See Ya, Choate

Randy Choate, the Rays soul lefty in the pen for most of the 2010 season, signed a two year $2.5 million contact with the Florida Marlins. This humble writer has mixed feelings about this deal.

Let me explain: when Choate was on, he was on. And though he didn’t throw lights out stuff, he certainly was a welcome addition to the right handed dominant bullpen. Choate ended the season with a 4-3 record with a 4.23 ERA in 85 appearances. Not stellar, but not horrific.

Conversely, when he was off, he was terrible. Does anyone remember Randy “Choke” and the 14+ ERA at the beginning of the season?

Being the soul lefty in the bullpen for the majority of the season found Choate as a very depended and valuable commodity. Yet to say that his performance and numbers were staggering would be a bit of an over-inflated statement. Sure, he did well facing one or two hitters every night, but is his performance worth the $2.5 million he’d be receiving with the Marlins? Also, with up and coming lefty Jake McGee probably joining the ranks along with any of their pre Spring Training acquisitions, will Choate even be missed?

Choate, Wheeler, Cormier, represented stability in knowing that they were there. And knowing they were there was a nice feeling. But, are we Rays fans more worried about them being gone or are we more concerned about the unknown?

I’d have to think that with prudent decision making and a healthy eye on the cheaper, quality players in the market (not to mention the pitchers in the pen that aren’t going anywhere) the Rays will be able to compensate for the loss of Choate and the potential loss of Wheeler and Cormier.

Now with the loss of Benoit and the potential losses of Balfour and Soriano who are both free agents? That’s a different story.

Update

This just in. The Rays have either just signed, or are close to signing reliever Joel Peralta. In the five years that he has been in the big leagues, Peralta has put up numbers eerily similar to Wheeler. It’s safe to say the Rays have found Wheeler’s replacement and/or doppelganger.

Apparently It Takes A Special Kind of Player to Make It On the Yankees

In not so late breaking news, Cliff Lee has chosen to play for the Phillies, turning down offers by both the Rangers and the Yankees.  Lee will be receiving $100 million over the course of five years. Interestingly enough, he chose to play for a team that would be paying him $50 million less than the Yankees who offered him $150 million. A $150 million deal with the Yankees would have made Lee the recipient of the most financially lucrative deal of this off season. The Crawford and Lee deals left this ezine/blog writer with the following conclusion: Apparently it takes a special kind of asshole to play for the Yankees.

Yankee fans before you sit in your squalid filth and bemoan the fact that, maybe, big name players outside of the Yankees organization no longer want to play for the Evil Empire, remember this: Perhaps (I know, when I say “perhaps” I am trying to reason with these emotionally and rationally dead schmucks) if you didn’t act like a bunch of petulant middle school children during the ALCS, reportedly pouring beer on Cliff Lee’s wife, etc, he may have had a change of heart and signed with your favorite team. But he didn’t and neither did Crawford. Ha ha!

In other not so new news, JP Howell has signed a one year, $1 million deal. Let’s hope his arm is in fine working condition soon, the Rays need him. As of the typing of this journalistic hunk of something, the Bartlett deal has yet to finalize.

Finally, internet rumors of a potential Garza/un-named player from the Rangers trade have spread like wildfire. The Rays front office have denied such rumors as has coach Madden. I’d have to question the validity of the rumor as well just by virtue of “Big Game” James Shields being the starting rotation’s weakest link, not Garza. Whispered rumors of a potential Shields trade in June or July have been made, and I’d have to think that a Garza trade might jeopardize any future deals to (cough) better the Rays Starting lineup. If the Rays are trying to limit the damage done to the team over the course of this off-season, I’d have to think that trading Garza might not be in the best interest of the team.

Rays/MLB Winter Meeting Update of Sorts

Anyone else not too particularly worried that Pena may find work elsewhere as a free agent, and Bartlett might be traded? In this humble Rays fan’s opinion Brignac, who would excel as an everyday player and is dying for a full-time position at short stop, and Zobrist or Johnson would also fit the bill at first.

In other news (though it’s not too new anymore I reckon), Benoit has signed a three-year, $16.5 million contract with the Detroit Tigers. More so, it looks like he’ll be receiving close to $20 million all told. As one friend put it: only one bullpen pitcher, Mariano Rivera, deserves that kind of money.

In short, next years Rays bullpen looks weak if not non-existent at this point when you consider that Soriano, Balfour, Choate, Wheeler, and Cormier are as good as gone, and it’s still up in the air whether Howell will be back or not. On that note though, by all accounts Howell will be back.

For Anyone Interested

Reposted from www.steadystateflorida.blogspot.com:

News of Sorts

So things have been a bit hush hush the last few months, partly because we didn’t really have much to say, and partly because we had a lot to say and wanted to wait until the time was right. With that said, I’d like to publicly welcome Morgan and Adam to the band. I’ve known Morgan for a long time now, and you may remember him when used to play bass in No Truth Lies. Adam used to be in a great doom crust band from Wisconsin, and is currently in a local trashy garage band. Unfortunately I forget both of the mentioned bands names. We are also probably adding another guitar into the fold very soon.

We’ve been spending the last few months weeding through old songs that we would like to keep, and writing new songs. The new songs aren’t too much of a departure from the old. Then again, we’re simplifying things a bit and dare I say adding a bit more classic punk, ala the Clash, and bit more Seam/Archers of Loaf/Superchunk styled indie rock into the mix. Yup, it sounds weird, but I for one am really excited about the outcome so far.

No shows have been booked yet but we’re hoping to, at the earliest, get on the January No Age show (hint hint promoters) at the Crowbar. In the end though, it feels nice to take things slowly as opposed to just bashing things out and hoping for the best.

And to the 719 (so far) of you that have checked out our Bandcamp site: thanks for stopping by! Keep checking back because yeah, we’re active again!

-A