DRays Bay :: A Tampa Bay Devil Rays Blog

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-A seating chart of Tropicana Field, to give you a better idea of the ballpark

With the recent announcement of Tropicana Field's $10 million renovation, it got me thinking, what is missing from my ballpark expierence at Tropicana Field? Winning, sure, but what can money buy to make Tropicana Field a better place. So here are a few suggestions from myself, free of charge without even a consoltation fee. Sweet deal! Feel free to leave your thanks through email, Stu & Co.

Apparently the outiside of the Trop is getting a paint job, maybe a few murals on the outside of the stadium. How about some neon signs on the outside of the stadium, like these at Shea Stadium. Also, you know how they have that 'Tropicana Field' sign near the top of the dome above the third base side of the stadium facing I-275? Well, how about a complementary one on the other side above the first base side, facing I-375 that says 'Home of the Rays'. Also, on those ugly concrete ramps, how about we hang a few posters of Rays players, sort of like free marketing to passers by on 4th Ave. S and 16th St. I can already see Carl Crawford sliding in, spikes first to the bag! Also, how about some pregame grilling. The Rays have got Herman T's and Outback as sponsers, right? Well how about in the plaza near the rotunda, before Sunday home games, we fire up the grills, cook some sausage, and wash it down with a cool Budweiser (Pepsi for me, guys) out in front before gates open. I know it would take away concession revenue, but how about taking a page from the NFL's cookbook?

Ah, this is where things get interesting. First, let's start by re-opening that second level of the Gift Shop and display some Rays and St. Pete Cardinals mercnadise of yesteryear? They ain't using the space, are they? Also, why don't they lower the fence in left-center field in between the left field seats and the Batter's Eye Resturant and allow fans walking by in the concourse to get a field level view as they walk to their seats. Put up hockey-style plexiglass, if you must, but open up the area for viewing. Also, how about we push back those left, and right field fences and install an old fashioned manual out of town scoreboard, freeing up those two ribbon boards on the upper deck facade, yet still keeping the update screen with more info on the extreme left end of the new scoreboard in left. This may require removing some seats, but is that really a major loss?

Furthermore, how about finishing putting up stands and picnic tables in the left and right field areas that used to be home to the Southwest Airlines seats. The job seemed to be done half-ass, and if done properly, it could be a great area. Maybe put up a mini-concession stand there or something.

Convert the bullpen party area behind the visitor's bullpen into a pool party place, kind of like the area in Arizona, and don't make the area exclusive, sell pool area tickets to fans and then stop when the capacity is reached. Sure, this might involve taking out some seats in that neck of the woods, but is that really any loss?

Make The Beach an interesting place to go to again. Take out some of the seats and put in a tiki bar with a field view, like the one at Bright House Field in Clearwater. Put some REAL Palm trees up and lower the ticket prices. Who wants to sit in upper left field when you can get another seat behind home plate at the same level and same price? Put that much-rumored Live Devil Ray tank up there where the spa used to be and surround it with beach stuff and sand. Make the concourse a walkway with wooden planks, like real beach boardwalks. In other words, make The Beach feel like, The Beach. Don't just slap the name on 1,000 seat section and leave it there.

For god's sake, put sometarp on the seats not used. How many times do I look up at the upper part of the upper deck and see teenagers making out scrawling things like 'Bobby luvs u'. Now I know that may have been fun for me....errr....the people doing it, but put up some tarp on the waaaaay upper deck seats with tropical colors, same with the top of the left and right field seats that are never used. Make it seem more intimate is what I'm saying, and then just remove the seats when the stadium actually DOES need them.

Well, those are all the things I can think of now, chyme in if you feel the need to express your two cents on this one. I would be real interested to hear Rays Nation's ideas.

This entire offseason has taken it's toll on the Rays fanbase. It's basically split between "Trade Optimists" and "Lack of Movement Pessimists". Neither side is completely right and neither is completely wrong. Luckily, no animals or people have been harmed because of this squabble.

When you look at the AL East right now, it's 4 teams with alot of movement and changes and 1 team with basically no changes from last year's final rosters.

