Good morning, everyone.
What a weekend in America, eh? Lots of fun stuff happened. I spent most of it in New York City, and will have more to tell in upcoming posts. But between the Tony Awards, Miss USA (uh, what's the difference between that and Miss America?) and LeBron James having a massive game to push the Miami Heat into a 1-1 tie with the San Antonio Spurs in the NBA finals, there was a lot going on last night to divert us from our day-to-day lives.
Baseball is a constant from April through October. So let's get real here and ask what will the Tampa Bay Rays management do about their prized pitcher, David Price, now that the season appears to be over?
The Rays lost yesterday to Seattle, 5-0, two days after they ended a season-long 10-game losing streak. At 24-39, they have the worst record in MLB, and unless things rapidly (and stunningly) change, trade talk is going to heat up in July regarding Price, the former Cy Young winner who is scheduled to become a free agent at the end of this season. There was considerable discussion during the past off-season about the possibility of trading Price. The Rays didn't, believing they weren't getting fair value for him. But it's dubious that they can re-sign him in the offseason for the major contract that he deserves, thus he's major trade bait for a team that desperately needs more offense (the Rays struck out 17 times yesterday).
Some of you may think this is a bit premature, since such trades don't ever happen until close to the trade deadline, which isn't until the end of next month. Fair enough, but with the team's season continuing to go south, Andrew Friedman and friends in the Rays front office will have to start dealing with this, and thinking about 2015. Yes, with two Wild Card teams now able to go to the playoffs, there's theoretically a better chance for low-achieving teams to rally and make the post-season. But have you seen any indication that it's going to happen with this team?
So prepare for more talk about Price being dealt in the next few weeks. Ben Zobrist's appeal to another team might never be higher as well....
And as mentioned above, this reporter was away this weekend, but flying home on Jet Blue yesterday morning I was able to watch some of the Sunday morning talk shows, which were all Bowe Bergdahl, all of the time.
