by warrick95 » Sun Apr 30, 2006 6:20 pm
Y'all who are calling Tampa Bay stupid have a point. But your reasons are horrible. The reasons you're giving make them sound like a good franchise. Face it, we're a small market team. We're not going to be able to keep most of our homegrown guys when they're in their prime years. I would imagine that we'll be able to keep two of them tops through their early 30s. I'm hoping on that being BJ and Delmon, but we'll see. Anyway, as a team who won't be able to sign these players, we MUST keep that in mind when we make personnel moves. Especially in the ultracompetitive and freespending AL East, we MUST keep that in mind and make an "all-or-nothing" run. We can't do the steady progression with a couple of prospects coming up every year. We have to have all of the guys together at once. That is the only shot we have to make a run.
Of course, moving to a bigger market is an option, but that is way too hypothetical to consider.
And to the person who says that we have no pitching prospects...sorry, that statement is completely false. We have:
Jeff Niemann...first rounder out of Rice in 2004. Easily has ace upside if he stays healthy. Could see Tampa in 2007.
Wade Townsend...first rounder out of Rice in 2005...refused to sign with Baltimore after being taken in the first in 2004. Middle-rotation upside, but a pretty safe pick if he stays healthy. He did undergo TJ recently, though.
Wade Davis...emerging as an elite pitching prospect. A little farther off, though.
Chuck Tiffany...okay, you just said that we don't acquire pitching prospects. Well, we picked Tiffany up. He's pretty safe and should become a solid back of the rotation pitcher soon.
Edwin Jackson...the other pitcher we picked up from Los Angeles. Remember that he was the best pitching prospect in the minors only a couple of years ago. He's close to the majors, too.
Jason Hammel...very solid pitching prospect who's close to the majors.
We also have guys like Chris Mason, Matt Walker, and future draft-and-follow Bryan Morris. And Scott Kazmir is developing into an ace before our very own eyes. I would say that we do have qutie a few arms. While it may seem logical to trade ONE outfielder for an arm, the comment that we're clueless because we have no arms and that we need to trade for them is baseless.
We're holding onto Aubrey Huff because he's been hurt and sucking this year. I am confident we will trade him sometime this season. Everybody was complaining about why Baez was still with us. Well, we got a trade and a damn good one, too.