Questions From A Fan
What do you think of those moves?
A good friend of mine, David Diaz, a retired bass guitarist, emails me from time to time asking certain questions about the Rays and Bucs. I will start responding to them here on Rayhawk as mini-posts.
These questions were in repsonse to the demotion of Andy Sonnanstine as opposed to David Price, and the demotion of Winston Abreu.
Q:
Seems like Price, even though he already has better stuff than Sonny, could have benefited from a little more seasoning at AAA; learn that 3rd pitch and control his workload
Sonny, even though he was pretty terrible especially at the beginning of the year is still a guy who is going to normally give you innings…6,7,or 8.
I understand sending Winston Abreu down BUT I don’t understand calling him up in the first place if that was how we were going to use him and now lose him to another team undoubtedly. Even though Dan Wheeler has somehow pitched well…again, I would have liked to see he or even Chad Bradford get traded to relieve us of their salaries.
A:
I would have rather seen Sonnanstine stay on the big club as you have suggested. He got sent down after coming off of one of his better peformances of the year (7k, 1BB). You know what you are going to get with Sonnanstine, innings, and a mid 4 era. I know his era sits a bit higher than that right now, as you alluded to, most of those rough outings were at least 5 starts ago or more.
Price is a bit of an enigma right now, and as anyone who reads this site knows, I think he should be a arm in the pen right now, not wasting away our already weak bullpen. I just think his two pitch repertoire at this point, coupled with our shitty bullpen, make him the ideal candidate to pitch the 8th or the 9th inning.
As far as Abreu is concerned, I’m not going to get in too much of a sour mood over the jerking around of a 32 year old journeyman, but, I have a little issue with bringing a guy up only to send him back down and make him pass through waivers 1 week later.
I believe you misunderstand the problem with the way Abreu is handled. He is out of options and, if he clears waivers, won’t go back down to Durham, but will become a free agent. He may be a journeyman, but his numbers in AAA ball over the last few years, excluding last year when he had bone chips removed from his elbow, have been consistantly outstanding. I believe, if given a fair chance, he is definitely major league material. I believe the Rays are missing the boat on this one.
June 28th, 2009 at 8:47 pmI understand fully, just don’t think he’ll pass through waivers. There are enough teams with issues in the pen to make a claim on the guy. Just like I said my issue is with calling a guy up knowing that he is going to have to clear waivers 2 weeks later because you know you are going to try and send him back down. Lots of times guys get put on waivers and resign with the current team for which they are playing.
June 28th, 2009 at 8:50 pm