I just posted this article on DRaysBay.com and it got added to the main article section, so I figured I'd should re-post it over here as well. I think it mostly got posted because it was an attempt to stop people from endlessly debating which pitcher is better, Sonnanstine or Jackson. I swear, arguments on DRaysBay can end up going in circles because some of the commenters refuse to accept the other point of view or at least concede some points. But anyway, here's the article:
To help distract us from more pointless Sonnanstine/Jackson debates, I figured I'd post something that's been on my mind for a little bit. After watching Kazmir pitch last night and seeing how well Shields has been pitching this year, I couldn't but think that we've got one of, if not the best, 1-2 punch in all of the AL East. Let's think about this...
Rays
#1: Scott Kazmir
#2: James Shields
This may seem weird to say after Kaz's really awesome performance last night, but if you ask me, I feel like Shields is quickly developing into our staff ace. He has already assumed a vocal team leadership role on this team, taught Percy and Kazmir his change-up, and has put up really impressive numbers so far this season. He's also had one of the most dominant outings from any (Devil) Ray pitcher, he's pitched multiple complete games already, he doesn't walk many batters, and he is much more economical with his pitches than Kazmir. Of course, Kaz looked much more economical last night and could be poised for a big break-out year himself. Thoughts? Opinions? Who will be our staff ace by the end of the year? Personally, as weird as it may sound, I currently feel more secure with Shields on the mound than Kazmir.
Boston
#1: Josh Beckett
#2: Dice-K
Beckett is just...well, awesome. But Dice-K is not the staff ace that Boston thought they were paying for when they put up that $50M posting fee. He had a 4+ ERA last year and although he currently has a 2.50 ERA this year, his K:BB ratio is screaming that his ERA is bound to rise soon. Heck, he's walked 8 hitters in one game this year, which is just absolutely ridiculous. Then again, Dice-K did have a much better K:BB ratio last year than he does this year, so that will probably improve some as well. This is up for debate (depending on how much you like Dice-K and how much you think Kaz and Shields will improve this year), but I personally say advantage Rays.
Orioles
#1: Jeremy Guthrie
#2: Daniel Cabrera
Okay....is this the year that young, chronically wild flamethrowers finally find the strikezone? So far, it's certainly looking good for Jackson and Cabrera. While I'm still not completely sold on either of them, they are certainly looking like they're making improvements and who knows? This could be the year these guys finally put it together and if so, watch out AL. However, despite all that, this duo still has nothing on Kaz and Shields. Too unproven and heck, who is Jeremy Guthrie?
Jays
#1: Roy Halladay
#2: AJ Burnett
Roy Halladay is probably one of the most underrated pitchers in the league, simply because he pitches in Canada and well, those Blue Jay never get any love. He's a model of consistency since he first broke into the league, almost always posting ERAs in the low 3s. Burnett, on the other hand, is brilliant when healthy, but he's certainly had a hard time with that since joining the Blue Jays. He has yet to get over 30 starts in one season with the Blue Jays and over the course of his career, he's only topped 30 starts in two seasons. However, he is a heck of a pitcher when healthy. This year he hasn't been that effective yet (4.79 ERA, 1.48 WHIP, 49:27 K:BB), but I think he has too much talent not to turn it around as long as he's healthy. However, both Burnett and Halladay are currently 31 and most likely beyond their peak years. While they'll probably still be effective for some years, Shields is 26 and Kaz is 24, plus their both locked up by the Rays for years to come. I think that fact alone gives the advantage to the Rays.
Yankees
#1: Ching Ming-Wang
#2: Andy Pettite
Wang is a true ace, despite him not being a strikeout pitcher. However, the Yankee rotation ends there. Andy Pettite (36 years old) and Mike Mussina (39 years old) in slots 2 and 3? Sure, they're still decent pitchers, but nothing like how they were in their peaks. If the Yankees get Hughes back on the right track or switch Joba to the rotation, then maybe they'll be able to challenge Kaz and Shields. As of now, though, they simply don't have the depth. The Yankee rotation is just a mess at the moment.
