January 5. The Hall of Fame voting is in and one Rays legend and another former Ray make the cut:
Hardaway was the greatest player I've managed in this or any other save and not captured in the blurb above are a few more stats: Hardaway earned 116.6 WAR, good for 15th all-time in MLB, just ahead of luminaries such as Mel Ott, Lou Gehrig and Frank Robinson, and amazingly he didn't make his MLB debut until he was 26. At his peak in the 2030s he had a six-season stretch in which his WAR ranged from a low of 9.8 to a high of 12.0. In that run he had 200 hits and 100 walks in each of those seasons except for one in which he only had 98 walks. Unsurprisingly his .4268 career OBP is 10th all-time, and he also has five rings to show for his career. The only other thing I can say it that I'm surprised he wasn't unanimous as he sailed in with 98.9% of the vote.
Also enshrined in Cooperstown is the great CF Kevin Crater, another no-doubt choice at 95.9% of the voting. Crater had 648 career homers and 66 career WAR. Crater spent his age-38 season with the Rays in 2047 and it was a career renaissance for him, earning 5.9 WAR at 299/354/626 with 37 HR and 106 RBI. Not coincidentally it ended with one of the two rings he won.
The rest of the voting:
Another Rays legend Kikuo Kawase, the Mariano Rivera of his generation, inched closer in his 5th go-round while time is running out for Bo Bichette. Say goodbye to former Rays ace Andy Aparicio who drops off the ballot.
January 20: Signed international amateur free agent 3B Jesus Maldonado.
The first of our IAFA signings, the 16-year old Venezuelan has 75 potential contact and 70 potential HR power, although he may end up across the diamond at 1B based on his fielding potential. Maybe we'll hear from him a few years, maybe we won't.
January 25: Signed international amateur free agent SP Vinny Ibarra.
The 16-year-old Dominican has 65/50/55 potential as a starter.
January 31: Lefty middle reliever Warren Dalton, in our bullpen the last couple of seasons, signed a 1/920K deal with Colorado and for some reason the fans were pissed. Never knew he was any kind of favorite.
February 2: Veteran 1B Joel Avalos is still out there as a free agent, I'm half-tempted to sign him to put him with Jesus Avalos and Ezequiel Avalos. I won't though. Our good friend Luis Barela, who will be 41 next month, is still unsigned as well.
March 23: Our first significant injury of the spring - OF Jose Lozada will miss 4-5 weeks with a sore shoulder. This could create an opening for top prospect Henry Dominguez but he's a lefty hitter and Lozada was a righty bat we were counting on. Stay tuned.