Trade Deadline Rant to begin in 3...2....1...

Alright, perhaps the solution to my problem is to stop listening to talk radio. I’m sure that will keep my blood pressure lower. Forgive me this rant for I am normally a pretty laid back guy. Some might even say a little too laid back, but when I listen to some of the radio hosts and their callers it get’s under my skin.

Yesterday I actually yelled at my radio - loudly. It’s not something I’m proud of and I’m glad I was in the call by myself. Perhaps I should hook my Sirius back up for some nice commercial free music.

So what’s prompting these out of character explosions of emotion? Well Rays fans of course. It’s the trading deadline. The Rays are currently on the outside looking in as far as the playoff races go. That means “Rays Fan” (I.e. the ones who thought they traded Aubrey Huff for Aki!) get to bitch and moan about the team.

All day I’ve heard, from both the radio hosts and the callers, that the Rays have to make a move or the season is done. The problem is - the Rays already made their deadline deal. His name is Pat Burrell. They just did it January instead of July.

Once they inked the deal Stu Sternberg and the rest of nDRO made it clear that they were maxed out in the payroll department. According to a St Pete Times article from April the Rays have raised their payroll over 160% in the last two seasons.

If you had told me in 2007 that the Rays would bump their payroll to $62 million by 2009 I would have laughed at you and then asked what city they had moved to. Let’s get it through everyone’s head that they are maxed out.

I’ve written about it before, if the Rays shell out big money on free agents they can’t afford to make mistakes. I hesitate to call the Burrell signing a failure as of right now. I will say it’s not working out, but you can’t call it a failure until it’s over. Who’s to say Burrell doesn’t bang out 15-20 home runs over the next two months and leads the Rays to an amazing comeback?

What I’m trying to say is that yelling about something that you knew was going to happen is pointless. If I tell you for 8 months that I’m not getting you a pony for Christmas and I don’t get you a pony, why would yell at me?

All I’ve heard for the last 5 or 6 years is “we want the Rays to be competitive”. Well guess what, they are competitive! They are eight games over .500 and still in the hunt for the wild card. Now all I hear is that they’re not willing to spend enough to go the extra step. I suppose that’s easy to say when you’re not the one writing the check, but let’s be realistic. Small market teams like the Rays are always more likely to be sellers than buyers for the big names on the market.

Could they have offered Cleveland more than Boston did for Victor Martinez? Without a doubt. Guess what happens if they do. Carl Crawford gets traded or his option isn’t picked up in the off-season. So then you’re looking at losing whatever prospects they traded and Crawford for Martinez and his $7 Million option for next season.

Also, this organization is built on sustained competitiveness. They didn’t sell out the franchise last year when they were leading the division and they didn’t do it this year when they’re 4.5 games out of the wild card.

The Rays spent 10 years stockpiling their young talent, and it seems this team is more than willing to actually have these guys play for them. That’s in contrast to teams like the Red Sox or Mets who only seem to develop talent in order to trade it for established players.

There are weaknesses on this team (cough, cough Navarro), but not worth making a trade that could have sever repercussions somewhere down the line. The boys in the front office have proven that they know what they’re doing so stop whining at the moves they do or do not make. Seriously, stop it! Go out and cheer for your team instead.

So everyone in the TBA just relax. Sometimes the best deal is the one you don’t make.

Upon the Ice Frustration Lay

It’s not right to write when one’s emotions are at a heightened state. So I’ve given myself about an hour to calm down and think about what I’ve seen. I drove home from the Ice Palace, kissed the sleeping girlfriend on the head and scratched the fat cat behind his left ear - his favorite ear scratching spot. I flipped on SportsCenter naively thinking they would have a highlight from the game. I sent an email to Dave over at Fielders Choice and surfed a couple of sites. That being said I’m still pissed.

I loathe blaming officials for losses. I think it was my dad who said, “If you leave the game in the hands of the officials you don’t deserve to win”. Actually, I don’t think he said it but it sounds like something he would say so I’m giving him credit. That being said - man did the ref’s blow the Lightning game tonight.

If you haven’t read about it or seen it, which based on hockey’s current popularity you probably haven’t, the Lightning lost 2-1 in a shootout to the Colorado Avalanche. The only goal that counted in the shootout never crossed the goal line. In fact, it wasn’t even close. Only the Lightning could lose a game where the winning goal never crossed the line.