Okay...so that was nowhere near a systematic analysis or anything, but I think if you look up the stats, they'll back up many of my conclusions. I was just feeling too lazy tonight to put a bunch of stats in. But anyway, thoughts? Which 1-2 punch do you think is the best this year? The best to build a franchise around? Also, because I'm really curious, who do you think is our staff ace...Shields or Kazmir?
Showing posts with label New York Yankees. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New York Yankees. Show all posts
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Damn...
Well, so much for 3 of 4 from the Yanks, though I have to say, I'm perfectly happy with a split (which is basically what this is going to be, seeing as Hammel pitches tomorrow). Our pitching staff game us another solid performance today and definitely gave our offense a chance to win this one, but Wang, Joba, and Mo out-shone us today. But hey, since when have the Rays ever been able to say that they've been in every game that they've played against the Yanks? This is certainly an encouraging thing.
On a negative note, though, Shields didn't have the best day out there. He did manage to limit the Yanks to 2 runs over 5 innings, which is always a good thing, but he let up a heck of a lot of baserunners. Not many walks at least, but the Yanks got a lot of hits off of him. This probably means nothing besides that the Yankee offense woke up a little bit today, but we've just come to expect better from Shields. In the end, though, he only let up 2 runs and that's what counts the most.
One slightly worrisome piece of news: Longoria has yet to get a hit or draw a walk in his first three AAA games this year. I know it's a small sample size and all, but come on man....we need you to destroy the league so you can be up in a month. Start mashing the ball already, geez.
I really want to try this sometime this season...
Also, add this book to my wishlist, for sure. Highly recommended by RJ Anderson from DRaysBay, probably the one blogger whose opinion I respect the most (well, minus anyone from this site, obviously).
On a negative note, though, Shields didn't have the best day out there. He did manage to limit the Yanks to 2 runs over 5 innings, which is always a good thing, but he let up a heck of a lot of baserunners. Not many walks at least, but the Yanks got a lot of hits off of him. This probably means nothing besides that the Yankee offense woke up a little bit today, but we've just come to expect better from Shields. In the end, though, he only let up 2 runs and that's what counts the most.
One slightly worrisome piece of news: Longoria has yet to get a hit or draw a walk in his first three AAA games this year. I know it's a small sample size and all, but come on man....we need you to destroy the league so you can be up in a month. Start mashing the ball already, geez.
I really want to try this sometime this season...
Also, add this book to my wishlist, for sure. Highly recommended by RJ Anderson from DRaysBay, probably the one blogger whose opinion I respect the most (well, minus anyone from this site, obviously).
I'm back!
Well, that was a long hiatus. I certainly did not mean to miss out on posting for the entire month of March, especially considering some very interesting developments happened with the Rays during that month. Thankfully, Joe was awesome enough to cover the Elliot Johnson incident and everything. I think I was in Ireland during the time that had all broken out, so that's my excuse for not being right on top of things.
But anyway, take a look at the Rays! 3-1 and they've knocked the Yanks around some during these past two games. Sure, a couple games don't necesarily mean anything in the long run, but if you're a Rays fan, you can't help but be really happy right now. Since when have the Rays ever done something like this in the past? They've gotten solid starting pitching so far, awesome bullpen outings, and they've managed to win two games in a row on the road. Heck, the Rays were atrocious on the road last year (29-52), while going 37-44 at home. If the Rays can keep up this intensity and, most importantly, pitching, things are definitely looking up for the season. Of course, I'm not going to expect E-Jax to maintain his 1.50 ERA or anything, but he did show a lot of resilience last night, settling down after starting off really shaky. At this point, Jason Hammel is going to have to pitch ridiculously well tonight to keep his spot in the rotation when Kaz comes back...
