Chris Archer – Keefe To The City

Jul 27, 2015

It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like Pre-2013

When things are going well for the Yankees, I tend to look at the standings a lot. During 2013 and 2014, I tried my best to avoid the standings, especially in August and September after each season-crushing loss.

When things are going well for the Yankees, I tend to look at the standings a lot. From when I was eight years old during the 1995 season through when I was 25 years old during the 2012 season, I looked at the standings A LOT (with the exception of 2008). During 2013 and 2014, I tried my best to avoid the standings each day, especially in August and September after each season-crushing loss.

But ever since the Yankees went to Fenway Park for the last three games of the first half, I have spent an exorbitant amount of time looking at studying the standings as if it were pre-2013 once again. And after the Yankees’ sixth straight series win on Sunday to improve to 14-5 in July, here is how the AL East standings look:

A 6 1/2-game lead in the division with the Orioles being the closest in the loss column at seven back has the Yankees sitting incredibly well for the final 67 of the season. Let’s say the Yankees went 34-33 in the final 67 games, playing .507 baseball for the rest of the season. They would finish 89-73. Here is what the rest of the AL East would have to do just to tie them.

Toronto, 39-23 (.629)
Baltimore, 41-24 (.631)
Tampa Bay, 40-22 (.645)
Boston, 45-18 (.714)

But the Yankees aren’t going to play just .507 baseball the rest of the way and those four teams, none of which are above .500, aren’t going to play as well as those numbers say they need to, which would have only tied them with the Yankees choking away the season. The Yankees are on their way to where they haven’t been in three years and it’s all because everything that went wrong in 2013 and 2014 is going right in 2015.

After two years of everything and I mean everything going wrong for the Yankees, everything is going right for them in 2015. Well, maybe not everything since Stephen Drew is still playing second base and Brendan Ryan is still on the team, but even those two examples prove how fortunate the Yankees have been this season. If it were 2013 or 2014, not only would Drew be starting, but so would Ryan, in the same infield every day and likely hitting in the middle of the order the way that Ichiro, Lyle Overbay and Vernon Wells were asked to nearly every day in 2013. Instead, the Yankees have managed to have the second-best record in the AL as of today with their everyday second baseman hitting .188.

The team was able to overcome an embarrassing 3-6 start to the season and a frustrating 1-10 stretch in May, which is when the 2013 and 2014 Yankees fell apart and never recovered. They have won games started by Jacob deGrom, David Price, Max Scherzer, Chris Archer, Scott Kazmir and two games started by Felix Hernandez. They have kept on winning even with Joe Girardi constantly giving unnecessary days off to his best players like how he sat Brett Gardner against a lefty on Saturday or how he sat A-Rod on Sunday after he hit three home runs on Saturday (fortunately the Yankees won both games). And they have overcome having two reliable starting pitchers (both of which are frequently given extra rest between starts), having two starters (CC Sabathia and Nathan Eovaldi) who are coin flips every five days and having their most consistent first-half starter put in the bullpen because of money (Sabathia) and “stuff” (Eovaldi) instead of results. The Yankees have overcome injuries, underachieving, questionable signings and irresponsible roster and lineup decisions to get to where they are.

To think that the Yankees could be where they are right now with arguably their best three players in the rotation, field and bullpen in Masahiro Tanaka, Jacoby Ellsbury and Andrew Miller not having all been healthy at the same time from April 24 to July 7 isn’t remarkable or impressive, it’s flat-out ridiculous. And they are where they are even with those three extended absences because Alex Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira have turned back the clock to 2009-2011 when it was Teixeira who would hit third and A-Rod who would hit fourth as the most feared 3-4 combination in the majors; and because Brett Gardner went on the hottest of his patented hot streaks imaginable; and because Dellin Betances, Chasen Shreve and Justin Wilson got everyone out. The performances of A-Rod and Teixeira and Gardner and the bullpen overshadowed Chase Headley’s abyssmal first full season with the Yankees, Didi Gregorius’ New York growing pains, Carlos Beltran’s inability to produce and stay healthy and the constant struggle for Sabathia and Eovaldi to pitch six innings.