However if you look into many of the moves made by those 4 other teams, you'll notice that those teams haven't really improved as greatly(as originally thought) or at all. The AL East is full of teams filling in holes, however opening new holes.

I may not sell you all on my thoughts, but take a look at what I'm seeing. I'll go team-by-team.

New York Yankees: The Yankees major moves this offseason was resigning Hideki Matsui, signing Kyle Farnsworth and Octavio Dotel to help the bullpen and tearing Johnny Damon away from the Red Sox Nation. Have the Yankees improved?

Not really... They still have a rotation on the fringe of totally imploding within. Last year's new arms are injury-prone and getting older. Pavano was vastly overrated and had probably his best stastical season of his career in his contract year with the Marlins. Jaret Wright proved that he's nothing without the help of Leo Mazzone and he's also a target for batted balls. Johnny Damon gave the Yankees a legit lead-off hitter, but they didn't take into the fact that he was one of the worst defensive CFers in baseball. The signings of Farnsworth & Dotel were kinda dumb, just for the fact that Farnsworth is highly combustible and overrated and Dotel will not likely be ready until the 2nd Half of the 2006 season. The Yankees will score alot of runs next year, but with the declining skills of their pitchers...they'll just give them back up.

Boston Red Sox: The major moves of the Boston Red Sox was the unexpected loss of Theo Epstein on Halloween, the initial kindling of the "Great Florida Marlins Firesale of 2005" by acquiring Beckett-Lowell-Mota for prospects, trading Edgar Renteria for a 3B prospect named Andy Marte and the unforseen loss of "Passion of the" Johnny Damon. Unbeknownst to the Red Sox Nation, Larry Luccino turned the legendary "Fenway Pawk" into an amusement park for the 2006 season.

If Charles Dickens was a sportwrier and still alive, Boston's Offseason Summary would be named "A Tale of 2 Offseasons". Acquiring Josh Beckett may have been the best move of any team this offseason, however the Red Sox Mgmt. thought they had to do more to keep the Yankees off their backs.... Boy did that backfire on the future of the 2006 team(however, it didn't ruin their future). They used the Winter Meetings to acquire blue-chip 3B Andy Marte for SS Edgar Renteria. Yeah, this trade would be great....if they had a back-up plan at SS. Now they have 4 3rd Baseman(Youkilis, Marte, Lowell and Cora) and and 0 short-stops. Then Brian Cashman and the Yankees landed the biggest sucker-punch in the ongoing fight between the "Evil Empire and the Red Sox Nation" with the signing of Johnny Damon. This blow may have a snowball effect because Manny Ramirez, being Manny, has declared that he'll waive his no-trade clause and is willing to be dealt to the NL superspending New York Mets. So the Red Sox have holes at the Short-stop and Centerfield spots that are hard-to-fill due to the major Free Agents already being signed. A deal with the Devil Rays may be even impending, due to their unwillingness to trade just to make trades early on in the offseason. Knowing the Rays, if they do make a trade with Boston...it'll cost the Red Sox dearly.

Toronto Blue Jays: Hey big spenders! The Toronto Blue Jays newly found wealth has netted them the highest paid closer in the MLB in BJ Ryan, the top starter on the market in TJ-patient AJ Burnett, traded 2 arms and a Spring Training Superslugger for Lyle Overbay and are reportedly trading for Troy Glaus in their 2nd "Big" trade of this Offseason.

On paper, the Blue Jays have spent their way to the top. On paper, they are legit contenders for the AL East. Yet, if you look into it...they really put themselves into a bit of trouble for the future. BJ Ryan was a great closer in his 1st full season of duty in 2005, but with his contract and his move being on fans minds...he has to pitch to his full potential to not get ragged on by fans. Next, AJ Burnett is a great starter but he's yet to put together the numbers that everyone has expected out of him in the majors. His pitching has led him to the surgeon's table before and I wouldn't doubt if he returned there again. The acquisition of Lyle Overbay was pretty nice for them, with his consistant numbers he's put up in Milwaukee....but they gave up good arms in Bush and Jackson to get him. That's a risky gamble with a team trying to contend now and contend for the future as well. Now, there's rumors that Troy Glaus may be heading to Toronto in exchange for Orlando Hudson and Miguel Bautista. Glaus is a good hitter, when healthy, but the Blue Jays just gave away their best defensive player in exchange for another 1B/3B player. They'll be a better hitting team, but they'd be alot worse defensively. Risky, Risky, Risky...

