The Hangover: More Cuts Expected Today

• After the Rays 1-0 win over the Jays, the Rays no longer have the worst spring training record. In fact they are now ahead of the White Sox and the Mets. This time it was the pitching staff led by Casey Fossum. The Fossum Flop pitched 5 shutout innings allowing 5 hits and 1 walk to lower his spring ERA to 0.71.
• Joe Maddon confirmed what we already knew by naming the order of his first four starters. The fourth starter Casey Fossum, is ready to unleash his “Fossum Flip” (we prefer Fossum Flop), because as he puts it, “it sort of breaks up the seriousness of a baseball game.” Are people laughing at the pitch? Or the fact that Fossum is the only pitcher in baseball without a fastball? Then again if Fossum was less concerned about breaking up the “seriousness of the game”, maybe his career record would be better than 32-44. Supposedly it is J. P. Howell or Edwin Jackson for the rotation. Is it to late to vote for BOTH?
• Rocco Baldelli was held out of a minor league game he was scheduled to appear in. The hope is that the Boy in the Bubble will feel well enough to play on Friday and Saturday in preparation for opening day.
• Josh Hamilton is going to make the Reds’ 25-man roster, to the surprise of nobody. The only question now is if Hamilton will be one of the Reds’ starting outfielders.
• Evan Longoria homered twice in a AA spring training game.
• The Rays are expected to make another round of roster moves today. Afterwards, we will return with an updated roster projection.

The Hangover: Devil Rays Still Looking For First Gear

• The Rays optioned Joel Guzman to AAA Durham on Monday. Guzman, who showed up to Spring Training slimmed down, impressed the coaches with his defensive ability at third base, but struggled with the bat. He was 4-29 with 2 doubles and a home run. Guzman has a long ways to go to prove he can hit at the Major League level. If he can be successful at Durham, the Rays could have a logjam at third base in 2008 with Guzman, Akinori Iwamura and Evan Longoria.
• Josh Hamilton hasn’t cooled off yet. He is hitting .487 with 19 hits in 14 games.
• Joe Maddon says it is time for the regulars to step up. The regular season is two weeks away and it is starting to gt close to that time when slumps will carry over.
• Papa Joe Maddon will also experiment with a new lineup today.
• Josh Paul just really likes wearing masks. Was he burned by acid or something?
• Stuart Sternberg and Co. have made a concerted effort to be more involved in the community.
  

The Hangover: Seth McClung No Lock To Be Closer

• Let’s just pretend that last night, and for that matter, the first week of Spring Training never happened.
• 101 Reasons the Rays could win the World Series this year. Also known as, 101 reasons that Man-Ray’s elevator is not reaching the top floor. We are particularly fond of #60. Yo Man-Ram. You are not the first to predict the Rays will win Series. Aaron Goldstein did it last year, and he was actually serious.
• Seth McClung was the Rays #2 starter last year at this time. This year he is the leading candidate to be closer, but Andrew Friedman says that is not guaranteed.
• Uniform expert Paul Lukas of Uniwatch likes the new jersey patch the Rays will be wearing this season in honor of ten seasons of…well we are not sure what exactly they honoring. Maybe it is a memorial patch?
• We have pretty much given up on ever seeing Josh Hamilton in a Rays uniform again, but until we see Josh on the Reds 25-man roster for game 162, we will hold out hope. Of all the potential twists to this story, our biggest fear is starting to happen. It is one thing for the Reds management to want Josh to make the team. At least then their decision is based on what they see. But now Josh is turning into the “feel-good story of the Spring“. Now the Reds fans and even baseball fans in general are rooting for him to make the team. That type of public pressure will almost assure Hamilton makes the Reds roster.
• Apparently the local media have all latched on to Shawn Riggans as the Rays 2007 version of the “feel good, rookie fighting for a spot” guy.
• Dioner Navarro will be out a week to 10 days. More time for the media to write feel-good stories about Shawn Riggans.
• Of course there is another point of view as presented by Steve Phillips, that the Josh Hamilton story send the wrong message to the Reds other prospects.
• Rays prospect Elliot Johnson once homered in four consecutive innings.
• Would a Rays basketball team win more games than the baseball team? With Seth McClung banging bodies in the low post, what could possibly go wrong?
• You get a ring if you win a Minor League Championship? Apparently the Montgomery Biscuits will.