Now there are 10 weeks left in the season and the Yankees are as healthy as they can be without any regular position player, starter or reliever on the DL (knock on all of the wood around you) and they are another stretch like they have had the last two weeks from running away and hiding with the AL East.

Some Yankees fans just wanted a return to the postseason in any form in 2015 and that meant accepting a spot in the wild-card game. Me? I wanted the Yankees to win the AL East when the season began the same way I do every season. I wanted to know that the Yankees would be playing past Game 162 and Opening Day wouldn’t be the only day with bunting draped over the second and upper decks at the Stadium. I wanted everything to be the way it used to be and now it looks like it will be.

It feels good to have the Yankees back where they’re supposed to be. It feels good to have the baseball world right again.

Blogs • Yankees

Jul 6, 2015

The Necessary Nine

The Yankees have an important nine-game stretch before the All-Star break that could set them up nicely for the second half if they win six of the games.

In 2007, the Yankees faced a 12-game stretch that the Daily News believed would make or break their season by calling it the “Dirty Dozen.” In 2013, the Yankees faced a 14-game stretch before the All-Star break, which held the same challenge, that I called the Final 14. Both stretches presented times the Yankees were fighting for their playoff lives and needing to win in bunches to keep their season from turning meaningless. This season, before the All-Star break, the Yankees are in a different position, but playing a very significant stretch: the Necessary Nine.

I have been fortunate to have a baseball summer nearly my entire life. The last time the Yankees finished under .500 was 1992 when I was six. Since then, it’s been 22 straight over-.500 seasons with playoff appearances every season except for 1994 (thanks to the strike), 2008, 2013 and 2014. The 2008, 2013 and 2014 were good enough to keep my summers alive and string me along into believing they could overcome incredible injuries, but they weren’t good to give me a fall. And like Bobby Knight once told his Indiana team, “You will not put me in that f-cking position again.” I need a fall this year. I have to have a fall.

The 2015 Yankees are a weird team. They have the ability to start the year 3-6 and then go on an 18-6 run. They have been swept by the Rangers and have swept the Royals. They have lost two out of three to the Phillies at home and they have beaten Jacob deGrom, Felix Hernandez and Max Scherzer. They have been unpredictable and frustrating at times and dominant and unbeatable other times. But the one constant with them is that they have stayed at or near the top of the AL East for the entire season, which is something they weren’t able to do the last two years.

The “Necessary Nine” began on Friday night against Tampa Bay. With nine games against the Rays, A’s and Red Sox standing between the Yankees from the All-Star break and four consecutive off days, this is their chance to create separation in the division and take the Red Sox out of the race completely. The Red Sox have played better of late even with the worst rotation in the league, but they’re still six games under .500 (39-45) even if Bostonians want you to believe that record is reversed with their over-the-top optimism. A series win or another sweep in Boston this weekend would keep the Yankees where they are and send the city of Boston into an All-Star Game depression, allowing them to do something other than focus on baseball for the rest of summer.

Sunday’s loss to the Rays was the 82nd game of the season and the official start of the second half (the first post-All-Star Game will be the 89th game), and with the 8-1 loss, the Yankees are 44-38 and one game up in the division. The series win over the Rays was the first checkpoint for the “Necessary Nine” since it kept them on pace for the needed record over this stretch, kept the Rays at bay and kept the Yankees in first place and still one game up, which is where they were before Friday’s game, while taking three more games off the schedule. Next up is beating up on the lowly A’s before the important first-half finale in Boston.

But before the Yankees head to Boston, they have to take care of business at home against the A’s, a last-place team that already took three of four from them in Oakland at the end of May. And since the Yankees never miss out on facing an opposing team’s ace, of course they will see Sonny Gray in the series opener on Tuesday night. It will be the second time the Yankees have seen him, after just having seen Chris Archer over the weekend, C.J. Wilson the series before that, Dallas Keuchel the series before that and Cole Hamels the series before that.

