The exodus of big league talent continues as the Rays announced they have traded left-handed pitcher Cesar Ramos to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim near Disneyland for right-handed pitching prospect Mark Sappington.
The move is not terribly surprising as Ramos is now 30 and is projected to make close to $1.5 million in 2015 through arbitration. Ramos is decent, but the Rays can probably find that level of production from a minor leaguer making the minimum salary or use the money to upgrade.
Sappington began the season as a starting pitcher in double-A, but was eventually demoted to high-A and became a reliever, striking out 80 in 70.1 innings, but also walking 43. He was considered the 5th-best prospect in the Angels organization.
He also calls himself “sappDIESEL” on Twitter.
THE JUNKYARD DOGS WEBTOPIA…
- Mark Sappington has been inserted as the 19th best prospect in the Rays organization according to MLB.com. They have Casey Gillaspie (2014 1st rd pick), Willy Adames (part of the David Price trade), and Taylor Guerrieri (2011 1st rd pick) as the top 3 prospects. [MLB.com]
- Baseball America has also released their list of top prospects in the Rays organization. They have Willy Adames at the top, followed by Alex Colome and catcher Justin O’Conner. Interestingly, they don’t even have Casey Gillaspie or Taylor Guerrieri in their top 10. They do have 16-year-old Adrian Rondon at no. 4, the Dominican shortstop the Rays signed last summer. [Baseball America]
- Somebody wrote an article for the LA Times titled “Geeks inherit the Earth, or at least the Dodgers front office.” As you can guess, it is about how nerds now run the Dodgers, led by Andrew Friedman and OMG does he know anything about baseball? [LA Times]
- Finally, Mike Lortz found this great video of what appears to be a Montreal sports talk show. They have apparently not heard anything about the Rays talking to people about moving to Montreal. They also think the Rays are owned by Jeffrey Loria. I warn you. This is funny at first but it gets really bad, in a painful way. I couldn’t even get through it all.
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For thats very good news that one of the first roster moves would be very much consistent with the philosophy of the previous GM whats his name.
My fear is a departure from the model, like trading some of our young starting pitching, other than Colome possibly for an older bat who turns out to be no better than what we have now. I dont want to return to the boom or bust model because the busts will be sustained at our revenue levels.
If the drafting can be improved over recent years this model can continue to succeed. What they do with Zobrist will I think determine the direction of the franchise going forward.
Wow, these Montreal radio geeks are bordering on morons. How can people that uninformed have a show?
And why is Phil Esposito on their show at all, let alone talking baseball?
I like the Ramos move. I'll take young semi-experienced pitching over old(er) semi-experienced pitching all day long as long as Hickey is here.
Welcome aboard @SappDiesel. I'm hoping young guys like him, Kearns, Colome, Romero and whichever starter gets displaced when Moore returns will be enough to fashion a lights-out bullpen in 2015. If you think about it, even with the woeful offense, a better bullpen has the Rays close last season.
Put another way -- if you excluded the bullpen, I think the Rays are better than the Royals and maybe it is the Rays in the World Series, not KC, if we don't have the 10+ Balfour loss games.
With Friedman hiring the A's guy as his GM, maybe the Rays can pawn Balfour off on the Dodgers. That would, in one move, go a long way to reaching the payroll cuts Stingy Stu is looking for.
This video is terrible. As soon as they said it was the same owner who moved the Expos to Washington (and the fact that the movie "The Rookie" is what made them love the team), I lost it.
better than just cutting Ramos, i 'spose...
not alot better. maybe just a little bitty bit better...