More Ray news will be forthcoming, but for now, I'm going to leave you with a link that I've found particularly interesting recently. It's an interesting look at the DH and why pitchers should never hit. Sorry, Joe, but I actually might agree with this article. The AL certainly has its pluses and honestly, I'm all for tradition and keeping things the way they always have been, but pitchers hitting doesn't seem to make much sense these days. The DH has permeated every level of the game down to high school ball and is even there in the minors, so why should things only be different in the NL? But anyway, read the article for yourself and decide.
Why Pitchers Should Never Hit
But anyway, take a look at the Rays! 3-1 and they've knocked the Yanks around some during these past two games. Sure, a couple games don't necesarily mean anything in the long run, but if you're a Rays fan, you can't help but be really happy right now. Since when have the Rays ever done something like this in the past? They've gotten solid starting pitching so far, awesome bullpen outings, and they've managed to win two games in a row on the road. Heck, the Rays were atrocious on the road last year (29-52), while going 37-44 at home. If the Rays can keep up this intensity and, most importantly, pitching, things are definitely looking up for the season. Of course, I'm not going to expect E-Jax to maintain his 1.50 ERA or anything, but he did show a lot of resilience last night, settling down after starting off really shaky. At this point, Jason Hammel is going to have to pitch ridiculously well tonight to keep his spot in the rotation when Kaz comes back...
More Ray news will be forthcoming, but for now, I'm going to leave you with a link that I've found particularly interesting recently. It's an interesting look at the DH and why pitchers should never hit. Sorry, Joe, but I actually might agree with this article. The AL certainly has its pluses and honestly, I'm all for tradition and keeping things the way they always have been, but pitchers hitting doesn't seem to make much sense these days. The DH has permeated every level of the game down to high school ball and is even there in the minors, so why should things only be different in the NL? But anyway, read the article for yourself and decide.
Why Pitchers Should Never Hit
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Why I'm a Rays Fan
I believe that there's some explanation in order, since the fact that I'm a Ray fan probably seems as foreign and weird to most people as the fact that curling is actually popular somewhere. I am in no way trying to sway anyone's support or convince others to become Ray fans but hey, it it happens, I'm certainly not complaining.
My journey to enlightenment started somewhere around the spring of 2003, I believe. As I mentioned in my last post, a bunch of my friends and I were self-publishing a baseball magazine to sell in our high school. Up until this point, I'd been a born-and-raised Yankee fan and I had no desire at all to go against my family's favorite team. However, this is also the year that Rocco Baldelli got called up by the Devil Rays and became an overnight sensation due to the fact that he had quite possibly the best baseball name of all time and that he batted around .350 for his entire first month or so in the majors. One of my friends wrote an article for our magazine about how Baldelli could be considered the most important player in baseball at the time, since he was actually causing excitement for a team as lowly as the Devil Rays. Later on that year, I first jokingly referred to myself as a D-Ray fan. At the time, I had no idea how true that would play out to be.
The big turning point happened during that next offseason, when the Yankees went nuts after losing the Series to the Marlins and did what in my mind was a complete rehaul. They let Andy Pettite go (and Roger Clemens, but I didn't care nearly as much about him as I did about Andy) and they signed every big name player out there in the free agent pool: Javier Vasquez, Kevin Brown, Esteban Loaiza (who was coming off his only great year), Paul Quantrill, Tom Gordon, and Gary Sheffield. Oh, and they also traded for that Rodriguez guy. Ever since they lost the Series in 2001, getting the biggest guns available out there became the Yankee strategy. For an idea how ludricrous this was, take a look at these numbers...
2000 payroll: $92.9 million (1st in the league by $2 million)
2001 payroll: $112.3 million (1st in the league by $3 million)
2002 payroll: $125.9 million (1st in the league by $17.5 million)
2003 payroll: $152.7 million (1st in the league by $35.5 million)
2004 payroll: $184.2 million (1st in the league by $57 million)
2005 payroll: $208.3 million (1st in the league by $84.8 million)
If I were to graph this, it'd remind me a heck of a lot of graphs of worldwide population growth. While it took humans from the year 10,000 BC until 1804 AD to reach a population size of 1 billion, it only took us 123 years to reach our next billion. And then another 13 years to reach the next billion. And so on and so forth until we've now already eclipsed 6 billion humans living on this planet at one time. In the same way, it took baseball since its inception in the 1800s until 2001 for a team to break the $100 million dollar barrier. Four years later, the $200 million barrier was shattered as well. Since then the Yankees have scaled back and Brian Cashman has begun trying to rectify the mess they created, but the damage was already done.