The Yankees should win six of the nine and now that they have already won two, that means winning four of six against the last-place A’s and Red Sox. “Should” was never a problem in the pre-2013 Yankees world, but now it’s become a dangerous and powerful word that leaves Yankees fans puzzled after disappointing losses to bad teams.

I want to go back to when the Yankees took care of business against bad teams and games they “should” win turned into actual wins. I want to go back to when the Yankees being in first place at the All-Star break was a sure-thing. We’re almost there.

Blogs • Yankees

Jun 9, 2015

The Pray for Rain Power Rankings

There aren’t many pitchers in the league that you can basically chalk up as a loss before the game is even played, but whenever the Yankees play a team with one of these pitchers, they land him.

On Tuesday night, the Yankees will face Max Scherzer. So far this season, the Yankees have faced David Price, Jacob deGrom, Matt Harvey, Chris Archer, Sonny Gray and Felix Hernandez. When the Yankees face a team with a real true ace (or in the case of the Mets, two aces), they don’t miss him. There aren’t many pitchers in the league that you can basically chalk up as a loss before the game is even played, or at least give the Yankees little-to-no chance of beating them, and whenever they play a team with one of these pitchers, they land him.

Now that Jon Lester is not only out of the AL East, but out of the AL, and Scherzer is in the NL as well, the starting pitchers I hope the Yankees miss the most have changed. Here are the five pitchers I pray for rain to throw off the rotation and schedule before the Yankees have to face them.

1. Felix Hernandez
When the Yankees faced King Felix last Monday night, I figured I would be able to go to bed early with the 10:05 p.m. start in Seattle because the Yankees would either be unable to score against him and there would be not point in continuing to watch or because their lack of hitting would result in a two-hour game.

Felix had a 1-2-3 six-pitching first inning. Then he had a 1-2-3 eight-pitch second inning. And then he had a 1-2-3 six-pitch third inning. Nine up, nine down on 20 pitches. It felt like a perfect game might happen until the fourth inning, when the Yankees scored two runs on two hits and three walks in the most un-Felix-like inning ever. That is until the next inning when Felix gave up five runs, including a grand slam to Mark Teixeira. Felix finished the game with the following line: 4.2 IP, 6 H, 7 R, 7 ER, 5 BB, 4 K, 1 HR. Even with the Yankees hitting Felix like they never have, he’s still the best pitcher in the American League and at times, in the world (when Clayton Kershaw isn’t doing whatever he was doing in April and May).

I remember when Felix was a 19-year-old rookie who took a loss to the Yankees on Aug. 31, 2005 despite allowing only two earned runs over eight innings. And I also remember what he did to the Yankees in three starts in 2010: 3-0, 0.35 ERA, 26 IP, 16 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 8 BB, 31 K, 1 HR.

Felix is my most feared opposing pitcher in the AL and that isn’t going to change.

2. Chris Archer
The current AL leader in strikeouts has never lost to the Yankees and not only has he not lost to the Yankees in his seven starts against them (5-0, 2.02 ERA), but he has barely been touched by them: 49 IP, 34 H, 11 R, 11 ER, 6 BB, 33 K, 1 HR.

Because the Yankees face the Rays 19 times a season, I have to map out in advance if Archer will be seeing them, which I will be doing for Fourth of July weekend when the Rays head to the Stadium. Unfortunately, Archer signed a six-year, $25.5 million extension on April 2, 2014 with the Rays, which keeps Archer in Tampa Bay through 2019 with club options for 2020 and 2021. Archer isn’t leaving the AL East anytime soon.

3. Chris Sale
The Yankees have never done well against left-handers in my lifetime, especially those either making their Major League debut or those who the Yankees have never seen before. It was once again the case just last week when they were only about to score one run on four hits against the Mariners’ Mike Montgomery in his Major League debut in Seattle.

