MLB

Hi. I’m Robbie Knopf and I’m a new writer here at Rays Colored Glasses. I’m bringing a different dimension to RCG: sabermetrics. My specialty is sabermetrics and Pitch F/X analysis, and I’ll use those as just another avenue to analyze the Rays and attempt to make sense of the complicated game of baseball. I hope you all enjoy my writing, and I’ll attempt to explain all the different stats as we go along. The other day, the Rays made their first trade of the offseason, trading catcher John Jaso to the Seattle Mariners in exchanged for troubled right-handed reliever Josh [...]

As I mentioned earlier this week, this is the awards week for the Baseball Writers Association of America. The Rays did pretty well this year, taking away two of the three American League awards and collecting a third place in the third. Now, the MVP has not been announced yet, but no Rays have any chance to place near the top.

As I mentioned earlier today, the MLB made some big decisions for the future of the league today, voting on two of the bigger points of the new collective bargaining agreement, expected to be announced in the near future. One of them was the movement of the Astros to the American League West from the National League Central.

Major League Baseball made a couple of big moves today, adding a new wild card spot to each league and moving the Astros to the American League to make two 15 team leagues. Rays fans should be rejoicing over the announcement of the addition of a wild card team. That means that instead of fighting with the Red Sox down the stretch like they did this year, they will have an easier path to the playoffs.

Does it bother you or make you proud that the Tampa Bay Rays are one of the most efficient spenders in all of professional sports? Bloomberg Businessweek came out with its list of the smartest spenders in sports and there the Rays were, coming in at number three. They were second best among Major League Baseball teams, behind the Florida Marlins. That must be an interesting formula for the Rays to be behind a team that hasn’t made the playoffs in eight years. It brings up an interesting topic among fans. Would you rather see the Rays

Theo Epstein being introduced this week as the Chicago Cubs President of Baseball Operations means that only one team now is no longer interested in the services of Rays GM Andrew Friedman. Friedman was initially speculated to be on the Cubs short list of potential candidates when they first fired Jim Hendry at the end of July. Once the Cubs did not receive the same interest from Friedman, they moved all of their attention to Epstein and were able to draw him away from the Red Sox. Friedman has attracted the attention of a number of major league clubs over [...]

I’m sure all Rays fans remember watching as the first World Series game in history was suspended in the middle of the sixth inning in Philadelphia. The Rays had their backs against the wall trailing the Phillies three games to one and had just tied the game at two. The umpires got together and decided that the conditions were just too bad to continue and play was halted,

“Big Game” James Shields had a tremendous year for the Rays. He was the workhorse of the starting rotation and the anchor of the Rays staff. Shields led the Rays in basically every pitching statistic this season including wins and ERA. He pitched an almost unfathomable 11 complete games. It was a really good season, but this year belonged to Justin Verlander, who had a great season. In what was probably one of the worst surprises of all time, Verlander was named the Fansided AL pitcher of the year on Sunday.

Sometimes it is very difficult to award manager of the year in major league baseball. What really goes into making the best manager? Is it the manager who takes great talent and produces great results? Is the manager who takes average talent and gets above average results? This year, it was a manager who took average talent at best, and produced results far better than average. The Fansided network voted, and Joe Maddon, the top choice on my ballot, is our AL manager of the year.

  JB spoke briefly about potential deals that could include James Shields and Kyle Farnsworth.  At first, like most Rays fans, I thought what a terrible idea that would be, at least as far as Shields goes. But it got me thinking. While it seems almost heinous to consider trading James Shields. He’s been one of the Rays most solid pitcher’s for years. An innings eater with flashes of brilliance, Shields has really come into his own this season, flashing the best K/9 of his career along with an incredible 2.59 ERA and 1.011 WHIP through the first 3/5′s of [...]