The Hangover: Carl Crawford Wants You To Know That He Does Not Have Limp Wrists

• The Rays had another rough loss yesterday, falling to the Tribe 10-2. Joel Guzman hit his first home run of the Spring and Carl Crawford stole two bases. We may have jinxed Jeff Ridgway yesterday by saying that he could grab one of the last bullpen spots because he is left handed. He responded by giving up 3 hits, 4 walks and 5 runs in 1 inning. Not good.
• Jon Switzer took a line drive off his wrist from the only batter he faced. X-rays were negative.
• Josh Hamilton had his first rough game of the Spring going 0-3 with a walk against the Yankees. The o-fer included only his second strike out.
• The Rays made their first two “cuts” of the Spring by reassigning Doug Waechter and Shinji Mori to minor league camp. Both players are returning from surgery and will not be ready to pitch during the first part of the season.
• Rays fans will get a look at two future members of the Rays rotation this afternoon when Jeff Niemann and Mitch Talbot take the mound against the Pirates.
• Papa Joe Maddon’s new lineup with Rocco Baldelli-Delmon Young-Carl Crawford as the 1-2-3 hitters may already be old news as Maddon is now leaning towards swapping C. C. and Delmon permanently. The move makes sense. We have always thought that Crawford was a natural 3-hitter despite his speed. In this case, C. C. and Delmon are very similar hitters, but Crawford has a little more speed and Young has a little more power. The move also creates righty-lefty-righty situation with Baldelli at the top.
• Joel Guzman is excited to be back in the infield, having dropped 20 pounds in the off-season to increase his range and mobility at third base.
• Carl Crawford says that his wrists are fine but he is still treating them everyday for tendinitis. Let’s hope it is only precautionary.
• Yesterday we introduced many of you to Manny Stiles. His first rant on the Rays is up here. Enjoy. He says this isn’t just a shtick. He promises that he is a full-fledged Rays fan now. It’s a hard life Manny.

Reds Likely To Start Producing Josh Hamilton Jerseys Any Day Now

The Rays still have plenty of their own questions as they enter the first full week of Spring Training games. However, there was one question lingering out there in the minds of many Rays fans and it involved a player in a different organization all together. This past off-season, the Chicago Cubs selected Josh Hamilton from the Rays in the Rule 5 draft and then traded him to the Cincinnati Reds. At the time, most thought that it would be a long shot, at best, for Hamilton, the former first overall pick (1999) to make the Reds’ 25-man roster. We are talking about a player that has only played 15 games since 2002 (all at short season low-A Hudson Valley) and has only played 23 career games above A-ball. Most thought that Hamilton would find his way back to the Rays or the two teams would work out a trade so that the Reds could send him to the minors for further seasoning. At the very least we assumed this would be underlying storyline throughout Spring Training with the final decision coming down to the last round of cuts by the Reds.

Well, the Reds are four games into their Spring schedule and the story may be a non-story already as Hamilton is tearing up the Grapefruit league. He has 9 hits in his first 16 at bats with 2 doubles and his first home run since 2002, a 500′ game-winner versus the Pirates, that cleared the batter’s eye in center field. We admit that we were a bit torn about the Hamilton situation. We are always for the team before the player, but we do have a soft spot for Josh Hamilton. Part of us wanted him to fail so that we could get him back, but another part of us smiles every time we see a Reds box score and Hamilton has multiple hits. The Rays have three young and extremely talented outfielders already in place. We are not saying that down the road Hamilton could not have been better than one or more of the starters, but it is not a position that the Rays are desperately looking to fill.

The complaint, and it is a legitimate one, is that the Rays lost Hamilton with anything to show for their investment. Not a single major league at bat. Not even a player to be named later. Should Hamilton have been protected on the 40-man roster? Hindsight says yes, but after his performance and injury at low-A Hudson Valley last summer, nobody could have seen this performance coming so soon.

Many Rays fans were still holding out hope and until the final 25-man rosters are announced many will be watching the Reds situation closely. That door is shutting fast and Josh is firmly entrenched on the other side.

[Update: Josh has a single and a walk in his first two plate appearances this afternoon and will likely be in the starting lineup tomorrow at Prospect Energy Park against the Rays]
[Update 2: Now it looks like Josh will not even make the trip to St. Pete tomorrow]

The Hangover: Josh Hamilton Is Now About 500′ Farther From The Rays

• Josh Hamilton is not the only former Rays first round pick that is trying to stick with another major league club this spring. One time opening day starter, Dewon Brazelton is in camp with the Kansas City Royals as a non-roster invitee. Don’t the Royals employ scouts? Then again, it couldn’t possibly turn out as bad as his stint in San Diego last year…could it?
• Josh Hamilton hit his first home run in a game since 2002. Seriously, 2002. And it was prodigious.
• Papa Joe Maddon wishes that nobody had to compete for a job in Spring Training. Can’t we all just get along?
• Greg Norton will DH again today in the first Spring Training game. Maybe our prediction of 300 ABs for Jonny Gomes was actually too high.
• The fifth spot in the rotation may come down to who can throw strikes the most consistently.
• Andrew Friedman promises not to rush Jeff Niemann, Mitch Talbot and Andy Sonnanstine. All three are likely to start at AAA and when they are ready, Friedman promises to find a spot on the Rays for each of them.
• Several spots are still up for grabs, but it is going to take more than just gaudy numbers this Spring to win those spots. Papa Joe and Andrew Friedman will also be looking at intangibles. That leads us to believe that they probably already have a sense of what the roster is going to look like and the other players will have to force them to change their minds.
• Hey! It’s another Delmon Is Soooo Mature story. On top of that, for those of you that are familiar with the website Fire Joe Morgan they would have a field-day with this story. There are about 20 single-sentence paragraphs.
• We made an oopsy last week. This will actually be Don Zimmers 59th season in the major leagues (not 58th as we had previously reported) and hence he will be wearing #59 on his uniform this season. A truly impressive feat.
• A pleasant interview with Stuart Sternberg just don’t expect him to say anything.

