[THE HANGOVER] An In Depth Look At James The Greater

Tampa Bay Rays (14 days until pitchers and catchers report)
Baseball Prospectus profiles James Shields. Take five minutes to read this and you will know more about James the Greater than you thought possible.

Two things stood out to us: 1) Shields scouting report from Baseball America’s list of the Rays’ top 30 prospects of 2002 (Shields was #27). This was after his first professional season as a 16th round draft pick. He would not show up on the list again until 2006.

Shields has good command of his fastball, which was clocked as high as 91 mph last summer. He also has a plus curveball that features sharp, late-breaking action, making it particularly troublesome for right-handers. Shields has impressive determination and excellent endurance…His changeup is no better than average, but the Rays believe that once he makes it more consistent, he could move rapidly. Shields made the most of his opportunities last year.

As pointed out in the piece, Shields’ change-up has come a long ways in seven years, as it was almost an after-thought early in his career. The profile continues to evaluate each of his minor league seasons and concludes by looking at how Shields used each of his four pitches in 2007, which is an excellent look at how a pitcher can attack righties and lefties differently.

As is typical of most right-handed pitchers, he uses his traditional breaking pitches much more frequently against righties by utilizing his slider (19 percent) and his curve (12 percent) at the expense of his changeup (26 percent). He’ll start off most right-handers with either a fastball (55 percent) or a slider (27 percent) and then if he gets ahead, he does a good job of mixing up his pitches. If he falls behind it’ll primarily be fastballs until he evens the count and can begin to work in the other pitches again.

His changeup has more tailing than downward action, moving over 8.5 inches on average (relative to a reference pitch thrown without spin) and he threw it over 43 percent of the time against lefties and a quarter of the time against righties. Although he doesn’t get a lot of called strikes on it, it is where he gets 60 percent of his swinging strikes and a fair percentage of his foul balls. As his out pitch, against right-handers he’ll pull it out a majority (60 percent) of the time on 0-2, 1-2, and 2-2 counts.

If you’re a left-handed hitter, 90 percnt of the pitches you’ll see from Shields are the riding fastball or changeup. He’ll usually start lefties with the fastball (64 percent) but employ the changeup 60 percent of the time when he’s ahead or even in the count. One would think having to choose from just two pitches would make things easier on the hitters but that proves difficult, as lefties hit worse (.243/.278/.393) on the season than right-handers (.250/.289/.428) because of his ability to changes speeds and locate both pitches very effectively. The other two pitches are just for show, as over 50% of the few sliders and curves he threw to lefties ended up in the dirt for balls.

The profile concludes by stating that Shields should not see a let-down in 2008 and will likely be better with an improved defense behind him.

Player Profile: James Shields [Baseball Prospectus]

DEVIL RAYS WEBTOPIA…

• The Philadelphia Daily News speculates that the Rays may be one of five teams interested in acquiring third baseman Wes Helms. The signing of Pedro Feliz by the Phillies makes Helms expendable. Still, there is little chance the Rays would be involved after the recent trade that brought in Willy Aybar. And the Daily-News’ assertion that the Rays front office is considering keeping Evan Longoria in the minors for the entire 2008 campaign is dubious at best. [Philadelphia Daily News]
• Armchair GM has the first power rankings of 2008 out. The Rays come in at a somewhat respectable #22, eight spots ahead of the Baltimore Orioles. There is a lot of hope this year for the Rays, and third base is strong possibility. But if the Rays do not finish ahead of the O’s in the AL East, heads will roll. [Armchair GM]
• It has been well-documented that the 2007 Tampa Bay Devil Rays had one of the worst bullpens in the history of baseball. Now 28.5% of the Rays 2007 opening day bullpen will be backing up newly acquired Johan Santana for the Mets in 2008. After acquiring Brian Stokes earlier this off-season from the Rays, the Mets have now claimed Ruddy Lugo off of waivers from Oakland. This is typical Mets. They distract their fans with shiny objects and hope they don’t notice that the front office just plugged one hole with a diamond, and yet there are still several other holes. This team is destined to be just good enough to break the fans’ collective hearts…again. [MetsBlog]
• The St. Pete Chamber of Commerce will form a 35-member task force to investigate the impact of the Tampa Bay Rays proposed stadium. The task for will be made up of local business and community leaders. The task force will help decide if the Chamber of Commerce will ultimately support or oppose the new stadium. [St. Pete Times]
• Bill Chastain continues his preview series of each of the Rays “positions”. The latest installment is “starting rotation”. [DevilRays.com]
• 365 Days of Dough, Rays and Me also takes a stab at the Rays 2008 starting rotation. [365 Days of Dough, Rays and Me]
• DRays Bay interviews Marc Normandin. Honestly, we had no idea who he was either until we went back and re-read the James Shields profile above. Normandin wrote that profile. [DRays Bay]
• The Diamond Cutter takes a look at the Rays top 5 prospects. [The Diamond Cutter]

[THE HANGOVER] The Rays Officially Unveil Plans For New Stadium On St. Pete Waterfront

Devil Rays (66-96)
The Rays officially unveiled the plans for a new stadium on the St. Petersburg waterfront as well as the reconstruction of the Tropicana Field site. The St. Pete Times has an image gallery of what can be expected.

