Long time no see..

So man, it's certainly been awhile since I've shown my face on this blog. Where can I even begin? My Rays!! Oh man, despite the bittersweet finish to the World Series, I could not have been more happy with the way the season worked out in the end. Who would have ever picked us to win 97 games last year? Absolutely ridiculous...that was too awesome for words. And I have to say, I would not be surprised in the least if that one season just made me a Rays fan for life. I have so many memories already attached to the team and experienced so much joy from this past season, I can't see myself ever rooting for another team.

At the same time, though, I don't know if I could ever limit myself to simply rooting for one team for the rest of my life. The way I see it, I was a huge fan of the Yankees back in the late 90s, but I jumped ship once I lost faith in the way that they were running their franchise. Now, I like to think that I won't do that again if the Rays ever start heading in the wrong direction, but I can't say for sure. I do know that at this point, I would find it very, very tough to root for a team whose front-office philosophy does not match my own. If the Rays ownership ever changes hands and start to import expensive talent like the Yankees are constantly doing, I very well might jump ship again.

I feel like this is an interesting question: do you root hardcore for your favorite team forever and ever, 'til death do you part, regardless of the direction and philosophy of the franchise? Are there any strings attached to your fan-dom? Could ever a hypothetical situation arise where you cut ties with your current favorite and pick up another? I must say, I have and incredible amount of respect for those people that can continue to root for teams like the Kansas City Royals despite the fact that their on-the-field product is horrible and their front office has an atrocious philosophy towards building a team. I respect them, but I can't ever imagine being the same way.

Maybe it makes me less of a "true fan", but I feel that like in any good relationship, both sides need to be able to get something out of the deal. Why should I pay you money if you refuse to even try to build a winning team? Also, I'm not about to stick around in a relationship with a team that I cannot connect to - a team that I do not hold the same values as. Does that make sense? I'm probably being a bit overly dramatic with this whole analogy, since I'm basically comparing rooting for a sports team to marriage, but I feel like the analogy holds true and does have something to it. There's a lot of time and money and emotion put into rooting for a team, so why root for a team that you don't have anything in common with and that doesn't care about you? It doesn't make sense in a relationship...it doesn't make sense as a fan.

Anyway, that was a long tangent, but I like the concept. For now, though, I'm totally loving the Rays - I love their current team of players and I love their front-office philosophy. It's a good match. Go Rays!

Best Pitchers in the AL East?

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?

PS...

Yay Rays!

I'm incredibly happy today, just so you know :-D

Relishing the Glory

Sending vaguely nasty facebook comments to all the Red Sox fans I know wasn't quite enough, so here are a bunch of the articles I've enjoyed reading today. Just simply soaking up the glory of this series...

It's April, but who cares?

Was this series the most important one in (Devil) Ray history?

Leading the AL East!

Go Rays!

Holy. Crap.

Wooohoo!! 3-game sweep of the Red Sox at home!! And now, if things keep going the way they're going and Baltimore loses to the White Sox tonight, we'll be tied for first place in the AL East with them. Plus, we're squaring off against Baltimore in our next series and Kaz is looking to come back on Thursday, so oh man....this is just too friggin' exciting. I just can't contain myself right now!

Oh, and by the way, that Longoria guy is pretty f-ing incredible. He made a couple amazing grabs at third today plus after striking out twice against Josh Beckett, he comes back in his third at bat and blasts a homerun against him. I love Longo more and more every day...

And Shields pitched a monster of a game tonight. Pitching a complete game, two-hit shutout against the Red Sox? That's just something else.

On a completely random subject, apparently the Rays are a great deal if you want to go see them at home. There's free carpool parking, plus college kids can get tickets for $5 on Friday nights along with $1 hot dogs. If only I lived in Tampa...

Happy 10 Year Anniversary of Suckiness!

I recently posted this on Facebook in the blog for the Tampa Bay Rays Fan application. Apparently if I'm not too late, I might be able to win a prize (a nifty icon on Facebook!) for it. I figured you guys might enjoy it as well...

"Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;
But there is no joy in Mudville - mighty Casey has struck out."

For years, this quote from Ernest L. Thayer's immortal "Casey at the Bat" was very fitting for the Devil Rays franchise. If you slightly changed the last line, just imagine how many different situations it applied to:

"But there is no joy in Tampa - mighty [insert name here*] has struck out."

* Choose one: Aubrey Huff, Jared Sandberg, Greg Vaughn, Jose Canseco, Vinny Castilla, Ben Grieve, Toby Hall, Jorge Cantu, Joey Gathright, Elijah Dukes, Dewon Brazelton (struck out as a pitching prospect), Lou Piniella, Josh Hamilton (damn the Reds!), etc.

If you couldn't get my drift or you've been in a coma for the last ten years, the Devil Rays sucked. No ifs ands or butts; they’ve been utterly atrocious ever since they first joined the league ten years ago in 1998. Through a combination of bad luck and a horrendously bad front office, the Devil Rays managed to bungle their way to a 645-972 record (a .399 winning percentage), losing over 100 games in three of ten seasons. They’ve become masters at being “forgettably bad” – not bad enough to become lovable losers like the 1962 Mets or 2003 Tigers and not good enough to justify people actually liking them. Instead, they’ve just wallowed in the moldering bog of suckiness, swallowing any player with actual talent and turning them into Dewon Brazelton.

After the 2005 season, though, everything started to change. Vince Namoli and his cronies left town after eight loooong years (sound familiar?), bought out by the baseball equivalent of Barack Obama - Stuart Sternberg. While Sternberg wasn’t nearly as elegant or good looking as Barack Obama, Sternberg came in very inexperienced but preaching about, “dramatic change for this organization.” Him and Matthew Silverman (President/GM) reshaped the team’s infrastructure and started pampering to their fans, enticing them with free parking and many new upgrades to Tropicana Field. Even if the team on the field wasn’t much different the next year, the mindset in the front office had definitely changed. “There are teams that spend quite a bit of money and don't have much success,” Sternberg said, “There are teams that spend a bit less and have a lot of success. We just want to have success.”

Now, if Obama could be as successful turning our country around as Sternberg and Matthew Silverman (president/GM) has been turning the Devil Rays around, I wouldn’t be surprised if within three years, we all have global health care and Iraq has a settled, stable government. Ever since Silverman took over, the Devil Rays have significantly improved to the point where this off-season, they finally shed themselves of their cocoon and for the first time ever, became a major league ball club. They invested money in free agents needed to make the team better, they signed key players to long-term contracts, and they finally committed to the idea of winning now. No more of this “winning-in-five-years” crap, thank goodness. And what better way to symbolize this change than by changing their team name, logo, and uniforms? Oh, and they released plans for a new stadium. In short, the Devil Rays and their ten years of suckiness are no more. The Rays, gay burst of sunshine and all, are here to play and they mean business.

In the end, though, how much can we really expect from the Rays this season? Sure, they front office may have added Troy Percival, Cliff Floyd, Trevor Miller, Jason Bartlett, and Matt Garza this off-season, but how much does this all translate into in terms of wins? If we’re just evaluating in terms of these off-season moves, potentially, not a lot. We’ve already seen both Cliff Floyd and Matt Garza go down with injuries this year, while Bartlett and Miller haven’t exactly lived up to expectations yet. Regardless, PECOTA (currently the most reliable stat-based projection system) predicts that the Rays will go 88-74 this year, ending up in third place in their division. PECOTA has a reliability of around 4 games, meaning that it’s normally only ever off by plus or minus 4 games. Where is this coming from?

Two words: defense and pitching. The Rays were absolutely horrible last year in terms of both defense and pitching, actually hitting the realm of historically bad in terms of defense. According to Baseball Prospectus, the 2007 Rays had a .662 defensive efficiency rate, the lowest they have on record. All this means when turned into other stats and juggled a little bit is that last year, the Devil Rays, “…were nearly six percent worse than the league average at converting balls in play into outs.” Ouch.

