With players trickling into camp Sunday and this morning I figured it was time to do my Annual Roster Predictions that I do for every one of our Tampa teams before the season begins.  There will be some real competition this year at multiple positions, namely backup IF, DH, SP and OF.
Without further ado…
Starting Rotation:
James Shields
Matt Garza
Jeff Niemann
David Price
Wade Davis
Middle Relief:
Grant Balfour
Lance Cormier
Randy Choate
JP Howell
Dan Wheeler
Closer:
Rafael Soriano
C:
Kelly Shoppach
Dioner Navarro
Infielders:
Carlos Pena
Ben Zobrist
Jason Bartlett
Evan Longoria
Sean Rodriguez
Reid Brignac
Outfielders:
Carl Crawford
Matt Joyce
BJ Upton
Gabe Kapler
DH:
Pat Burell
Willy Aybar
Most notably, that leaves, Andy Sonnastine, Jeremy Hellickson and Desmond Jennings off of [...]

With pitchers and catchers reporting in just a few days, I thought it was time to take take a peek at the Rays potential Starting Rotation, by the numbers.
I would hypothesize that this rotation is pretty much set in stone barring one potential change.  If David Price does not show some development on a third pitch, and Jeremy Hellickson continues to progress at his current rate, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Price move into the pen ala our World Series Run, and have Hellickson get a crack at the rotation.  He has 4 pitches, and shows much better command [...]

Buster Olney wrote an article this morning naming the five best rotations in baseball.  While the Rays weren’t in the top 5, they were around 9th depending on how you interpret his Others in the conversation list.
The first two choices, the Sox and the Yanks are hard to argue with.  The Sox took a rotation that already had Josh Beckett, Jon Lester (my favorite pitcher in the AL), Dice K, Clay Bucholz and Tim Wakefield and added John Lackey.  Barring injury, the deepest group 1-6.  Another rotation that had a great 2009, only got stronger in 2010 as well in [...]

As we continue our Roster Rundown before Spring Training, we move to 1b and Carlos Pena. Pena, who might be GM Andrew Friedmans best acquisition since Stuart Sternberg took over the team  is looking to bounce back from a year where he was productive but with much room to improve.
While Pena showed last season that he is still a premier power threat in the AL East, no easy task, he also showed that he is a liability if he isn’t hitting HR or 2b’s.  He’s pretty much an all or nothing proposition behind the plate, and while that has it’s [...]

With Spring Training beginning in about two weeks for most teams, General Managers around the league are doing some last second looks around the Free Agent market and are finding some players that produced quite well in 2009. There are rumors that Andrew Friedman has looked into three of them specifically: Johnny Damon, Jonny Gomes and Orlando Hudson.
Damon – I would personally dislike this move for the Rays. Not only will he probably end up getting 4 to 5 million for two years from a team, he just doesn’t fit our team for multiple reasons. For starters, [...]