Attribute their spending to market trends and inflation is you want, but I couldn't help but be disgusted with the Yankees' spending. Does having the largest pocketbook make you a great team? How can you feel good about winning when with that large a payroll, you're expected to win? And what happened to the history and tradition of the Yankee franchise? Do stars honestly think that you can become a "Yankee great" just by signing with the Yankees and playing a couple seasons there? Players like Lou Gehrig, Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio, Whitey Ford, Yogi Berra...they were all homegrown talent that stayed with the Yankees for their whole careers. True, there are some exceptions to the rule...Babe Ruth and Roger Maris were traded for, but even they spent the vast majority of their years playing baseball in a Yankee uniform.
So in my mind, none of the players that the Yankees signed were or are true Yankees. Jeter, Posada, Bernie, Rivera, Pettite...those are true Yankees. The rest of them were just after big money and a World Series title, so in my mind they were a disgrace to the uniform. The Yankees had turned from a team of destiny in '96 to a team of sell outs. I simply couldn't stand it.
I gave the Yankees one last chance to redeem themselves, but when they lost in the playoffs in 2004 after being up 3 games to none to the Red Sox, I decided that the baseball gods had just passed their judgement. I knew before the World Series even started that the Red Sox would win. Once they'd beaten the Yankees, it was inevitable. The Yankees had so disgraced the name of their franchise, the Curse of the Bambino had broken. The way I like to see it, Babe Ruth figured that if the current Yankees were content to ignore the history and tradition of their franchise, then he didn't have to screw the Red Sox over for them anymore. The Yankees brought their ruin upon themselves.
In response, I switched allegiances. I switched from the team with the highest payroll to the team with the lowest, which at the time was the Devil Rays. Actually, the Brewers had the lowest payroll in 2004, but I was too attached to the AL East to make that drastic a switch. And anyway, the D-Rays were just so helpless. They'd completely and thoroughly sucked ever since their inception, so I wanted a taste of that misery. As I was observing, Red Sox fans had suffered for years on end, but it only made their eventual World Series win 86 years later all the more sweet. So hey, maybe I'm setting myself up for years and years of suffering, but at least the (Devil) Rays are running a franchise like I believe it's supposed to be built: using home-grown talent.
Heck, no one can accuse a Ray of being there for the money. Even recent signgings Troy Percival and Cliff Floyd aren't in it for the money, but because as they proclaim, they want to be a part of something great that's happening in Tampa. Carlos Pena just signed a 3 year contract to stay with the Rays, even though he could most definitely command more than what he signed for in the free agent pool. To me, this is a team that really has their hearts in the right place.
Also, this team has a bunch of players that you just can't help but root for. There's Scott Kazmir, who's been told time and time again that he's too small to be a starter. You have Rocco Baldelli, who has so much talent but such a fragile body. You have Jonny Gomes, whose family was in and out of a homeless shelter when he was growing up. Oh, and if that wasn't enough, he had a heart attack at the age of 22. But despite it all, he's up there swinging for the fences and playing his heart out every game he gets a chance. He donates to all sorts of charities and runs a baseball camp back in his hometown, so how can you not root for the guy?
Then there's Carlos Pena, who came out of nowhere to have an amazing season last year, and you'll never find a player who seems to enjoy himself more playing the game of baseball. There is always a smile on his face, a spark in his eye, and praise on his lips. He certainly doesn't take his success for granted, but takes every opportunity to express how lucky he has been to be where he is now. And you can't ignore Carl Crawford, who has always been the epitome of class even though he's suffered through 6 losing seasons as a Devil Ray. He has never trash talked the franchise, like fellow long-timers Aubrey Huff and Toby Hall. Instead, he signed a deal a couple years ago that keeps him as a Ray and at a much cheaper price than he'd get on the open market. How classy is that?