When it comes to elite left-handers, things are even worse. Cliff Lee, Jon Lester and David Price were all the most feared lefty to face the Yankees at one point, but now that title goes to the White Sox’ ace. Sale has never lost to the Yankees and in his five career starts against the Yankees he hasn’t just won, but he has dominated them. Here are his five career starts against the Yankees:

Aug. 22, 2012: 7.2 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 13 K, 1 HR

Aug. 6, 2013: 7.1 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 4 BB, 6 K, 0 HR

Sept. 3, 2013: 8 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 8 K, 1 HR

May 22, 2014: 6 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 10 K, 0 HR

Aug. 24, 2014: 6 IP, 4 H, 4 R, 0 ER, 3 BB, 7 K, 0 HR

His total line: 35 IP, 17 H, 7 R, 2 ER, 9 BB, 44 K, 2 HR.

4. David Price
If Price’s last two starts against the Yankees hadn’t happened then he would be higher than No. 4 on this list. But those two disastrous starts did happen and along with that, the Yankees have seen him much more than they have Chris Sale and their experience against Price lessens the fear I have of him.

Those two starts I talked about were on Aug. 27, 2014 (2 IP, 12 H, 8 R, 8 ER, 1 BB, 3 K, including nine straight hits in the third inning) and on April 22, 2015 (2.1 IP, 10 H, 8 R, 8 ER, 3 BB, 2 K). Those two starts have caused Price’s career ERA against the Yankees to inflate to 4.41 over 26 starts and one relief appearance. His 10-7 record against the Yankees with that ERA aren’t exactly the most dominant numbers, but he’s still the second-best left-hander in the AL, who has the ability to shut down the Yankees in a big spot and he has before.

Since he’s an impending free agent, I might not have to worry about him facing the Yankees after this season.

5. Sonny Gray
Not even two weeks ago Gray made just his second career start against the Yankees, going eight innings and allowing two earned runs and four hits for the win. The current AL ERA (1.65) and WHIP (0.915) leader is only 25 with only 55 career starts and after an impressive first full season in 2014, he is making his run for the AL Cy Young.

There isn’t much to Gray’s career against the Yankees yet, but I have a bad feeling there will be. Either they will continue their usual bad luck track of never missing any elite pitcher and face him in the only two series they play against the A’s each season, or when Billy Beane inevitably trades him, he will trade him to an AL East team. Hopefully, when he’s traded, he’s traded out of the AL.

Blogs • Email Exchanges • Yankees

Apr 27, 2015

The Yankees and Rays Will Be in Tight Race All Year

After nearly a month of baseball, every team in the AL East is in a battle for first place and that’s likely to continue for the entire season.

This season was supposed to be a down year for the AL East, but after three weeks, it’s been the best division in baseball. Two games separate the five teams and the Yankees and Rays are atop the division at 11-8 with a three-game series between the two teams starting on Monday.

With the Yankees and Rays meeting in the Bronx for the first time this season, Daniel Russell of DRaysBay joined me to talk about losing the Rays’ impressive start, Rays fans’ perspective of A-Rod, Chris Archer’s dominance of the Yankees and how the AL East will play out this summer now that both teams have seen every team in the division.

Keefe: Since the last series between the two teams, the Rays have gone 5-1, winning a series against the Red Sox and sweeping the Blue Jays. After their hot start, the Rays were recently 6-8 and I thought it might be the start of their decline with the roster turnover and injuries they are dealing with, but they have rebounded to share the lead in the division with the Yankees.

For a team that was expected to have to win a lot of 2-1 and 3-2 games this year, they have done that, but they have also had no trouble putting up big numbers here and there in the first month of the season.

Given the names in their lineup, the Rays’ offense was supposed to be the weak link for 2015, but it has managed to do just enough to win games with great pitching. I guess we should all just be used to that by now?

Russell: The Rays continue to be a team built off run prevention and just-enough offense, but you’re right, the offense has done well. Most of that comes from matching up well in the handedness department. Guys like David DeJesus, Tim Beckham, Brandon Guyer and Logan Forsythe have been critical.

