December 12: As the Winter Meetings get underway, we had a bevy of free agent signings today:
* Cleveland signed veteran slugging 3B Cristhian Rodriguez, 37 and of 629 career homers, to a 2/40 deal.
* Former Rays July 2 signing (and key piece sent to San Francisco in the deal that brought us Jaiden Hardaway 11 years ago) Jose Gonzales, who got his career going in recent years and won a Gold Glove at 3B with San Diego, cashed in to the tune of 5/83 with the Angels.
* Another former Ray Jim Golunski, who usurped the AL Reliever of the Year from Kikuo Kawase this year, went for 3/33 to Arizona.
* Still another former Ray reliever, noted clubhouse cancer Jordan Diaz, came full circle to his original team the Cubs for 2/23.9.
OK, time for some deals of our own. The first:
We were up against our budget limits with only $7M to play with so we needed to create some flexibility and Vasquez was making $16M after his latest arbitration award. In return I got two pretty good prospects, both of whom are fine defensive players with pop. Cordova is rated 65 at catcher and has life in his bat (40 2B/15 HR guy). He'll be ready to step in next year or the year after when Mike McKee either gets traded for making $22M in arbitration next year or goes free agent after that. Googins (no relation to Walton Goggins) was the Rockies' 1st-round pick last year (#16 overall) and put up an excellent 4.8 ZR in only 22 games at SS in his pro debut. He too has some pop in his bat and should hit 20-25 HR in the bigs although that will come with a lot of whiffs and a low batting average, but if he's a defensive standout that's acceptable. Delaney was needed to make it work and while he was a #1 pick of ours a few years ago, he's torn his rotator cuff and was only projected in the 50s before he gets re-scouted when he comes back next summer.
But how do we replace Vasquez's bat? Glad you asked:
Now you may be saying "What? You just acquired a pitcher." But not really, while he's a credible two-way player, Ruggles is a much better hitter. How much better? Take a look:
And he's not just a desert topping, he's a floor wax too (now there's a dated SNL joke):
Those are his ratings as a lefty reliever. Oakland gave him 8 starts and 8 relief appearances last year where he pitched to a 5.03 ERA, we may use him out of the bullpen occasionally when he sits some against LHP. The plan though overall is to use him as the DH against righties as he has a pronounced platoon split (you knew there had to be some catches here), play Josh Alexander (who doesn't have much of a platoon split) at 1B and suck it up with his 35 D there (after Vasquez was a Gold Glove, yes we're making our defense
worse, although 1B doesn't matter too much in the grand scheme). So the OF will be Ayala in LF, Malone in CF, a Leonard/Mendez platoon in RF and a Ruggles/Moyer platoon at DH.
As for what we gave up, Zerman became expendable with the acquisition of Cordova above and although Zerman will be one of the best-hitting catchers in the league (perhaps eventually at McKee levels) he's a 35 behind the plate which I can't abide in a regular (yes, even I have my limits for bad defense). Rivers is the opposite of Zerman, he's an 80 glove at 2B, a wizard, but really can't hit and was probably going to be taken in the Rule 5 Draft if I didn't add him to the 40-man. If Rivers were an 80 SS, I could see him as a regular but not at 2nd with a projected OPS somewhere in the 600s. Plus Steven Williams has leapfrogged him on the organization depth chart and is the Hardaway heir.
December 22: Added P Dan Anderson and OF Randy Bahr to the 40-man roster.
It's Rule 5 time again, and while I'm long past trying to predict whether we'll lose anybody and if so who, but I feel like we might get dinged this year. I could see Jon Callahan (whom we acquired from Arizona in the Bo Angeac deal), Randy Rappaport (who has 40-HR power but whose best position is DH) or relievers Eric Mora or Ian Mullin taken. We didn't have many openings on the 40-man this year so we're going to ride this one out.
And.....the Rule 5 draft turned out to be a nothingburger, with only one player selected (Houston took a backup catcher from Arizona).
January 4: The Hall of Fame voting is in:
The only surprising thing about Mike Trout getting in on his first attempt is that someone didn't vote for him. Mike Soroka also sailed in after a fine career with Atlanta, and in his 3rd year Thor got in. He'll always have a special place in our hearts after helping take the Rays to their first World Series title in his one year with us in 2023. Nobody else was close although Rafael Devers had an impressive 51.7% in his first year on the ballot.
January 15: Our lone free agent of consequence, Nate Thompson, signed a 4/75.2 deal with the Mets. As we qualified him when he went free agent the first time a couple years back, he was ineligible for a QO this time so no draft pick for us.
January 24: Rays legend Christian Little signed a 1-year, $6.3 contract with the Dodgers as he tries to come back from a torn flexor tendon suffered last season with the White Sox.
February 21: Another former Ray on the move as one-time staff ace Nate Schultz was traded by Phillies to the Cubs for 3 minor leaguers coming off an 11-8, 4.21 season.
February 22: One-time Rays bullpen mainstay Danny Medina inked a 2-year pact with the Padres for $2.6M. Medina is coming off a horrendous season between Minnesota and Houston as a starter where he had a brutal 64/48 BB/K ratio with 124 hits allowed in 95 1/3 IP and a 6.99 ERA.
March 3: Mike Barkley, the best reliever in MLB not named Kikuo Kawase, left the only team he knew as the Brewers traded him to the Dodgers for 3 minor leaguers. Barkley is the highest-paid reliever in baseball at $23M and Milwaukee is picking up a quarter of that.