Baltimore Orioles: The Baltimore Orioles have quietly made some moves this offseason when they hired pitching guru Leo Mazzone to teach their young arms how to pitch at their full potential, traded 1 crummy reliever(Kline) for another(Hawkins), got a new catcher(Ramon Hernandez), lost their closer to a divisional rival(Ryan) and could possibly be trading their best offensive player.

The Baltimore Orioles exceeded everybody's expectations last season and led the AL East for the first few months. Then it all fell apart.... Their pitching fell apart, Brian Roberts cooled off and fired their manager. They haven't really made any improvements in their offseason and they shouldn't expect a repeat of last year's small taste of success. Roberts is recovering from a surgery that ended his season early last year and will probably not return to his 2005 form. They've yet to decide on who their closer will be going into Spring Training. Their only positive is that Leo Mazzone knows how to make marginal pitchers good ones and they hope that he can do that outside of Atlanta.

Right now, the Rays have basically the same team that they did last year and they still have the "Trading Chips" that they had at the beginning of the offseason with alot less teams needing players like them anymore. Some look at this as a negative(they won't trade these players and will basically have the same team that almost lost 100 games last season) and some look at this as a positive(Needy teams will be desperate and make risky trades that give us more than their worth).

Nonetheless, we need to support our team(or try to) and gotta believe in management a little more than we have so far. The Rays have players that are very raw and have loads of potential and just need to play to it. We've got the basic foundation of our future team set and we've just got to make deals/trades that build on it.

I have to apologize to the readers. No, I am not talking about the down time we experienced here last night until about midday today. What I am talking about is after years of being subjected to the treatment of Vince and Chuckles its easy to get your head messed up on what is happening here.

What the Rays are building here is called a success story. They don't want to just put the franchise at the .500 level for just next year. They want to build a team that will win 400 games over the next five years. Doing that does not allow for short sighted moves. While they sit back and watch all the teams burn money on pieces that do not fit well together, the Rays have done nothing that will hurt their chances to build upon what was achieved last year in the second half.

So, I suggest you do what I did today. Grab yourself some Devil Ray's Cool Aid that has a shelf life of five years, and get ready to watch some meaningful games that will take place throughout. Its going to be a lot of fun.

Some old friends in the news. Matt Diaz is now a Brave after being rescued from Kansas City. After mention of the Red Sox being interested in Travo, he surprised some folks by accepting the arbitration offer with the Rays. It looks as if Perez and Alex Gonzalez are out of the Rays picture after rejecting the Rays offers. Though, they could still work out a deal. I personally like what Toby Hall brings to the table. I am not sure why there is sour feel about him. Is it because its taken him this long to develop or what, but I bet he will draw plenty of interest at some point this season. The Rays need to decide if they are for him or not, as now its time to either lock him up to a Huff Like deal, or look to move him for something in the course of the season. Its believed to be a footwork problem that has contributed to Upton's error total. That is why Jimy Williams will be his personal shadow in the upcoming months working on his game extensively. If the reliever from japan is anything like Osutka who was traded today, that will be one nice addition.

To me, this offseason has been a disapointment in the fact the Rays had some poker chips to work with and they have nothing to show for it. I am not sure if Friedman is scared to pull the trigger or what. I know there is more time, but for a franchise that is trying to improve its image, I am sure the fans would embrace 10 million in salary increase rather than using it on Joe Scoreboard. People were not showing up because of the product on the field in the past.

Borowski certain to be traded after being DFA. I guess Joey and Joe head to the Las Vegas Marlins?

"There's only ten good bloggers at any one time." I meant that in any given space, there's really only ten worth reading.
...

Gawker and Weblogs Inc have come close and All-Baseball/MVN, Sportsblogs, and Toaster have a nice niche, but aside from David Pinto, I don't know any full time bloggers.