For any team to find success, there needs to be a little luck involved, and the Rays have done particularly well in their pinch-hitting department. That’s remarkable, as the team topped out its disabled list at 12 guys on Wednesday among several other playing-hurt guys like Souza, Cabrera, and Jennings.

Now as the starters come back into the fold, it will certainly be interesting to see what the Rays do with the guys off the bench who’ve delivered.

A lot of that has to do with taking walks as well, which we are all well acquainted with in the division. The only three teams in the American League with 10 percent walk rates are the Yankees, Rays, and Red Sox, but it’s true the offense has been putting up strong numbers.

Tampa Bay chips away at their opponents, and it’s been paying off. Their 113 wRC+ is fifth in the American League, ahead of New York at sixth (107).

Keefe: Evan Longoria hasn’t really been a part of those big numbers. He’s hitting .306/.413/.468, but he also has just one home run and four RBIs, which puts him in the Jacoby Ellsbury Club (one home run, two RBIs) early this season.

Where has Longoria’s power been? Do you ever worry about him?

Russell: Longoria has been ridiculously productive this month, so it doesn’t bother me yet that he hasn’t homered since opening day. All 19 games of the season thus far have been played in domes or under roofs, so the longballs will come.

In the mean time, Longo has a 14.7 percent walk rate and a 14.7 percent strikeout rate, while batting a .306 AVG at a 152 wRC+. It’s too soon to panic.

Keefe: The Yankees went to Tampa as a bad baseball team. They couldn’t hit or pitch with any consistency and their defense and base running was atrocious. They were 3-6 before the first game of that three game series, but then everything changed on that Friday night. Everything changed when Alex Rodriguez took over the game.

A-Rod finished 3-for-4 with two home runs and four RBIs and hit the go-ahead single in the top of the eighth in the Yankees’ win. Since that night, the Yankees have gone 8-2 to climb to the top of the AL East.

Last night on Sunday Night Baseball against the Mets, A-Rod got the Yankees started with an opposite-field home run, his fifth of the season, just two weeks after saving the Yankees’ season on Sunday Night Baseball against the Red Sox with a first-inning, bases-clearing double.

I am a huge A-Rod fan and supported, mainly because he has been treated so much worse and differently than other PED users, but also because he helps the team win. From an outsider’s perspective and from someone who watched their team lose a game single-handedly because of him, what are you feelings on A-Rod?

Russell: I’m not all Rays fans, I’m sure the fan base hates him, but what I love about baseball – and sports in general – is entertainment and narrative. A-Rod getting clean, then coming back and being the dominant baseball player he always was supposed to be, is just pure entertainment.

The Yankees winning just makes me hate the Yankees more. That sort of passion is reserved to the laundry for me.

Keefe: For the second series this year, the Yankees will thankfully miss Chris Archer as he pitched the day before the start of both series.

In six career starts against the Yankees, Archer is 5-0 with 1.93 ERA. Outside of Felix Hernandez, I think Archer is the active pitcher with the most dominant performances against the Yankees. So of course I’m ecstatic we won’t see him again this week.

What makes Archer so special? Is he considered to be the ace of the staff with Cobb and Moore still out, and is he the ace even with them back?

Russell: Archer can thrive on two pitches two times through the lineup. Thanks to some added strength this off-season he’s pushing 98 with the fastball and has a wipe out slider. When the third time comes around, he introduces the change and no one knows what to do with it. It’s a joy to watch.

He’s also an intelligent kid, a big personality, and someone who constantly gives back to the community. He signed a longterm deal thankful for everything the club has done for him.

They don’t make ’em like Archer too often.

Keefe: The Yankees and Rays are tied atop the AL East at 11-8 with the entire division separated by two games. I have a feeling it’s going to be like that the entire season with all five teams in the race and no one really pulling away and riding and hiding for the summer with the division lead.

What are your early thoughts on the division now that you have seen the Rays play all the teams?

Russell: I’ll agree I expected the division to be pretty tight, I don’t really see any club pulling ahead. New York and Toronto are susceptible to injury, the Orioles and Red Sox to pitching problems and Tampa Bay to the offense slipping away.