Also, the Rays had horrible pitching. Heck, their Opening Day rotation last year included both Casey Fossum and Jae Seo; I don’t know about you, but that certainly looks like a winning combination to me (irony alert!). Their team ERA was 5.53, while their bullpen ERA alone stood at 6.16. Their pitching staff let up 944 runs, which is over 50 runs higher than the next closest team. Granted, their pitching couldn’t have been helped by their historically inept defense, but I still don’t think Edwin Jackson’s 5.76 ERA was completely a result of bad defense.

Now, the addition of Bartlett, the promotion of Longoria, the development of Upton in centerfield, and shifting Aki to second base all bolster the Rays’ defense. To what degree is debatable, as Bartlett hasn’t been perfect at short (though he is a definite step up over anyone else we’ve ever had at short) and Upton still has a lot to learn. There was also a recent article published at Baseball Prospectus that goes into some detail why they believe PECOTA overestimates how much improved the Ray defense will be this year. Even if the Rays’ defense isn’t incredible this year, though, it’s still got to be much better than last year.

In terms of pitching, the pitching depth that the Rays have in the minor leagues is finally starting to manifest itself in the majors. Over the first 18 games of this season, the Rays have been without their staff ace Scott Kazmir, but they still have a 4.04 team ERA and a 2.93 bullpen ERA. This improvement even without Kazmir (and Garza, for that matter) stems from one main thing: minor league depth. The Rays farm system has been ranked for the past two years in a row as the best system in all of baseball, and the results are finally now beginning to appear in the majors. Flamethrower J.P. Howell seems to have finally found his niche as the long-relief man in the bullpen (2.53 ERA in 10.2 IP), while Jason Hammel has managed to turn his potential into results for the first time (1 W, 4.26 ERA, 19 IP). Even Edwin Jackson has finally strung together a couple good starts, though whether this success is temporary is up for debate. Top prospect Jeff Niemann was just called up from AAA and if he strings together a few more solid starts, it may be tough to send him back down. So whatever way you look at it, the Rays are finally in a good place for pitching. Maybe Jackson and Hammel won’t keep pitching as well as they currently are, but it seems like the days of Ray pitchers with 6 ERAs are long gone. Oh man, and speaking of pitching, I can’t wait for David Price to arrive on the scene next year…

So when all is said and done, PECOTA’s prediction of 88-74, while optimistic, might actually hold true. At the very least, you can make a solid argument as to why the Rays could potentially put up that record. Personally, I’m predicting the Rays to finish with a season record at 81-81, plus or minus 3 games, with it being more likely they’ll end up on the minus side. PECOTA’s prediction is just a tad too optimistic even for me, one of the world’s largest optimists. I think the Rays’ defense is going to better, but not as good as PECOTA predicts. Aki is going to need time to adjust to second base and we’ve already seen Upton misplay some balls in the outfield this year. Our pitching staff I have more faith in, though I am very skeptical of Edwin Jackson’s early success and feel that we should trade him while his value is high. We have enough pitching depth and I would much rather give Niemann 30 starts right now than Jackson.

However the Rays turn out this year, though, I think there’s something everyone can agree with – this is going to be one hell of a fun team to watch. Whether it’s going to be Pena blasting a homerun, Crawford stealing bases like crazy, Kazmir striking out people left and right, Longoria being damn sexy, or Johnny Gomes swinging for the fences, it's going to be a wild ride. So excuse me while I go turn on the game. Jackson’s on the mound, so let’s keep those fingers crossed. Go Rays!

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).

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

Goodbye and Good Riddance

I'll admit it, when the Matt Garza for Delmon Young trade first went through, I was saddened. Ever since I started rooting for the team, Delmon Young had been proclaimed to be the future of the Devil Rays, a 40 HR-per-year cornerstone to build the franchise around. The trade almost felt like Andrew Friedman and Stuart Sternberg were ripping our future away from us after only having him for one season. But then I blinked and hey, life began looking better already. We got some awesome players in return for him and there was always talk that he was a bad clubhouse presence.