I think Carroll should stick to doing what he does good like his UTF column and baseball. What I think he does not realize is that blogging is just starting to hit its stride. As you can see from the sidebar here on this site, I think there are more than ten blogs worth reading.

Speaking of bloggers that have been around a while, these are the ones that I first bookmarked.

One of the great things about Raysbaseball.com is the very in-depth off-season topics, whenever there's an article printed about possible free-agents, trade rumors and anything else relative to the Rays....it's found and posted. One of the interesting articles found recently was the list that MLB.com posted about possible non-tendered players. Some names were gimmes, just from their lack of production and high salary.

However, One name that intrigued me was former Cubs, Marlins and Dodgers First Baseman...Hee-Seop Choi. He's a high-risk, high-reward player who has never been given a full shot at a starting job. He can hit for power both ways(though his strikeout rate is kinda high), he has a good eye for pitches(decent walk totals), great defensive skills and isn't too slow running-wise. His downfall in his career was the lack of a great amount of ABs and the strikeout rate being around 35%.

Add the fact that he's gonna be only 26 at the start of the next season and he seems like a possible "Diamond in the Rough" free agent.

To some Rays fans, this offseason has been very anti-climactic. Gone are the days of the Blunder-Twins, but we've yet to make any significant moves in what was thought to be a very busy offseason for the Rays. The Optimism Thermometer of the Rays has taken some damage with mis/non-dealings, bust-for-bust Trades, reports of "The Same Ol' Rays" and the 1 bid for an Out-of-country player. Let's not forget about the report of CC's anger over Rocco's deal, that's always great to read. Our "trading chips" have found their way to get their names thrown in trade rumors, but we've got nothing to show for it.

Does the NDRO have a "Master Plan" that fans don't know about? Maybe a bit of "Shock and Awe" going on? Fans being in "shock" or "awe" that we may actually get another deal done within the remaining 3 months left in the offseason. Maybe the NDRO took a look at what our fellow fishes of Florida did and are "iffy" about trading good players for minor leaguers.

Who knows, we sure don't. Mum is the word right now for the NDRO to it's columnists(of both newspapers and even Bill Chastain). The less they know, the better. If a deal is close, feed them a little info to get them interested. So in case the deal is killed, there's no real panic.

For a Rays fan, as us many know, it's hard to be patient with the Front Office. I personally think that we should, seeing that with all our great prospects being "close" to being ready...it leaves the franchise with less hole-filling left to do. It's just hard to shake off the stigma that LaMar and Naimoli left on the franchise. Fans want them to make major moves, to show that the Franchise will throw money into the team...yet we gotta think what could happen if we make a head-first deal without thinking about the consequences. Do we risk it? Do we want to risk it?

My only complaint with the NDRO is the "Wait-and-see" tactic that we're using with our trading chips. It's a high-risk, high-reward move to wait until the top FAs get picked up and then go to the teams with holes in certain positions that we can demand top prospects for.

We're currently using that with Joey Gathright. Right now, according to rumors, we're shopping Joey to the Dodgers and Marlins. However, we've stalled any trade talks until Johnny Damon makes his decision on where he lands. This tactic may back-fire on us if Johnny decides to go to the Dodgers, seeing that the Red Sox already have a deal in place with the Mariners if Damon chooses to sign elsewhere. If that happens, our leverage with the Marlins is lost and we'd have to spice up the deal by adding Lugo or Baez.

My thought is, if we were offered Scott Olsen for Gathright straight up...there's no reason at all why we shouldn't accept now. Don't wait, just accept before the deal is off the table.

Please, Andy and Gerry, please do something to prove that my unmerited support for you isn't going to waste. I'm starting to waiver a bit and I've probably been your strongest supporter this offseason. I know that we shouldn't feel pressured to make moves for the sake of making moves...but sometimes you get "once in a lifetime" deals that you gotta take the risk on.
"You're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't..." is a quote that comes to mind.

Before I started my car on my way to Rhode Island(inside joke), I read Sam's Christmas Wishes article and it gave me an idea. However, instead of making wishes, I'll start the prediction train and make some early, very early 2006 Predictions.