Most of the details have already been released, but some of the biggest remaining questions, concerning financing of the new ballpark, were addressed by Stuart Sternberg. While the plan does call for $60 million in revenue from the state as a result of the redevelopment of the Tropicana Field site, Sternberg emphasized that there would be no new taxes and any costs that are accrued over the $450 million proposal would be paid for by the team.

Rays unveil dramatic ballpark vision [tampabay.com]
Vision of a new ballpark [St. Pete Times]

DEVIL RAYS WEBTOPIA…

• Four our take on the Delmon Young for Matt Garza trade, CLICK HERE.
• Next November, St. Pete residents may be asked to vote on a referendum to help fund a new stadium for the Rays. How the Rays perform on the field in 2008 could go a long way to determining the result of that vote. Therefore, expect the Rays to be more aggressive this off-season, than they have been the past couple of years. [TBO]

“In baseball operations, we’re trying very hard to insulate ourselves from [the Stadium referendum] ,” Rays executive vice president Andrew Friedman said Tuesday. “They’re very independent events, and it’s premature to factor that in at all into our line of thinking. Obviously if it gets approved it will at some point start to factor into our thought process, but how so and how much is yet to be determined. We feel a tremendous amount of pressure to improve this team independent of any outside factors, so that’s what we’re focused on doing.”

• The St. Pete Times has a FAQ regarding the new stadium proposal. [tampabay.com]
• A baseball website cannot have a regular feature called “Great Moments in Fleece History” and not include the Scott Kazmir trade from the Mets. And by the way, we are glad to see that the Kazmir trade helped the 2008 Mets win the World Series this season as so many Mets kept reminding us during the regular season. [MLB Fleece Factor]
• With the Baseball Winter Meetings just around the corner, Bill Chastain gives us a rundown of the Rays needs and wants. [Devil Rays]
• Brian Stokes tenure with the Rays is now officially over. Stokes was Designated For Assignment last week when the Rays tweaked the 40-man roster. Yesterday he was acquired by the Mets for cash. [Yahoo! Sports]

The Hangover: David Price Is Now A Very Rich Man

Devil Rays 6, Red Sox 5.
Anybody else worried that the Rays closer next year will be 38 years old, with a history of Tommy John surgeries (emphasis plural) and throws 86 mph? Guess it could be worse.

With only a few hours to go before the league’s new early deadline for signing draft picks, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays signed David Price for a kazillion million dollars.

The left-hander from Vanderbilt University agreed to a six-year major-league contract that guarantees him $8.5 million and could rise to a total value of $11.25 million depending on how quickly Price reaches the majors.

What amazes us is that people are making such a big deal out of how much the Rays paid. Kudos to the front office for getting the deal done (we never had any doubt). All we have heard for the past 6-7 years is that the Devil Rays are not willing to pay the price to compete. The young power lefty is the rarest of commodities in baseball and the Rays did what it took to get the deal done.

Price will be assigned to Hudson Valley but Andrew Friedman stated that he is not likely to pitch for the organization in 2007.

Rays’ No. 1 Pick Agrees To Lucrative Deal [TBO]

