Baseball's Caste System
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The 2010 DRaysBay Annual Contents The Intro by Carson Cistulli .......................................................................................................... 4 Garza’s Flame by Graham MacAree ............................................................................................. 6 The Efficient Rotation by Tommy Rancel.................................................................................. 13 Hope for Price’s Slider? by Ricky Zanker ................................................................................. 16 SLGCON Meltdown by Andy Hellickstone ............................................................................... 27 The Managing Atheist by R.J. Anderson.................................................................................... 37 Prospects in the Outfield by Tommy Rancel ............................................................................. 41 A Primer on Attendance by Steve Slowinski ............................................................................. 45 Deserved Wins by Andy Hellickstone ......................................................................................... 48 The Value of Rafael Soriano by Eno Sarris ............................................................................... 54 The Rays & The Dow by Tommy Bennett.................................................................................. 56 The Buchholz High Missile Crisis by R.J. Anderson ................................................................. 60 Ace of the Rays by Tommy Rancel ............................................................................................. 63 A Divisional Preview by Marc Normandin ................................................................................. 66 The Fantasy Section by Jason Collette ....................................................................................... 70 Cult Classics by Steve Slowinski ................................................................................................ 80 What LaMar Left by Free Zorilla ............................................................................................... 82 Revisiting Crawford/Clemente by Tommy Rancel ................................................................... 84 Carlos Pena :) by R.J. Anderson ................................................................................................. 87 The Outro by R.J. Anderson ........................................................................................................ 89 Best of DRB: 2009-2010 .............................................................................................................. 90 Meet the Rays’ Front Office ..................................................................................................... 109 Andrew Friedman (VP of Baseball Ops) ................................................................................ 110 Dan Feinstein (Director of Baseball Ops) ............................................................................... 114 Matt Arnold (Director of Pro Scouting).................................................................................. 117 James Click (Coordinator of Baseball Operations) ................................................................ 123 Erik Neander (Baseball Operations Assistant) ....................................................................... 126 Index ........................................................................................................................................... 129 The Intro by Carson Cistulli To the Editors of D-Rays Bay: It's with no little anxiety that I compose this letter on behalf of my employer Carson Cistulli, for whom I work in the capacity of Gentleman's Personal Gentleman -- or "butler," as I find is the more common term in your country's parlance. About a month ago, as you will undoubtedly be aware, your editor Mr. R.J. Anderson approached Mr. Cistulli via electronic mail to ask that he write the introduction for your 2010 Annual. Because Mr. Cistulli -- or "C-Dizzy," as I'm contractually obligated to call him -- because C-Dizzy is an irrepressible attention-seeker (a fact that is all-too obvious from his work at FanGraphs), he accepted immediately . But what Mr. Cistulli -- sorry, C-Dizzy -- what C-Dizzy almost definitely failed to admit at the time, and which responsibility has now fallen to me, is that he despises your website and everything it represents. Let me hasten to clarify: it is not an issue of quality -- not at all, in fact. Rather, quite the opposite is true: your website is of such high quality that it has caused my employer some considerable discomfort. I understand this might sound confusing. Allow me to explain. You may or may not be aware of the fact that C-Dizzy hails from that oasis of culture known as New England. If you've met the people of that region -- particularly from the Massachusetts part of it -- you'll know that, by and large, they have an elevated view of themselves, of their capacities, and of their general worth relative to other Americans. To some degree, this opinion is justified. Harvard University and MIT call Massachusetts home, as do fabulously expensive and important schools such as Williams, Amherst, and Smith. And in the event that one somehow fails to gain admission to any of these, the State Government has designated another school -- Tufts University, they call it -- which is legally bound to accept anyone who applies. New England, of course, is also the birthplace of such American luminaries as poet Emily Dickinson, the great American composer Leonard Bernstein, and basically the entire cast and all the writers of the American version of The Office. I'm afraid, however, that C-Dizzy's estimate of his fatherland has reached extremist proportions. For example, you may or may not be aware that C-Dizzy currently resides in Portland, Oregon. While the majority of people -- regardless of their origins -- might be able to appreciate this bit of the Pacific Northwest on its own terms, to cite the region's natural beauty and penchant for green living as strengths, C-Dizzy merely scoffs at it derisively. Rather, he considers his presence here almost as a form of community service, much as missionaries do in whatever far-off lands they've decided to do God's work. And like those missionaries, he views it as his obligation to proselytize on behalf of, and convert people to, his own belief system -- i.e. New Englandism. As with other fundamentalists, C-Dizzy's ideology is situated rather precariously atop some core beliefs which, if subjected to even basic scrutiny, might summarily topple his entire worldview. You can probably guess at some of these staples: that New Englanders are the most worldly of Americans, the smartest of Americans, etc., etc. Chief among these cardinal beliefs is the idea that anyone hailing from, or associated with, the state of Florida is, without exception, vapid, vain, and virtually (if not actually) retarded (the Three Vs, this is called in the Church of New England). Certainly, NASCAR racing and college football go some way to reinforcing these stereotypes. Unfortunately for C-Dizzy, D-Rays Bay goes some way in problematizing them. The website itself is difficult enough for my employer to stomach. The content by Tommy Rancel, Erik Hahmann, Free Zorilla, the aforementioned Mr. Anderson, etc., is shockingly reasonable and well- supported. But now, with the release of the present Annual and the editors' inspired decision to include work by baseballing starlets Tommy Bennett, Marc Normandin, and everyone all else -- well, it has proven too much for Mr. Cistulli. His notion of Floridians and their limited capacities has been dashed. The bedrock of his conceptual framework has crumbled. He is, in short, a ruined man. (In fact, as I write these very words, he is writhing about on the floor of his bedroom in a fetal ball -- and has been doing so for going on five days now.) How this will ultimately affect Mr. Cistulli, I can't say for sure. What I do know is, it's a testament to the quality of your work that it has been able to crush so thoroughly the spirit of once so proud and obstinate a man. Congratulations to you, gentlemen. Congratulations. Earnestly, F. J. Mahoulahan, Gentleman's Personal Gentleman Portland, Ore February 2010 Garza’s Flame by Graham MacAree It’s been more than two years since a blockbuster trade sent Delmon Young and Brendan Harris to the Minnesota Twins in return for top pitching prospect Matt Garza and flashy defense-first shortstop Jason Bartlett. The role Bartlett played in the re-branded Rays’ meteoric rise to the American League pennant has been well-documented, but Garza has had a big part to play in the emergence of the Tampa Bay Rays as a major force in the American League East. Matthew Scott Garza, a graduate of Washington Union High in Fresno, made his name as a prospect in his junior year at Fresno State. Prior to his draft year, he had put up very pedestrian numbers (including an ERA of almost ten as a freshman) despite possessing a deadly high-90s fastball and a dangerous slider. Garza was able to add two more pitches to his repertoire in 2005, and his new changeup and curve catapulted him to spot in the first round, whereupon he was taken 25th overall by the Minnesota Twins, who paid him a $1,350,000 signing bonus. Garza sustained the gains made as an amateur in the minor leagues without any difficulty, and within fourteen months of being drafted