The Hangover: Gettin’ A Delmon

• A lot has been made about the Rays farm system and most agree that it is the best in baseball right now. Well, apparently the Rays rank first in overrated prospects also. D. A. Humber: Baseball Central decided to rank the most overrated prospects in baseball. At the top of the list as the most overrated of the overrated? Our very own B.J. “Don’t call me Melvin” Upton. They point to how high he was drafted and his struggles in the field and his lack of production at the plate. They do concede that he is young enough and athletic enough to still develop into a solid major leaguer, but they are skeptical. In addition to Upton, Joel Guzman comes in at #4. There biggest point (and a valid one) is that despite his size (6’6″, 252 lbs.) he does not hit for a lot of power. We have never seen Guzman play, but we have been around baseball long enough to know that when a kid that big can’t hit for power it is usually because they have zero bat speed.
• D. A. Humber then countered with another post defending B.J. Upton and why he is not overrated. The main argument is that he is young and he was the second pick in a weak draft.
• Nate Silver at Baseball Prospectus wonders if B. J. Upton could be a Gary Sheffield in the making. Nate, stop teasing us. They test for steroids now. At this point we are still hoping for Jose Reyes but will settle for Mike Cameron.
• Josh Hamilton’s progress so far has been labeled “OK” by Reds manager Jerry Narron. Still, the Cincinnati Enquirer speculates that he will make the 25-man roster for the Reds, but worry his development may be stumped much the same way former Red Wily Mo Pena was. The Reds may also try to work out a trade with the Rays so they can send Hamilton to the minors.
• When the season starts, the Rays have a good shot at being the youngest team in the majors, but the two oldest players, Dan Miceli (36) and Greg Norton (34) let it be known that the youngins need grow up or things aren’t going to be any better in 2007.
• This has been out there for a while, but we had forgotten about it. If Delmon Young has any success this season, we need to prepare ourselves for more “bat tossing” jokes or as The Dugout likes to call it…Gettin’ A Delmon.
• DRays Bay has landed a couple of solid interviews in the past month and want you to know it by patting themselves on the back Ricky Henderson-style, over and over. Pretty soon they will start referring to themselves in the third person.
• Yet another write up on the Rays top 10 prospects.
• Do you remember the Turn Ahead The Clock promotion that Major League Baseball ran back in 1999. We remember, but strangely had forgotten that the Rays had participated, which is probably for the better. Well, for only $14.99 you can relive that night by owning your very own Rays Turn Ahead The Clock jersey!
• What would it take to make someone blog about the Rays all year?
  

The Hangover: The Curse Of New Kids On The Block

• We understand the excitement about the possibility of Edwin Jackson being the 5th starter for the Rays this season. Of course, everybody points to the 3-2 record and 1.60 ERA in the Venezuelan Winter League. The St. Pete Times ran an article on Jackson and his hopes of making the rotation out of Spring Training. They were correct to point out that he has had some control problems in his stint with the Rays. In 2006, he walked 25 in 36.1 innings of work. What they failed to mention is Jackson continued to have control problems in winter ball. Jackson somehow posted an impeccable ERA despite walking 23 batters in 45 innings. In addition, Jackson issued six wild pitches in those games. We beg everyone to temper their excitement. We still have our money on J. P. Howell being named the fifth starter. Jackson may have the inside track on a spot in the rotation if Casey Fossum is not ready for opening day.
• Here is a great photo of a very young Tropicana Field in diapers. We barely recognize it. We are fairly certain that this is a photo from the preparations for the New Kids on the Block concert from the fall of 1990, which amazingly is still the attendance record for the Trop. In the past we have made reference to The Curse of LaMar-Naimoli. But that may have been unjust. Maybe the Curse goes back further. The Curse of the New Kids? (thanks to griff3758)
• Nothing surprising here…Evan Longoria will not be on the opening day major league roster. In fact the only reason he appears to be in Spring Training at all is due to an obligation written into Longoria’s contract by his agent. If the Dirtbag can put up another strong campaign down on the farm in 2007, we would still put it at 50:50 at best for a Longoria sighting at the Trop in September.
• Casey Fossum felt good after his fourth bullpen session. Still no word of whether or not the team is expecting him to be ready for opening day. Fossum is hoping that he will come back stronger from this surgery than he did from the first time his shoulder was worked on. We think it is more likely that the Fossum Flop becomes his only pitch.
• Finally, former Rays prospect Josh Hamilton met with the media yesterday and had his first workout with his new team. It is a little disheartening to see Josh in a Reds uniform.