If you haven't figured it out by now, the Rays are a collection of good guys, feel-good stories, and underdogs trying to beat the odds. And then there's the Yankees, where all you have is more and more A-Rod drama. I'm sorry, but I'm definitely sticking with the Rays.
So that's my story. I certainly hope that the Yankees one day return to their roots and learn that home-grown talent is better than signing new free agents every year. They made great strides this offseason by not trading for Santana and instead hanging on to Phil Hughes, Ian Kennedy, Melky Cabrera, and Joba Chamberlain. Now if they can only get rid of Damon, Giambi, Abreu, and A-Rod, I'd consider rooting hard for them again. At this point, though, my heart lies in one place and one place only....Go Rays!
My journey to enlightenment started somewhere around the spring of 2003, I believe. As I mentioned in my last post, a bunch of my friends and I were self-publishing a baseball magazine to sell in our high school. Up until this point, I'd been a born-and-raised Yankee fan and I had no desire at all to go against my family's favorite team. However, this is also the year that Rocco Baldelli got called up by the Devil Rays and became an overnight sensation due to the fact that he had quite possibly the best baseball name of all time and that he batted around .350 for his entire first month or so in the majors. One of my friends wrote an article for our magazine about how Baldelli could be considered the most important player in baseball at the time, since he was actually causing excitement for a team as lowly as the Devil Rays. Later on that year, I first jokingly referred to myself as a D-Ray fan. At the time, I had no idea how true that would play out to be.
The big turning point happened during that next offseason, when the Yankees went nuts after losing the Series to the Marlins and did what in my mind was a complete rehaul. They let Andy Pettite go (and Roger Clemens, but I didn't care nearly as much about him as I did about Andy) and they signed every big name player out there in the free agent pool: Javier Vasquez, Kevin Brown, Esteban Loaiza (who was coming off his only great year), Paul Quantrill, Tom Gordon, and Gary Sheffield. Oh, and they also traded for that Rodriguez guy. Ever since they lost the Series in 2001, getting the biggest guns available out there became the Yankee strategy. For an idea how ludricrous this was, take a look at these numbers...
2000 payroll: $92.9 million (1st in the league by $2 million)
2001 payroll: $112.3 million (1st in the league by $3 million)
2002 payroll: $125.9 million (1st in the league by $17.5 million)
2003 payroll: $152.7 million (1st in the league by $35.5 million)
2004 payroll: $184.2 million (1st in the league by $57 million)
2005 payroll: $208.3 million (1st in the league by $84.8 million)
If I were to graph this, it'd remind me a heck of a lot of graphs of worldwide population growth. While it took humans from the year 10,000 BC until 1804 AD to reach a population size of 1 billion, it only took us 123 years to reach our next billion. And then another 13 years to reach the next billion. And so on and so forth until we've now already eclipsed 6 billion humans living on this planet at one time. In the same way, it took baseball since its inception in the 1800s until 2001 for a team to break the $100 million dollar barrier. Four years later, the $200 million barrier was shattered as well. Since then the Yankees have scaled back and Brian Cashman has begun trying to rectify the mess they created, but the damage was already done.
Attribute their spending to market trends and inflation is you want, but I couldn't help but be disgusted with the Yankees' spending. Does having the largest pocketbook make you a great team? How can you feel good about winning when with that large a payroll, you're expected to win? And what happened to the history and tradition of the Yankee franchise? Do stars honestly think that you can become a "Yankee great" just by signing with the Yankees and playing a couple seasons there? Players like Lou Gehrig, Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio, Whitey Ford, Yogi Berra...they were all homegrown talent that stayed with the Yankees for their whole careers. True, there are some exceptions to the rule...Babe Ruth and Roger Maris were traded for, but even they spent the vast majority of their years playing baseball in a Yankee uniform.
