Rays of Light

It’s over Johnny… er, Elijah

You can’t make this stuff up. Elijah Dukes, who HAS to know there’s a microscope the size of Cecil Fielder’s Thanksgiving dinner on him, was involved in an altercation with an umpire in the Domincan. (Marc Topkin and Eduardo Encina)

Dukes reacted angrily after being called out on strikes in the ninth inning and was ejected after going chest-to-chest with the umpire, and had to be restrained by several teammates at different times.

I’m going to put the odds on Elijah being somewhere other than St. Pete in April at 99%.

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Garza and Bartlett on Garza and Bartlett

Here are some quotes from Matt Garza and Jason Bartlett about Matt Garza and Jason Bartlett in case you missed them. (TBO)

All quotes below come from Marc Lancaster’s blog from yesterday, so credit goes his way.

Garza on coming to Tampa Bay: “I think itís on the up-and-up, with a new stadium coming in, a bunch of young guys. Thatís what I like to play with, a bunch of young guys who want to have fun.î

Garza on Garza: ìI pride myself on attacking hitters, not shying away from anybody. Just going after them with my best stuff and not really keeping to the fastball anymore. Iím mixing it up and trying to get those outs as quick as possible to save the pitch count, try to keep as many bullets as possible.î

Garza on Bartlett: “Heís a hard-nosed, get dirty and play the game the right way type of player. Heís going to make the plays for you and even make the plays heís not supposed to make. We picked up a great defensive player and also a guy who battles at the plate and doesnít strike out too often. He earns every at-bat and he make sure he gets everything out of every at-bat, and thatís what you like to see.î

Garza on Scott Kazmir and James Shields: ìI know enough that you put us three together and weíll win quite a few games.î

Bartlett on the trade: ìI was surprised ñ I didnít really think I would leave Minnesota. But it happened, and after thinking about it, itís a great opportunity for me.”

Bartlett on the Rays: “Thereís a lot of young talent over there and from what Iíve heard itís a great group of guys and Iíve heard the coaching staff is awesome. It sounds like a good fit for me and Iím excited for it.î

Bartlett on Bartlett: ìThe little things is what I pride myself on ñ get the runner over, try to get the extra bags, that kind of stuff. The big numbers that everybody always sees, thatís really not me. Itís hard for just the regular fan to appreciate that, I guess.î

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Geoff Jenkins rumors

If I had to guess, I’d suspect that the rumors about Geoff Jenkins coming to the Rays are just that - rumors. (MLB Trade Rumors)

This is a guy who is coming off of the worst year of his career yet will still command a salary of between $5 and $10 million dollars. I realize that he provides some much-needed left-handed pop to the lineup, but do you really think that Sternberg is going to open up his pocketbook again, especially when there will already be a competition going on for the right field/DH spot anyways? With Rocco Baldelli, Jonny Gomes, and Justin Ruggiano all on board, it doesn’t really look like a fit unless the Rays can get him on a low-risk 1 year contract that doesn’t break the bank. I know his .883 career OPS against right-handed pitching is tempting, but I’m really very skeptical about this one.

On the bright side, it looks like Tampa Bay is becoming the cool place to be, and that’s definitely a good thing.

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If I didn’t know better, I’d say that looks like a bullpen

Depending on what site you’re reading, the Rays have either signed or are on the verge of signing veteran reliever Troy Percival to a 2-year contract worth a base of $8 million.

Our bullpen, once a gaping hole from which we never knew what kind of scum might crawl out, has turned into a bona-fide Major League relief corps. I was a little skeptical about signing him - remember, this is a guy who retired less than 12 months ago because of an arm injury - but I’m sure the TRO has done its due diligence and wouldn’t have signed him if there was a huge risk involved.

I’m cautiously optimistic about the deal. He certainly put up nice-looking numbers last year (34 games, 40 innings, 24 hits, 3 homers, 10 walks, 36 Ks), but he’s also 38. If he plays out the life of his contract, he’ll be 40 at the end of the 2009 season. Of course, if he ends up closing out Game 7 of the 2009 World Series at the age of 40, then I don’t give a damn, but the point is that he’s old, and old pitchers tend to get more inconsistent and find themselves injured more often.

Barring another deal involvng one of these guys, we head into 2008 with a relief corps that features Troy Percival, Al Reyes, Dan Wheeler, Juan Salas, Jason Hammel, and then Scott Dohmann, Grant Balfour, Kurt Birkins, and Gary Glover fighting for the final 2 spots. Competition is always good, so it should only make those guys at the back-end even better.