The fact that the Rays have not only tread water in the division, but been able to pull ahead some of the other teams, has been really something. If this is what the Rays’ B-Team can do, I’m excited to see what happens when the injured players are re-introduced.

Blogs • Email Exchanges • Yankees

Jun 30, 2014

David Price to Make Last Pitch to Yankees

If I get my wish, the next time David Price pitches in Yankee Stadium after this week will be as a member of the Yankees.

The Yankees desperately need to start putting wins together consistently and after winning eight of 10, they have now lost six of eight and the only thing that has been consistent about the 2014 Yankees is that they are inconsistent. I would like to think that could change this week at the Stadium against the Rays, but the Rays, despite having the worst record in the majors are 4-3 against the Yankees this season.

With the Yankees and Rays playing the final series in the Bronx before the All-Star break, Daniel Russell of DRaysBay joined me to talk about what’s gone for the Rays this season, what will happen with David Price and if the Rays could make a managerial change after this season.

Keefe: The last time we talked was on May 2. Back then, the Rays were 13-16 and part of the mix in an AL East that no one wanted to run away with after a month of baseball. But since then, the Rays have gone 22-33 and have buried themselves in the division, 10 games out after three months of baseball.

It’s been a while since the Rays found themselves in this sort of position at this point in the season. Here are their records after 84 games since 2008 when they first made the playoffs.

2013: 45-39
2012: 44-40
2011: 47-37
2010: 51-33
2009: 45-39
2008: 52-32

There is still half a season left to play and given the Rays’ recent history of going on remarkable runs, it’s hard to truly count them out yet, especially since neither the Yankees, Blue Jays or Orioles really want to take over the East and put a firm grip on it this summer.

Have you given up on the 2014 Rays or are you holding out hope that the remaining 78 games can be something special?

Russell: Play this season all over again, and I’d still think this team could win it all.

Not much unlike the lost 2009 season, the quality of the athletes assembled by Andrew Friedman this season was the best the Rays had ever fielded. This is not a horrible team by any stretch of the imagination, and Baseball Prospectus continues to project the Rays to the best performance through the remaining half season. But that’s all on paper. Everything should have gone right, but it all went wrong.

Part of the blame is on the starting rotation’s injuries, part of the blame is on sleepy bats, part of the blame is on uncharacteristic defensive miscues.

That said, I don’t foresee the Rays coming back from a 35-49 record. It’s just been a horrible year for what I would still consider a top-tier talent in baseball. Last place hurts, and this team is dejected. They’re still a formidable team to play (just ask the Orioles), but unless we start sweeping every division series, this team is bottom dwelling the rest of the season.

Keefe: The more the Rays lose, the more David Price’s inevitable departure from Tampa Bay becomes more and more imminent. I wish the Rays would find some worthy package from the Yankees and trade the left-handed ace within the division, but I recognize that is a pipe dream and Price will end up somewhere other than the Bronx when he is finally moved. My one fear is that he will be traded to the Dodgers where they will be sure to lock him up long-term and he will never hit free agency.

What is the mood with Rays fans knowing that at this point any David Price start could be his last with the organization? Where do you think he will end up?

Russell: David Price’s departure might as well be written in stone. The Rays were over budget heading into the season, and if Price were headed out the door either way, they might as well send him off now.

I would venture to say Price hasn’t been traded thus far because the expected return has been too far above the market, and I don’t think the front office is lowering their demands. It’s for that reason an inter-division trade isn’t happening. How much would the Yankees need to outbid the Rays’ expectations for them to send their ace to a rival?

The Rays have no interest in facing Price on a regular basis for years to come if it can be helped. Even if they were willing, though, who do the Yankees have to offer? James Shields brought back Wil Myers — and while that trade was robust, in a drastically different environment, it’s still the plumb line.

