Point The Finger: Sean Rodriguez vs. Scott Kazmir

 
Trades, trades, and more trades. Trading players in the MLB is an essential part to building a contender. Baseball is different than other sports where you can rebuild a franchise within a year or two. In baseball rebuilding can easily take 5 or more years. First, you have to trade off any veteran player with any worth. Second, you have to choose wisely in the draft. Third, you have to give young players a chance to play and develop. All of this means a lot of L’s in the standings. Ask the Pittsburgh Pirates or Kansas City Royals. There is obviously much more than that (timely free agent signings, etc.) that goes into [...] Read More..

 
 
 
Point The Finger: BJ Upton
 
What happened to BJ Upton? We are talking about a player who at one time in his career had power. People would talk about how the ball sounded differently coming off his bat. The way it used to for Manny Ramirez or a guy I’ve never seen not hit at absolute frozen rope, Juan Gonzalez. I’m not comparing BJ’s power to them but he had that kind of bat speed. I’m not sure if it is the shoulder injury he suffered that is somehow still affecting his swing but it sure didn’t seem too in the ‘08 playoffs when he was hitting home runs at a record pace.
He is much better of a fantasy baseball player [...] Read More..

Re-do Trade???
It has been two years since the Rays and Twins traded budding superstars. After the 2007 season the Twins sent starting pitcher Matt Garza along with shortstop Jason Bartlett to the Rays for talented but troubled outfielder Delmon Young and utility infielder Brendan Harris. Since being taken number one overall in the 2003 MLB draft Delmon Young always had a sense of entitlement. Even after hitting .288 with 93 ribbies at the age of twenty-one the Rays were heading in a different direction attitude wise as a franchise and figured it would be addition by subtraction by trading him. By acquiring Matt Garza the Rays bolstered an already young, up and coming rotation and got the shortstop the team [...] Read More..

Point The Finger: Joe Maddon vs. Tony Dungy
Change is a funny thing. Change is inevitable. Sometimes change is postive and sometimes it is for the worse. Changing a manager or head coach in sports is sometimes all that is needed to turn things around for a franchise. Somtimes not even changing the message but the voice it comes from is enough. Sometimes a complete overhaul of ideas and philosphies is needed. There are alot of coaches throughout history who have done more or less with the exact talent. To get the absolute most out of every player on the roster. This is the main job of the head coach or manger. Day in-day out. Especially in a long gruling season like baseball [...] Read More..

Point The Finger: Andre Friedman, Rays GM
As the MLB trade deadline nears Rays general manager Andrew Friedman will have some difficult decisions to make. In years past the Rays were always sellers when it came to this time of year. A good portion of the talent on the Rays roster today came from those deals. During their 2008 magical season the Rays passed on a big trade for a Jason Bay type and settled for bullpen help aquiring Chad Bradford. With the Rays being a "small market" team and under financial restraint it is imperative they don’t give up the future stars of tomorrow. On the other hand, though, the GM’s job is to always give the team the best chance to [...] Read More..