Rays - May or May Not Have Acquired Bay

Instead of doing some wacky 7-team trade involving 38 B-prospects, Manny Ramirez, and Ned Colletti begging to get involved, the Rays do the classic trade and swoop in under the Red Sox to pick up Bay.

Losing Brignac does hurt the Rays, but his bat wasn't quite there yet and the Rays are in a pennant race for the first time in their history and really need a very good bat to help hold off the Sox and Yankees. Bay's bounced back to 2006-style and is signed very reasonably for 2009 ($7.5 million) and there's just no way the Rays were going to get him without giving up somebody. What makes this a good trade for the Rays is that they only had to give up a single Somebody. No offense to Jeff Niemann, who should prove useful to the Pirates, but the Rays have a good rotation now and David Price, Wade Davis, and Jacob McGee coming and no doubt all ahead of Niemann in the pecking order.

The Pirates, while they give up a really good outfielder, address two short-term and long-term problems for the team - the lack of up-and-coming infielders and starting pitchers that don't stink. They got what they needed for Bay. Neither Brignac or Niemann are quite ready to be solid players now, but if they continue to develop, neither will have any problems pushing the people ahead of them out of the way. While Pirate fans can be disappointed about the team being sellers yet again, they actually need to be. Just because Bonifay and Littlefield were too incompetent to properly equip the Pirates for long-term competition doesn't mean that it didn't need to be done. It just needed to be done well and Huntington should have the benefit of the doubt until he's demonstrated he can't do it properly either. So far, the Pirates are getting exactly the players they need. No more insisting that some major league mediocrity be thrown-in so that the GM can lose face.

2008 ZiPS Projection - Jason Bay
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Period         AB   R    H  2B 3B  HR RBI  BB  SO  SB    BA   OBP   SLG 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Year-to-Date  393  72  111  23  2  22  64  59  86   7  .282  .375  .519
Rest-of-Yr    183  31   48  10  1  10  30  28  47   3  .262  .363  .492 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Total         576 103  159  33  3  32  94  87 133  10  .276  .371  .510  
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
2009?         532  90  136  25  1  31  96  75 142   7  .256  .351  .481 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Top Comps:  Greg Vaughn, Ron Gant

2008 ZiPS Projection - Reid Brignac
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Period         AB   R    H  2B 3B  HR RBI  BB  SO  SB    BA   OBP   SLG 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Year-to-Date* 347  35   78  19  1   7  34  20  87   4  .225  .269  .346 
Rest-of-Yr    161  18   39   9  1   3  17  10  34   2  .242  .291  .366
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* - Includes Minor League Translation   
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
2009?         551  38  139  30  2  14  67  41 105   9  .252  .303  .390
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Top Comps:  Brendan Harris, Buddy Kerr

2008 ZiPS Projection - Jeff Niemann
----------------------------------------------------------------
               W   L   G  GS     IP    H   ER  HR  BB  SO   ERA 
----------------------------------------------------------------
Year-to-Date*  6   8  20  20   95.1  105   57  15  47  64  5.38
Rest-of-Yr?    2   4   8   8   41.0   45   22   5  15  27  4.83
----------------------------------------------------------------
* - Includes Minor League Translation
----------------------------------------------------------------
2009?          8  10  25  25  128.0  135   68  14  52  91  4.78 
----------------------------------------------------------------
Top Comps:  Don Aase, Ryan Dempster