Here is how it happened. Both the Lightning and the Avalanche missed in their first attempts. The Lightning then missed their second. For the Avalanche's second attempt goalie Mike Smith faced Colorado forward Milan Hejduk. Hejduk brought the puck down the ice and as he approached the goal Smith leaned forward to poke check the puck away. The Colorado shooter avoided the goalie’s stick and tried to beat him with a backhand shot. Smith made the save with the blocker and as the buck bounced harmlessly away the stick fell out of his hand.

Nice save, the crowd ohhs and ahhs. Then the refs got involved. After initially ruling it a save the refs and the linesmen huddled together for a few minutes. The crowd grew restless. The Lightning’s final shooter - little Marty St Louis - skated in circles. The refs continued to convene. Mike Smith chirped at them from a distance. The crowd grew irritated, boo’s grew louder. Then the ref turned his wireless mike on and announced that due the Av’s would be awarded a goal. Rule 26.4 states that if a stick is thrown by the goalie a goal can be awarded to the shooting team.

Needless to say this was not received well by the hometown crowd. The boos increased in quantity and volume. In our seats we were bewildered - even from hundreds of feet away it was apparent that the stick came out of Smith’s hands well after the save was made. The replays on the jumbotron confirmed our view. Yet the refs would not be swayed. Nor could they once the decision was made. After all, it was not a reviewable play.

Then the normally docile and amiable hockey crowd lost it. The boos reached maximum volume - 9,000 fans sounded like 30,000. A brown bag was launched from the crowd onto the ice. The PA reminded fans that throwing stuff on the ice wasn’t cool. That sparked more debris tossing. Bottles, thunders, paper, lids, anything not locked down found it’s way on the ice.
Smith was beside himself with rage. He had to be restrained from the refs. After the ice was cleared St Louis skated in on Colorado goalie Andrew Raycroft and wasn’t able to beat him on his glove side. Game Over.

The Lightning had failed to win their 8th game. In the grand scheme of things it will be just another loss in a series of them. Yet somehow it seems worse. While they didn't play a perfect game they played well enough to win. Smith in particular was outstanding, several times he flashed out his right pad at the last second to make sparkling saves. I don’t believe that there is a grand conspiracy against the Lightning, the refs didn’t blow this game on purpose, but damn get the call right!

I’m sure there will be an apology from the league once they review it, but that doesn’t get the Lightning an extra point in the standings. Why can’t there be a fine or a suspension for referees Brian Pochmara or Tim Peel? Officials in sports take a lot of unwarranted abuse and I tend to take their side more than a lot of fans, but when a blatant game deciding mistake is made there has to be repercussions.

I’m sure there will be writers and opionists (yeah that’s not a word, but I like it) will rail on about how low class the crowd’s reaction was. They will point out how dangerous it is to throw things on the ice and how it makes them look like a bunch o’ country bumpkins. Normally, I would agree with anyone calling fans in the TBA uneducated rubes. However, I think tonight’s display was more about the fans releasing 30 games of frustration. Frustration at the call, frustration at being last in the league again, frustration at the lack of production from the stars and the free agents, frustration at the mismanagement from the front office - all of that came out tonight.

According to analyst Bobby Taylor Smith spoke with the officials after the game and not one of them would cop to making the call - they told him it was a collective decision. Usually that means that they weren’t sure of the call and were covering for each other. The NHL, via Mike Murphy (VP of Hockey Operations ) stated the refs would not have to talk to anyone because of the “hot environment” and he was afraid that they might be “trapped” down here.

Now if this had happened in Toronto or Montreal I could see the refs having to face a blood thirsty lynching mob, but in Tampa? C’mon now be real. No one cares that much. It’s December 18th and it’s 80 degrees outside. It’s hard to stay mad when the weather is this nice. The league knows the refs screwed the proverbial pooch and they don’t want the refs digging themselves any deeper. Once they see it on television they will know they got it wrong and will feel shame.

So cut the fans a break - out of the sports down here the ones that go to hockey games seem to be the most knowledgeable. So give them a free pass on tonight, but feel free to take it out on the NHL if they let the refs off for this one.

How Eric Hinske could Ruin Evan Longoria's Career.

So what happens if Eric Hinske IS this year’s Carlos Pena? No one is talking about the consequences of Hinske making the everyday roster. We’re only a week into the season so it’s still too early to see if he will keep his average over .300, but so far he has looked solid as this year’s pick off the major league scrap heap. As a matter of fact, as I typed the last sentence he just drilled a single into right field off of Chien-Ming Wang to put runners on the corners with no one out.

