The Rays have, or are about to, ink Pat Burrell to a two-year, $16 million deal. He’s probably going to DH most of the time. That actually improves his value as with the positional dock that left field gets (-7.5), Burrell was costing the team about 20.5 runs by playing the field. Moving to DH negates the poor defense and only incurs a 17.5 run penalty. With his offensive projection, that makes Burrell between a 2 and 2.5-win player and worth $9-$11 million per year.

Raul Ibanez signed a three year, $31.5 million deal to continue playing left field. Ibanez projects to be worth around $5 million as an outfielder. The Phillies forfeited three draft picks by refusing to offer arbitration to Burrell and signing Ibanez instead.

So the Phillies won it last year but I think the Rays will be a lot better for a lot longer of a time.

or Hamilton/Cruz and a murphy/boggs platoon if byrd is traded (which I dont see happening).

Burrell for that price would have been decent though, depending on how it would effect sheets (if its even a realistic possibility).

If we had signed him though, I would rather sacrifice 3rd base defense and put davis/blalock at the corners than sacrifice OF defense with burrell in the OF.

2/16 seems like a pretty good deal for the Rays.

The Rays are unquestionably the best team in the AL East (on paper, anyway). Good for them.

I like Pat the Bat, and if we had money to burn I would have loved to have seen us bring him here, but we don’t. Better to focus what little chance we have of signing a top-dollar FA on Sheets.

Milton Bradley just signed with the Cubs. So the only righty masher left on the FA market is Manny. Unless a trade happens, Cruz is your cleanup hitter.

Jacksababboon…