Here are a couple of other impacts that this could have on the next couple of seasons:

Oh yeah, Brian Stokes was traded (er, sold)

It was pretty easy to miss this one among the hoopla of the Young trade, but the Rays traded Brian Stokes to the Mets yesterday for cash considerations. (MLB.com)

First they send us Kazmir for Zambrano, and now they pay us to take Brian Stokes off of our hands? I love those guys!

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The Aftermath: What the Young trade means for Dukes

One thing I speculated on yesterday - truly through my own conjecture through things that I’ve read and not from any first-hand source - is that the Rays felt compelled to make this trade because of concerns about Young’s attitude. To set an example, and to try to rid the clubhouse of a bad influence, the team went into this offseason actively shopping Young - without feeling too desperate, mind you - looking for the best possible deal it could find. With that in mind, I find it difficult to believe that we could’ve done any better than what we got from the Twins.

That said, if we really made this deal in part because of concerns about Delmon and his attitude, does that mean that a trade involving Elijah Dukes might not be far behind? Does this team searching for a new identity really want the bad publicity it could get from having Elijah Dukes around? What do you guys think?

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The Aftermath: Young and company-for-Garza’s gang

In the event that you haven’t been paying attention the past 24 hours, the Rays and Twins completed a trade last night that sent Delmon Young, Brendan Harris, and Jason Pridie to Minnesota in exchange for Matt Garza, Jason Bartlett, and Eduardo Morlan. (ESPN)

Though I’m not nearly as over-the-top ecstatic about this one as everyone else is, I still think we did quite well for ourselves in this deal. Like any trade, we won’t truly know how good it was for a few years when we see what Young, Garza, and Morlan turn into. How about we break it down a little bit, shall we?

Click “Read More” to do just that.

(more…)

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And the Rays go SPLASH

Well, we wanted the Rays to make a splash in the offseason somehow, and it appears that they just might have done that.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a real closer. (ESPN)

In addition to the Young deal, the Rays are also moving toward a deal to sign reliever Troy Percival, ESPN The Magazine’s Buster Olney reports.

It also looks like there might be something to those Delmon Young-to-Minnesota rumors.

The Minnesota Twins and Tampa Bay Rays are close to a swap of two potential future stars.

The Twins would acquire outfielder Delmon Young in exchange for right-hander Matt Garza, sources told ESPN.com’s Keith Law.

The potential swap was first reported by the Minneapolis Star Tribune, which reported the deal could involve as many as six players, with shortstop Jason Bartlett and reliever Juan Rincon going to Tampa Bay in the deal and shortstop Brendan Harris and outfield prospect Jason Pridie coming to Minnesota.

I need a little bit more time to digest that one before I comment on it, but feel free to throw out your initial reactions here.

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Reid Brignac on MiLB.com’s Top 50 prospects

Reid Brignac has been named the 32nd best prospect in all the minor leagues by MiLB.com.

Brignac raised his prospect status considerably when he was the California League Player of the Year in 2006. He also played well in Double-A Montgomery at the end of that season. He spent all of 2007 in the Southern League and while the overall numbers weren’t as good as in the previous year, there’s still a lot to like about the young shortstop. Though his batting average suffered — largely because of a two-month slump — he still had 52 extra-base hits and stole 15 bases. Perhaps more impressively, his defense improved greatly, and questions about his ability to remain a shortstop have subsided. Winning two titles in as many years with Montgomery certainly doesn’t hurt, either.

There’s a lot of people that want to jump up and say “WHOA! Brignac had a bad year, we need to find a new shortstop now!” Slow down, fellas. Brignac improved in two very measurable ways this year: his walks went up and his strikeouts went down. Everything else will fall into place.

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MORE tests for Rocco

Here’s something I didn’t want to hear. There are going to be even MORE tests done on Rocco Baldelli to determine if there’s an underlying medical problem for his injury woes. Sounds like a GREAT way to improve his trade value. /eyeroll (TBO.com)

Friedman said OF Rocco Baldelli is undergoing additional tests in an effort to determine whether there might be an underlying medical problem at the root of his chronic hamstring troubles. Baldelli said at the new uniform unveiling this month that he was still awaiting the results of some tests he had taken late in the season.

“I think we’re getting a lot closer, and I’m hopeful by spring training we’re going to have the knowledge to be able to put Rocco in a position to get 500-plus at-bats,” said Friedman.

STILL waiting for results? Is it 1850 again and we’re waiting for the Pony Express to trek the Oregon Trail to get them to us?

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I REALLY hope Rocco’s alright because he’s one of my favorites and I’d hate to see him go. I know that’s not the “cool” thing to do - like a player just for the sake of liking him and not for some underlying numbers like BABIP or PPA - but I don’t carte.

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