The nDRO was criticized heavily for sending down prized super prospect Evan Longoria to begin the season. Their thinking was that it would be beneficial to Longoria (more at bats) and the team (delay his major league service saving them money long term). In the meantime the Rays would be able to hold court with the two headed dragon of Willy Aybar and Hinske.

Fans cried out in anguish on message boards across the vast internet wasteland. Even seasoned mainstream writers weren’t immune from the sexy prospect of the 23 year old starting the season with the big club. SI’s resident baseball guru Tom Veducci wrote, “Get him to the majors ASAP. The kid, polished and confident, looks as if he’s already been in the bigs 10 years”.

Well ok then. If a writer thinks it’s time for the Rays to call up the jewel in their top rated crop of future stars then let’s do it! From a quick look at his stats (11 at bats, 4 K’s and 0 hits) it appears the Rays may have made the right call. Hopefully, the demotion and his early struggles serve as a wake-up call. After spending all off season and Spring Training hearing how great he is and is going to be this could provide a little perspective.

Please don’t read this as a pile on Longoria post. He’s going to be good, really good when his time comes. Rather let’s give the Rays some credit for thinking long term. The easy call would have been to start the young kid on the roster. He didn’t embarrass himself in spring training and Aybar’s gimpy hamstring could have opened up a spot. The fans would have been happy; the press would be able to gush over the second coming of Mike Schmidt.

Andrew Friedman and his associates (Friedman and Associates – a new law firm?) stood firm with their decision. In comments to the St Pete Times he even acknowledged that they might be “erring on the side of caution” by sending him down. Of course they are and they should. The future Rays teams, the teams that fans insist will be competing for a title in 2010, must be built around the nucleus of Longoria, Crawford, Upton and their cadre of young arms.

If Longoria is called up to soon, loses his confidence and washes out of the majors then what happens? As unlikely as that scenario may be, it would be disastrous to the organization. The same fans who are calling for the bloody head of Friedman for not promoting him would promptly jump to the other side of the fence and blame him for destroying their new savior. More importantly the team will be missing a key component of their future. By keeping the slugger in Durham for a few months there is no long term damage.

On the other side of the coin there is the financial aspect. In the same article quoted above Friedman states that the financial aspect of sending Longoria down was “virtually irrelevant”. The unnamed interneters don’t buy that for one second. They see it as a ploy to keep the kid under Rays control for as long as and as cheap as possible. It’s still puzzling to hear people whine about the “cheap ownership” and how the “tightwads” are being unfair to the fans.

This current group has shown a willingness to spend money on the players that are important to the future of the team. How quickly the large contracts handed out to Carlos Pena and James Shields are forgotten. Feel free to criticize the past ownership about being a tight-fisted tyrannical crew ( I’m thinking specifically about Namoli making a band who was invited to play the National Anthem buy tickets to watch the game), but nothing the nDRO has done has indicated that they are willing to field a lesser team in order to save money.

Another thing to look at, in the long term this could actually cost the Rays more money. If they are unable to sign Longoria to a long term deal before he’s a free agent it would be better that he’s a free agent sooner rather than later. Why’s this you ask? Well when have you ever known the cost of free agents to go down from year to year? Signing the future All-Star to a big free agent deal in 2014 rather than 2013 could cost the Rays millions more over all.

Don’t believe it? Then let us turn back the clock to 2005. In April of that year a young Rays outfielder by the name of Carl Crawford inked a 6 year $32.5 million contract with the team. Everyone was happy. The team had locked up one of its stars and Crawford was being rewarded for his exemplary performance on the field. Even the fans were impressed by the commitment to the future shown by the new ownership. Now imagine how much more Crawford would have cost to lock up (or even in arbitration) if they had waited a year or so. Why’s that? Alfonso Soriano and Vernon Wells.

After the 2006 season Soriano (eight years $136 million) and Wells (seven years $126 million) drove up the cost of acquiring outfield talent. If he hadn’t signed his big deal the year before Crawford would have been in arbitration with the Rays, imagine how that would have turned out. Not well for the Rays especially with names like David Wright, Miguel Cabrera and Alex Rodriguez sharing Longoria’s position.
So fans, please relax. You’ll have plenty of time to enjoy Longoria’s heroics in the blue, white and yellow of the Rays. In the meantime enjoy the fact that your 2008 Rays are showing that they belong in the majors and just took two of three from the Yankees. If you have to get fired up about something go to an old standby – Jon Gomes not getting enough playing time.