DEVIL RAYS WEBTOPIA…

• Wives of the Devil Rays’ players have adopted a platoon of soldiers stationed overseas. The wives are seeking donations to be sent to the troops. Collections will be set up at gates 1 and 5 at the Trop, this Saturday and Sunday. [Devil Rays]
• Yesterday’s victory was the Rays’ 20th on the road this season, matching last year’s total. The Rays have 19 road games left. [tampabay.com]
• RaysTalk is reporting that Fernando Cabrera has been signed by the Devil Rays with Brian Stokes being designated for assignment. They do not provide a source and we have been unable to confirm. As of the time of this writing, Stokes is still listed on the Rays official 40-man roster. Anybody see this in print elsewhere? [RaysTalk]
• Despite the concerns that the new deadline imposed by major league baseball could lead to a number of top picks going unsigned, every one of the top 30 picks inked deals with their respective teams. We hate to do this, but we may have to thank Scott Boras. Before the deadline, teams may have been feeling pressure to stick to the “slotted money” being recommended by the league office. For example, MLB was pushing for the Rays to only offer David Price a bonus in the $4 million range. One day before the deadline Boras was able to get Rick Porcello a guaranteed $7.2 million contract at the #27 slot. That may have eased the pressure on other teams as they could then point to that amount and “blame” Boras for the amount they would offer their picks. [Yahoo! Sports]
• The Rays signed 20 of their top 21 picks. Anybody know who the “one” is? It is not one of the top 9 picks. [TBO]
• Marc Topkin breaks down David Price’s contract and how much he will earn each season depending on whether he is on the 25-man major league roster. Pardon us for being daddy-downer this morning, but if Price is still in the minors in 2012 and the Rays are paying him $1.3 million, then the organization is in trouble. [tampabay.com]
• Scott Kazmir has been a victim of the Devil Rays defense but has been able to overcome that in part due to his decreased rate of walks, both over his career and during this season. [The Fantasy Baseball Generals]

The Devil Rays are at an astounding -124, more than 80 worse than any other team. That is, their defense allowed 124 more balls than average to turn into hits. Their infield is dead last in revised zone rating by a large margin. RZR is a measure of the percentage of balls hit into a fielder’s “zone” that are turned into outs.

Before this year, Kazmir made steady improvement in his walk rate…His control has clearly slipped this year, but not to Dalkowskian levels. He was terrible in June, but in July and August he has gotten his control a bit under control (forgive the pun), with rates of 3.7 and 2.8.

• The Hardball Times declares the Devil Rays as “the worst fielding team in baseball history,” and they provide data to back up their argument. Hard to believe when the team has potential or future gold glovers in left field (Carl Crawford), right field (Delmon Young), third base (Aki Iwamura) and first base (Carlos Pena). The problem is all those players play along the foul lines. More balls are hit up the middle and the Rays are awful up the middle. If Upton is not moved back to shortstop in the off-season, look for Andrew Friedman to look for an upgrade at that position defensively. There is enough offense in the rest of the lineup
  to allow for a no-hit, gold glove type at shortstop in 2008. [The Hardball Times]
• In the meantime, Joe Maddon will spend the rest of 2007 evaluating Ben Zobrist, Brendan Harris and Josh Wilson to see if any of them will tep up and earn the starting job in 2008 at shortstop. [Devil Rays]
• The Marlins are likely to trade Scott Olsen this off-season if he is convicted of DUI and resisting arrest. We are just spit-ballin’ here, but how about Rocco Baldelli-for-Olsen and…? [MLB Trade Rumors]

[THE HANGOVER] We Knew The Bullpen Was Bad, But Geez

Something smells…Let’s see if we can figure out what it is…

Yesterday, somebody in the comments section asked about the number of runners inherited that Shawn Camp had allowed to score this year. Of course, we really don’t need a statistics to tell us that the answer is somewhere between “too many” and “seriously? Shawn Camp?…again?”

While most media outlets still list wins, losses, saves and ERA, a true measure of a relief pitchers effectiveness is their ability to come in and put out a fire. Strangely, IR (number of inherited runners) IRS (number of inherited runners scored) and IRS% (percentage of inherited runners that scored) are elusive numbers. None of the giant online media outlets list the numbers. But never fear, after some searching, the fine folks over at Baseball Prospectus have come through (as usual).

First let us take a look at the numbers for every pitcher that has pitched in relief this season for the Devil Rays. In all Major League games this season, relief pitchers have faced a total of 1906 IR. Of those runners, 589 have come around to score for a ML average of 30.9%.

PITCHER	IR	IRS	IRS%
Shawn Camp	29	13	44.8%
Gary Glover	16	3	18.8
Brian Stokes	15	6	40.0
Ruddy Lugo	10	7	70.0
Juan Salas	9	3	33.3
Al Reyes	4	1	25.0
Tim Corcoran	2	1	50.0
Chad Orvella	2	0	0.0
Jae Kuk Ryu	0	0	0.0

Jae Kuk Ryu is the only pitcher that is yet to enter a game with a runner on base. As we can see from the numbers, Shawn Camp, as well as Brian Stokes and Ruddy Lugo (currently in AAA) have been atrocious. Gary Glover has been surprisingly effective.