So in my mind, none of the players that the Yankees signed were or are true Yankees. Jeter, Posada, Bernie, Rivera, Pettite...those are true Yankees. The rest of them were just after big money and a World Series title, so in my mind they were a disgrace to the uniform. The Yankees had turned from a team of destiny in '96 to a team of sell outs. I simply couldn't stand it.
I gave the Yankees one last chance to redeem themselves, but when they lost in the playoffs in 2004 after being up 3 games to none to the Red Sox, I decided that the baseball gods had just passed their judgement. I knew before the World Series even started that the Red Sox would win. Once they'd beaten the Yankees, it was inevitable. The Yankees had so disgraced the name of their franchise, the Curse of the Bambino had broken. The way I like to see it, Babe Ruth figured that if the current Yankees were content to ignore the history and tradition of their franchise, then he didn't have to screw the Red Sox over for them anymore. The Yankees brought their ruin upon themselves.
In response, I switched allegiances. I switched from the team with the highest payroll to the team with the lowest, which at the time was the Devil Rays. Actually, the Brewers had the lowest payroll in 2004, but I was too attached to the AL East to make that drastic a switch. And anyway, the D-Rays were just so helpless. They'd completely and thoroughly sucked ever since their inception, so I wanted a taste of that misery. As I was observing, Red Sox fans had suffered for years on end, but it only made their eventual World Series win 86 years later all the more sweet. So hey, maybe I'm setting myself up for years and years of suffering, but at least the (Devil) Rays are running a franchise like I believe it's supposed to be built: using home-grown talent.
Heck, no one can accuse a Ray of being there for the money. Even recent signgings Troy Percival and Cliff Floyd aren't in it for the money, but because as they proclaim, they want to be a part of something great that's happening in Tampa. Carlos Pena just signed a 3 year contract to stay with the Rays, even though he could most definitely command more than what he signed for in the free agent pool. To me, this is a team that really has their hearts in the right place.
Also, this team has a bunch of players that you just can't help but root for. There's Scott Kazmir, who's been told time and time again that he's too small to be a starter. You have Rocco Baldelli, who has so much talent but such a fragile body. You have Jonny Gomes, whose family was in and out of a homeless shelter when he was growing up. Oh, and if that wasn't enough, he had a heart attack at the age of 22. But despite it all, he's up there swinging for the fences and playing his heart out every game he gets a chance. He donates to all sorts of charities and runs a baseball camp back in his hometown, so how can you not root for the guy?
Then there's Carlos Pena, who came out of nowhere to have an amazing season last year, and you'll never find a player who seems to enjoy himself more playing the game of baseball. There is always a smile on his face, a spark in his eye, and praise on his lips. He certainly doesn't take his success for granted, but takes every opportunity to express how lucky he has been to be where he is now. And you can't ignore Carl Crawford, who has always been the epitome of class even though he's suffered through 6 losing seasons as a Devil Ray. He has never trash talked the franchise, like fellow long-timers Aubrey Huff and Toby Hall. Instead, he signed a deal a couple years ago that keeps him as a Ray and at a much cheaper price than he'd get on the open market. How classy is that?
If you haven't figured it out by now, the Rays are a collection of good guys, feel-good stories, and underdogs trying to beat the odds. And then there's the Yankees, where all you have is more and more A-Rod drama. I'm sorry, but I'm definitely sticking with the Rays.
So that's my story. I certainly hope that the Yankees one day return to their roots and learn that home-grown talent is better than signing new free agents every year. They made great strides this offseason by not trading for Santana and instead hanging on to Phil Hughes, Ian Kennedy, Melky Cabrera, and Joba Chamberlain. Now if they can only get rid of Damon, Giambi, Abreu, and A-Rod, I'd consider rooting hard for them again. At this point, though, my heart lies in one place and one place only....Go Rays!
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