Rays Notes: Speculation, Minor League Injuries, Marty Gantt

Ken Rosenthal discussed a topic that frankly every Rays fans would love to avoid right now: trading David Price. Rosenthal suggested trading Price this offseason for this package of players:

Tampa Bay Rays trade LHP David Price to the Texas Rangers in exchange for SS Elvis Andrus, LHP Martin Perez, and RHP Cody Buckel.

I don’t think this package makes any sense at all for a variety of reasons. Let’s start (in no particular order).

1) Andrus is under contract for only one more year than Price and there’s no chance that the Rays would re-sign him. Why would the Rays do a trade like this for the sake of one year of team control? Exchange Andrus for Jurickson Profar before we even start thinking about this trade.

2) Martin Perez used to be a top prospect but has completely fallen apart basically the past three seasons and especially in 2012, managing just a 62-52 strikeout to walk ratio. He has Alex Torres written all over him. Uhhhh, no.

3) Why would the Rays acquire only pitching prospects? Isn’t hitting their major concern moving forward?

4) Let’s backtrack- why in the world would the Rays trade Price to begin with? Price is arbitration eligible for the first time in 2013, and especially after the ridiculous season that he is putting together right now, he’s going to start getting expensive. We know that the Rays don’t like that. But wait a second! Why in the world would the Rays trade James Shields and David Price in the same offseason? Mr. Rosenthal, do you think the Rays are going to do a Marlins-esque fire sale this offseason? Why don’t we trade Evan Longoria and Ben Zobrist while we’re at it?! David Price isn’t traded this offseason pending something absolutely catastrophic- ironically, a Mark Teixeira-esque deal, and that happens to be the deal where the Rangers acquired Andrus. This package is certainly not that.

5) If the Rays really did trade David Price would they really trade him within the league? It has to be every Rays fans’ worst nightmare to head to the postseason in Texas (again) and see David Price pitching Game 1.

6) If the Rays acquired Andrus for three years, would that mean about Hak-Ju Lee and Tim Beckham? Would they just give up on them like that? When the Rays make a big trade in the future, it will be unsurprising if they acquire a shortstop prospect, but an established big league shortstop?

7) The Rays would probably love to buy low on Perez and Buckel, who aren’t pitching so great right now, but when you’re trading David Price, don’t you want the top of the top prospects? These aren’t them.

8) We’ve been taking it as a given for a while that the time is right for James Shields to be traded this offseason. If the Rays trade both Price and Shields, who steps in for the rotation? Are you telling me Chris Archer and Jeff Niemann? I guess you could do worse than that, but that’s a major downgrade and it’s not like Niemann is young anymore. Perez was in the big league this year- but he has struck out 10 while walking 8 in 20 innings. When in the world would he be ready to contribute?

Moving on, there was good news and bad news for the Rays on the minor league injury front.

Glad to see that  Tyler Goeddel is OK, but it’s unfortunate that Trevor Shull will be out, and considering we’re in late August, the injury should end his season.

And finally, the Rays’ 7th round draft pick in 2012, Marty Gantt, has won the Tom Walker Inspiration Award given out to collegiate baseball players who exemplify courage and perseverance and inspire everyone around them. As you may know, Gantt was born with an underdeveloped right hand but has not let that stop him in his baseball career. Gantt has posted a .224/.312/.323 line in 51 games for Short Season-A Hudson Valley.