Now let’s see how the Devil Rays rank as a team against the rest of Major League relief pitchers…

TEAM	IR	IRS	IRS%
Colorado	56	25	44.6%
St. Louis	47	19	40.4
TAMPA BAY DEVIL RAYS	87	34	39.1
New York Yankees	83	32	38.6
Baltimore	81	31	38.3
Kansas City	78	29	37.2

As a team the Devil Rays have allowed 34 of 87 IR (both Major League highs) to score or 39.1%. Sadly, the Rockies, as a team, have been nearly as bad as Shawn Camp, but they have faced 31 fewer IR than the Rays. The Yankees and Orioles actually have similar numbers to the Rays.

There have been 27 pitchers that have inherited at least 15 runners in 2007…

PITCHER	IR	IRS	IRS%
Shawn Camp	29	13	44.8%
Geoff Geary	28	5	17.9
Brian Shouse	25	2	8.0
Aaron Fultz	20	7	35.0
John Parrish	20	6	30.0
Micah Bowie	20	6	30.0
Joseph Smith	19	6	31.6
Mike MacDougal	19	5	26.3
Jack Taschner	19	5	26.3

Shawn Camp has inherited more base runners than any other pitcher, with 29 and has allowed the most to score by a wide margin. His IRS% (44.8%) is the 3rd worst among pitchers with at least 15 IR. If Camp only allowed the league average, he would have only allowed 9 IRS, so Camp has allowed 4 more inherited runners to score than an average pitcher would have if placed in the same situations. Ruddy Lugo is tied for the 7th most IRS with 7 and Brian Stokes is tied for 10th with 6. On a brighter note, Glover has the 5th best IRS% of pitchers with at least 15 IR (18.8%).

Of the 74 pitchers that have faced at least 10 IR, Lugo is the league leader with 70% of those runners scoring.

We’re no brain surgeons here, but maybe Camp and Stokes shouldn’t be entering close games with runners on base. Just a hunch.

DEVIL RAYS WEBTOPIA…

• Andrew Friedman recently spent 5 days in Durham watching each of the Rays 5 AAA starting pitchers. It appears as though we are getting closer to seeing some changes in the Devil Rays rotation. In the meantime our Jae Seo and Casey Fossum voodoo dolls are taking a beating.

Each pitcher from the group – left-hander J.P. Howell and right-handers Andy Sonnanstine, Jason Hammel, Jeff Niemann and Mitch Talbot – is working on a few specific areas of interest. Friedman wouldn’t handicap who might get the first call to Tampa Bay, but said he could see a couple being ready “very soon” while others have some work to do.

• The Rays have a catching problem. Josh Paul, who was hit by a pitch spiked on a play at home plate on Sunday, needs to head to the DL. The problem is, his replacement, Shawn Riggans is on the DL at AAA Durham and not eligible to come off until Thursday. The Rays do not have any other catchers on the 40-man roster, so if they wanted to replace Paul with somebody else, they would need to designate somebody for assignment. Instead the Rays will keep Paul active as the emergency backup catcher and hope they don’t play any 16 inning games in the Mariners series.
• The Mariners come to the Trop for a 3-game set beginning tonight. Seattle is 19-21, 5.5 games behind the Angels in the AL West. They are coming off a loss to Cleveland that was a makeup game from earlier this season. They have lost 5 of 6. The Rays were 3-6 against the Mariners in 2006.

The Hangover: Scott Kazmir Has A Lot To Learn

Orioles 6, Devil Rays 4.
He is only 23…he is only 23…he is only 23…102 pitches in 4 innings. 6 hits, 4 walks. Scott Kazmir actually threw 60 strikes, which is not terrible, so it is not just his lack of control. He just throws too many pitches. Some how he needs to learn to hit the bats more often. Wednesday’s loss starts and stops with Kid K, but there were plenty of other problems in between. Ben Zobrist, who was only starting because Aki Iwamura was sick with the flu, committed another error, because he was lazy on a routine ground ball. Instead of getting in front of it, he tried to back hand the grounder…Josh Paul became just the latest Devil Ray that failed to get a bunt a down. And once again Joe Maddon will stick with the call even with two strikes, as if he may be sending a message to the players “I will not let you swing away if you can’t lat down a simple sacrifice.” …And finally Elijah Dukes played a flyball to center into a game of twister and eventually a double…But ultimately, none of that matters if Kazmir can keep his pitch totals down and work deeper into games. He just needs to trust his stuff. You could see it on radar gun where his fastball was rarely touching 90 and never higher than 91. That is a classic sign of a pitcher that is aiming and not throwing. He was slowing everything down, hoping to find the strikezone. When a pitcher does that he loses his mechanics. He is only 23…he is only 23…he is only 23.

