Tampa Bay Rays

The Cardinals' interest in signing Trever Miller is strong enough that the left-hander was invited to St. Louis to meet with the team's doctors and take a physical Thursday, but he apparently left town without finalizing a deal.

George Steinbrenner's 35-year reign as boss of the New York Yankees ended Thursday when he passed control of baseball's most famous team to his youngest son, Hal.

The American League Champion Tampa Bay Rays today announced their 2009 Spring Training schedule as well as pricing options for the 16 home games at the newly renovated Charlotte Sports Park.

Longoria named to Topps Rookie Team

With the Rule V draft coming up, the Rays added three players to their 40 man roster in order to protect them from the draft. The first two are no-brainers; Jake McGee and Wade Davis. The other is a man who has been very good, but seldomly talked about, relief pitcher, Dale Thayer.

Davis and McGee are two keys to the Rays future and even though McGee will miss a huge chunk of the 2009 season, if not all, he is still vital to the Rays future as either a starter or most likely a potential closer. Davis is one of my favorite prospects and should be contending for a rotation spot by mid season next year.

Thayer is the odd man of the three. He was acquired in 2006 from the Padres in exchange for Russell Branyan and has been very good in the minors. At age 28, he's too old to be considered a "prospect", but it's hard to argue with the numbers he's put up in his minor league career. In 317 minor league appearances he has an ERA of just 2.31 and WHIP of 1.17. He is also good at keeping the ball in the yard with 0.44 HR/9.

Just this past season at Durham, he posted a 10.01 K/9 and a 0.26 HR/9. He had nine saves and a 2.77 ERA in 52 appearances. By adding him to the 40 man roster, the Rays may be seriously looking at Thayer for one of the open spots in the bullpen.

Bill Chastain of MLB.com has a report up saying the Rays maybe interested in Jason Giambi as a possible DH. Giambi has been close to the top of my wishlist since the offseason started, but I'm not sure if it will happen.

The Rays are down two left-handers since they did not pick up Cliff Floyd's option and Eric Hinske is a free agent. As King points out, Giambi remains a productive player after hitting 32 homers and driving in 96 runs in 2008 with an an on-base percentage of .373. In 65 career games at Tropicana Field, Giambi has homered 11 times and driven in 48 runs.

At age 38, Giambi will not command near the salary he once played for, but that's still not to say his pricetag won't be too much for the payroll-minded Rays, who are also believed to have some interest in Pat Burrell and Milton Bradley. So it's likely to be determined by how the market sorts out this offseason. If the market is depressed, all three could definitely be on the Rays' radar.

I'm glad that the Rays could be interested in Giambi, Pat Burrell and Milton Bradley. But, I also remember that this is being reported by Bill Chastain, who lost credibility with me when he made the premature claim that the Rays had traded for Jason Bay.

According to the St. Louis Post Dispatch, via mlbtraderumors.com , the Cardinals have signed lefty reliever Trever Miller.  Miller had a 4.15 ERA this season with the Rays, but when used in his proper role, as you've probably seen me complain about this season, he was very good.  Lefties hit just .235/.327/.382 against him.  Since Miller is a Type B free agent the Rays will receive a sandwich pick(between the first and second rounds) as compensation.

The Rays bought him out for $400k instead of picking up a $2million dollar option, AND they get a draft pick when he leaves?  All I can say is, thanks Trever.

[Correction: Miller did NOT make Type B.  The Rays get nothing for him.  Damnit.]

Dustin Pedroia won the AL MVP which is just fine with me. For once, I can't disagree with any of the awards handed out this offseason. Even though most of them were slam dunk votes, they still got them right.

The Rays were represented pretty well as they were one of only a few teams to have three players receive votes. Carlos Pena finished ninth, Evan Longoria 11th, and Jason Bartlett, yes Jason Bartlett finished 18th. Bartlett received six points which was higher than Ichiro, Ian Kinsler and Mark Teixeira combined. That is excellent.

Good showing by the Rays especially Longoria who missed a month of the season. If he would've played in the month of August, he would've had a good shot at winning both the ROY and the MVP.

Bad night as Upton, Longoira and Pena all whiffed at the plate. Upton seemed to only hit into double plays but to Upton’s credit, he did have that amazing one hop throw to home plate that...

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Rays flat all night, a whole lot of costly mistakes hurt them big time.  Kaz had the rough 1st inning but them clamed down. That’s okay, the Rays lost game one of the ALCS and that turned out...

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Finally under way…I was wondering how long the anthem by the Backstreet boys was going to take. Chase Utley bangs a home run off of Scott Kazmir to give the Phillies a 2 - 0 right away but gets...

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