The mood for fans at this point is “what’s taking so long?” more than anything else. The Rays even granted Price’s request to play in Sunday Columbia blue jerseys on his Wednesday matinee last week. If that’s not a signal he’s going out the door…

Keefe: When I looked at the pitching matchups for this series and saw Chris Archer, David Price and Jake Odorizzi, I laughed to myself and thought, “Of course it’s those three.” Archer is 4-0 with a 1.29 ERA in four career starts against the Yankees, David Price is David Price and the Yankees as a team are 5-for-24 (.208) against Odorizzi and have basically never seen him and I know all too well how the Yankees do against pitchers with which they have no history.

I think the fact that I feel most confident about the Yankees’ chance in the middle game of this series against the 2012 Cy Young winner and current AL strikeout leader shows how deep the Rays’ pitching is, even in a year when Erik Bedard is in the rotation and Matt Moore is out for the season and Alex Cobb has missed significant time.

This must make you feel confident knowing everything will be fine pitching-wise even once Price has been traded?

Russell: Absolutely. The Rays are built on pitching; they live and die by the rotation. There’s some quality names en route to the majors in Enny Romero, Nathan Karns, and a few projects like grondballer Matt Andriese, scary but injured Alex Colome, and former bluechip prospect Mike Montgomery, not to mention a rehabbing Jeremy Hellickson. Trading Price will hurt, no doubt about it, but the Rays will survive as other roll players step up to the next level.

Keefe: If the Rays are willing to trade Price and accept that 2014 isn’t going to happen for them, I would think they would be willing to move some other players in order to retool and rebuild for 2015 and beyond when the injury bug isn’t decimating the entire team. Ben Zobrist’s name has been mentioned as a potential trade piece between now and July 31, but is there anyone else that could be leaving Tampa Bay in July?

Russell: I’d say it’s open season on anyone not under contract for an extended period of time. In fact, it’s easier to point out who is not being traded. The outfield is locked up in Desmond Jennings, Wil Myers, and Kevin Kiermaier. The infield locks are likely Evan Longoria and Yunel Escobar. Ryan Hanigan will remain at catcher, Alex Cobb, Matt Moore, and Chris Archer remain in the rotation. Literally everyone else I would put on the block, but given the lofty expectations of the front office, who knows who could go out the door?

Veteran role players are probably the ones worth watching. Erik Bedard, David DeJesus, James Loney, and Jose Molina’s glove are all under-discussed as trade targets. Matt Joyce, Grant Balfour, and Ben Zobrist rightfully so. It’s not a fire sale, but the Rays could be persuaded with a large enough offer.

Keefe: I have heard people bring up the idea that the Rays could move on from Joe Maddon and look for a managerial change. Not that Maddon has done a bad job (he hasn’t), but because it’s just time a for a change, which happens in baseball. I don’t agree with the idea to make a change for the sake of a change because a manager’s ways become stale within an organization, but then again, I have never played or managed in the majors, so maybe it can be needed.

If the Rays were going to make a change and let Maddon go after this season as a way of shaking things up if this disastrous season continues, then they would be doing exactly that and making a change just to make a change, discounting what Maddon has done in his tenure there. And if Maddon were let go, the over/under on when he would have another managerial job would be 17 minutes.

Is it time for the Rays to think about a new manager or is that the craziest thing you have heard this year?

Russell: I have heard a lot of crazy theories about what the Rays could do to fix the mess, but changing managers is brand new to my ears. I can’t imagine it in any scenario. The Rays know the incredible asset they have in Maddon, and he’s incredibly happy with the club. The same could be said for pitching coach Jim Hickey.

There might be a case to switch up the hitting coach some time in the next six month, but how much is he to blame for this year’s 100 wRC+, compared to last year’s 108 wRC+? Coaching changes are not so clear cut as a Bobby Valentine disaster. The Rays have no reason to dictate a change in management. It’s just crazy talk!

Tag: Chris Archer

It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like Pre-2013

The Necessary Nine

The Pray for Rain Power Rankings

The Yankees and Rays Will Be in Tight Race All Year

David Price to Make Last Pitch to Yankees