• Akinori Iwamura was out of the lineup with flu-like symptoms which are apparently running through the clubhouse.
• Scott Kazmir was not one of those affected despite his performance.
• The Orioles spent a lot of money on their bullpen this off-season and as soon as Scott Kazmir was pulled from the game, everybody knew the game was over. The O’s pen is just better than the Rays right now.
• Elijah Dukes is trying to bust out of his slump and he is smart enough o know that it was not the 2-3 performance yesterday but rather the walk in the 6th inning that could have done it.
• Joe Maddon needs more help at the back end of the bullpen (duh). Brian Stokes is on pace for 93 appearances.
• Uh oh. Jenn Sterger is not happy with people knocking the Devil Rays. And if Jenn is not happy, nobody is happy. Then again, we have no doubt that there are plenty of people (us included) that would be more than happy to cheer her up.
• The Colorado Rockies have asked the Devil Rays about Jorge Cantu.
• It is time to start stuffing those virtual all-star ballot boxes with the names Aki Iwamura, Delmon Young and Carl Crawford.

The Hangover: Another Candidate For The Job Seth McClung Does Not Have

• Moral victory last night. The Rays were losing the entire game so the ‘pen did not blow the lead.
• We never gave Brian Stokes much of a chance to win the fifth spot in the rotation and…what? We had Stokes in the rotation’s 5th spot earlier this week? Never happened. Well Papa Joe Maddon made it official yesterday and Stokes is headed to the bullpen. What we didn’t expect was that Stokes is now a candidate to be the team’s closer. There are worse options. *cough, cough* Seth McClung *cough, cough*
• The second round of pink slips were handed out yesterday. No real big surprises on the list except possibly Jason Hammel. We knew Hammel was a long shot for the 5th spot in the rotation, but we thought he would be given more of a chance. In two appearances he allowed one run on four hits in three innings. The roster now stands at 42, with 17 more cuts to come.
• In theory, the fight for the final spot is now down to four, including Edwin Jackson, J. P. Howell, Jae-Kuk Ryu and Tim Corcoran. We still think the team has Corky pegged as a reliever and spot starter, so now we are down to three.
• The Peter Gammons love-fest continues here at RI. Gammons once again he throws some affection towards the Rays in his column “Ten spring questions left to answer“. Question #8 was to wonder aloud how all of the young talented players would eventually fit together. He states that the Rays could be the most fun team to watch of all the second-tier teams in baseball…He refers to the Rays outfield and says that Elijah Dukes may be the most talented of the group. Gammons also hints that the Rays are so impressed by the slimmed-down Joel Guzman that they may be reconsidering Akinori Iwamura’s roll with the team…We understand that Guzman is a good fielder, but so is Muu-Rah, and while Iwamura is struggling at the plate, Guzman is only hitting .150. Muu-Rah will be the opening day third baseman. But at some point, if Guzman can find consistency with the bat, Iwamura may be headed to second base. 2008?
• When we first heard that Joe Maddon was considering Al Reyes for the closer position, we were worried about putting that much pressure on his arm so soon after Tommy John surgery. Then we hear that Maddon is worried about pitching him on back-to-back nights. In that case, closer might be his best option on the Rays. Think about it, how often will the Rays being leading in the ninth on consecutive nights?
• The guys over at armchairgm have their Rays preview up.

The Hangover: The Curse of LaMar Naimoli Now On The Nationals

Anybody else think that Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito throws harder than Casey Fossum. Alito put on a Rays uniform and threw out the first pitch before the Rays-Phils games yesterday. [Insert cheesy “right”-handed joke here]

• The Rays suffered two more ugly losses during split-squad action, falling to the Twins and the Phillies (Damn we hate losing to Philadelphia in anything). The most promising news was that Brian Stokes, Jason Hammel and Edwin Jackson all looked solid in their quest for the fifth spot in the rotation. They combined to throw seven shutout innings, allowing only four hits and one walk. Actually, the pitching has been solid overall, ranking fourth in most major pitching categories in AL.
• Akinori Iwamura picked up his first hit and RBI on an excuse-me single. Just remember, it only takes one of those a week to make the difference between hitting .250 and .300 over the course of a season.
• Can it be a coincidence that the Nationals are considered the worst team in baseball that could lose 110 games AND they have Chuck LaMar on the payroll? We think not. The Curse of LaMar-Naimoli lives! Chris Needham thinks this is a good thing for the Nationals. huh? Chris, my pal. RUN! Run fast. LaMar is an evil, evil man. If you think things are bad now, you have no idea. Get out while you’re still young. You’ll thank us. [p.s. The Nationals already have three players on the DL that will miss the beginning of the regular season. Let’s hope the Curse has been transferred and not just a reincarnation]
  
• Whoever wrote THIS sub-headline must have Gotten A Delmon.