First off, The Rays will win at least 75 wins and finish either in 3rd or a tie for 3rd place in the AL East. Insane as it may seem, the Blue Jays spending spree will most likely be all for naught. Baltimore will finish in last, seeing as there organization is in total disarray.

Next, Rocco Baldelli will put up his best statistical season as a Ray. He'll hit 20 HRs and will drastically cut down his K/BB ratio. Best 2 MIL hitter in baseball.

Kaz and Seth will both have 10+ wins and less than 10 losses. Kaz, through some miraculous intervention, will drop his BB/9 number to around 2 and will have 200 Ks. Seth's pitches per start will drop to around 89, however he'll have 3 or more CGs.

BJ Upton will drop his error total to around 20 with the influence of Jimy and Ozzie. He'll hit 10 HRs in a D-Rays uniform.

Prospectmania will hit the Trop as at least 5 of our prospects will make their MLB Debuts next year. Those prospects will be Jeff Niemann, Delmon Young, Wes Banktson, Jamie Shields and Jason Hammel will earn their way into starting positions.

Jonny Gomes will hit 40 HRs for the Rays, completely ripping apart the Rays record books. He'll keep his batting average between .270 and .285 the entire season and he'll have a final OPS of around .950.

Jorge Cantu will have at least 20 Walks, another case of divine intervention I guess. Jim, I don't see more than 30 walks...

Sean Burroughs will hit 10 HRs and will be a defensive and doubles dynamo for the Devil Rays. San Diego will be so shocked of his HR totals that they'll send MLB steroid testers to the Trop trying to come up with the exclamation of Burrough's turnaround.

Josh Beckett will have a 4.00+ ERA against the Rays next season. Can you say overrated?

We will be 5 or more games over .500 at some time during the season and be in fight for 1st in the division for a small amount of time.

Aubrey Huff will have a 30 HR season, however we will not resign him due to his total lack of defense.

I have been hearing Joey Gathright trade rumors for two years now. When you have a speedster like Carl Crawford on the team, Joey Gathright is expendable. Joey is Carl lite. Or, the man of steal. The Marlins are interested. They seem to have an abundance of pitching, so they make a good trading partner.

The latest rumor is Gathright might go for Scott Olsen. I received this scouting report on Scott Olsen dated June 5, 2005 by a fellow in my Fantasy baseball league here in Raleigh:

Went to see the Carolina Mudcats (AA Marlins) play the West Tenn Jaxx (AA Cubs) play last night. Scott Olsen pitched for the Mudcats. He went 7 innings gave up 6 hits and 2 runs but struck out 9. His fast ball was electric reaching 96 once but consistenetly at 93-94. The starting pitcher for the Jaxx was David Aardsma (YGB) who was over shadowed by Olsen. Aardsma went 6 innings giving up 5 hits two runs but walked 3 and only struck out 2. He looked fine the first three innings but seemed to run out of gas. The former #1 draft choice and closer from Rice seemed out of his element in a starting role. His fast ball was clocked out 91 but mostly threw in the high eightys. Jeremy Hermida played RF for the Mudcats had 3 walks at the plate but had a perfect throw from RF to home plate. Also playing in the game were former RedSox prospect Matt Murton for the Jaxx who was 0-4. Richard Lewis a top propect for the Cubs played 2B was 1-3 but looked good at the plate and in the field. Over all a good baseball game the final score 4 - 2 Mudcats. Final thoughts if you can get Olsen grab him!!!

Is the new Devil Rays organization in business? I have not heard alot of news out of the front office besides Friedman acknowledging that a member of the front office received a DUI.

It seems a total lockdown is in place. Have you noticed the amount of stories originating out of One Rays Place has been few and far between. Even the Tampa area columnists have not really had much information come across their desks.

It seems like the new managment team does not provide a whole lot of material in what direction they are heading down.

Gerry and Andrew don't make moves for the sake of making headlines. They do things internally. Like opening up the communication lines between Rays and their top prospects like Young and Upton.

They don't go blabbing to press unless they have to cover their backs and explain that a Marte deal was never offered.

I am hoping that this team is in business to give the area a chance to be competitive rather than making a buck.