up ground in both the division race as well as the wildcard race.

Today’s pitching matchup features Wade Davis (11-9 4.39) going up against Rickey Romero (12-8 3.51) If you would have told me prior to the All-Star break that in September Davis would be one of the most consistent pitchers on the Rays staff, I would have said consistently bad. However, Davis has not lost an outing since losing to the Arizona Diamondbacks on June 27th. Davis is 6-0 with a 3.97 ERA in his last 9 starts.

I’ll take the win, however ugly. They all can’t be masterpieces. But you’d think that the team which has the best road record in major league baseball could be playing a little better. The Rays starters during this road trip have posted a ERA of 7.88 and have only one quality start.