Well, now this comes to light and I have to say, I'm very glad that the Delmon Young Era is done and finished in Tampa. Apparently Delmon can't keep his mouth shut, even though he's not on the Rays anymore. What strikes me the most about this whole "he-said" shenanigans is the fact that Crawford got pissed, which is something you very rarely see. Apparently Delmon wasn't too well liked in the D-Rays clubhouse last year at all, though no one admitted it at the time.

So Delmon can just add his name to the list of bad attitude players that trashed the Rays after leaving, joining the illustrius ranks of Aubrey Huff and Toby Hall. I suppose we may regret trading him away if he goes out and smashes 30 HRs this year and has an amazing career, but at this point, I'm just thankful to be rid of his attitude. We have a surplus of OF talent and I'm very excited to see Garza in action. Delmon is going to regret leaving once the Rays finish the year with a better record than the Twins (which is definitely possible at this point)....

I hope he gets boo-ed when the Twins are in town.

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!

The Start of an Era

Hello there everyone! My name is Steve Slowinski and you, my friends, have some very difficult questions facing you. Why should you read this blog? What is it about this particular sports blog that differentiates it from all the other dime-a-dozen sports blogs out there? Do these writers have any sort of expertise? Why should I even trust them? Why am I wasting my life in front of the computer and in particular, reading this blog?

Well, fellow baseball fans, the long and short answer is glaringly obvious: because you have nothing else better to do. But if you've stuck around this long and haven't already gone outside to play a game of catch (which like Joe, I highly recommend), then maybe you deserve to get something out of your two or three minute investment so far. You, those lucky few that have persevered this long, are lucky enough to be present at the beginning of an era. You, right now sitting in front of your computer and staring blankly at the screen, you are a witness to history.

No, I'm not talking about the beginning of the Era of the Rays (even though that might be true as well), but about this blog. This is no ordinary sports blog, the likes of which you can find out there on the internet simply by sneezing and clicking your heels together three times. As JRR Tolkien put it:

"From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken:
The crownless again shall be king."

I don't know where this crown is, but I sure as hell want it. For this blog, mark my words, shall soon be lord over all the blogosphere. That poem says it all, doesn't it? The Brewers ignited their fire last year, after years in the ashes of the NL Central. A-Rod has come out and claimed that he never did steroids, giving us a beam of shining, pure light in this moment of darkness (note the sarcasm...). And Sammy Sosa made his comeback last year, renewing that hollow blade he infamously broke, so obviously the moment of truth is upon us. We're simply here to receive our crown.

If it isn't obvious by now already, when Joe invited me to join this blog, I simply couldn't pass up the chance. I've been an avid baseball fan my entire life, ever since my dad took me to my first pro game in '95. It was at Yankee Stadium and although the Yankees lost to the Twins at that point, I was lucky enough to follow the Yankees closely all throughout their magical '96 season. More recently, I switched allegiances from the Yankees to the Devil Rays around the year 2002 (more to come on that later), and I have never wavered since. I've been playing fantasy baseball since middle school and by now, I'm completely and thoroughly a stats freak. Baseball, quite simply, is life.

As enthralled I'm sure you all are with my life story, what does this have to do with crowns and kings, you may ask? One word - everything. Ever since a young age, I knew I was destined for greater things. All my dreams came true when in high school, I self-published a baseball magazine with a bunch of my friends, earning us around 100 dollars total over three years and a trip to the principal's office. Glory days indeed...

And so, here I am. Here you are. Here this blog is. And here you shall read daily all the baseball news you never needed to know, but can't help but read anyway. Just think, years from now when we've bought out ESPN and have brought handball to the US, you'll be able to look back on this day and say yes, I was there when it all began. Be thankful. Praise baseball! Praise Babe Ruth! Allehuhia!

....I'm still waiting for that crown.