Blog Trade Fuji Style.

Here are the goods from another blog trade with San Jose Fuji, if you don't already read his blog may I humbly suggest you take a wander through his musings as it really is great stuff. Anyway onto the trade. I sent Fuji a Pau Gasol Crown Royale Jersey card and a Shaq/Tim Duncan dual jersey card and in return he was good enough to send these two auto cards. When we were discussing the trade I asked Fuji for the Tyler Skaggs auto and nothing else, but as Fuji is an all around good guy he told me it was not enough for the two Basketball cards. So I had to look back through his lists to find something new. I settled upon the Drew Stanton auto, I really like the way Stanton is about to unleash a bomb in front of about 5000 empty seats. As always trading with Fuji was a pleasure. Thank you Sir.

Cool Photo.

As the main focus of my PC's is either pitchers or prospects it's not very often I get a card with a cool photo on it. Pitcher cards are usually the standard throwing style picture and the prospect photo's usually seem to have been taken in a back lot at spring training. So it's nice to have such a sweet card like the above. The card came in a rather large package from Martyn of Arbitarycrap. Martyn is one of the good guys in this hobby, he will often send me a package of cards and ask for nothing in return.

The question about this card is, did Zobrist catch the ball? Did it fall short or pop from his glove on contact with the field. Why is no one watching from the stands? I doff my Rays cap to the photographer of this one. Cheers Martyn...

Rookie Ball Kicks Off.

The Princeton Rays kicked off their season tonight, the Rays have a loaded team this year. Drew Vettleson a 1st round sandwich pick in 2010 was 2-4 with a stolen base.

Justin O'Conner was another 1st round pick for the Rays in 2010. He started this year 1-4 with 2Rbi's.

Finally we have the Rays 1st pick in the 2010 draft Josh Sale. Josh started his pro career with a walk in the first, but in the third inning he hit his first pro homer. Josh was seen as the premier high school hitter in the 2010 draft and hopefully today is a sign of great things to come.

The One That Got Away.

Josh Hamilton had it all and pissed it away and then he got it all back. A number one pick Hamilton hit the self destruct button while in the Rays farm system. The Rays did their best but traded him away to the Reds and then he moved to the Rangers and we all know what happened next. Hats off to Hamilton for getting his life back on track and to the Rays for helping him as much as they could. A great player who would look good back in a Rays uniform. I hope he can keep his life going in the right direction because he is a hell of a player.

More Gold Refractor-ness.

Yet more shiney gold sweetness from Bowman 2011. This time we have Single A+ all star Tyler Bortnick. Tyler is currently play in the Florida State Leauge fro the Charlotte Stone Crabs. 23 year old Bortnick is a second baseman and is currently hitting .301 with 2 Homers 33 Rbi's and 17 stolen bases. He is ranked in the top 15 of Rays hitting prospects. For those of a more geeky nature the card is 33/50.

Refractor-tastic Mailday.

These three sweeties arrived on the door mat yesterday. Stephen Vogt purple,blue and gold refractors. Vogt is a 27 year old double A prospect. Hitting around .300 with over 50 RBIs so far this season. Although old for a prospect he has a chance to make it as he is a catcher and according to people in the know catchers take longer to mature.

Fuji Style Contest Alert.

Contest Alert!!!!!!! Head on over to San Jose Fuji blog and see whats kicking,

Rays Prospect Card #5

Todays prospect in focus is Brett Nommensen. Drafted by the Rays in the 8th round of the 2009 draft. Currently plying his trade in the Florida State League with the A+ Charlotte Stone Crabs, Brett is hitting a respectable .286 with 3 Hr's 27 Rbi's and 14 SB, the stat that really stands out to me though is this one, Nommensen has been hit by a pitch 13 times already this season, ouch!!! Nommensen does not feature in the Rays 15 top hitting prospects,but so far this year he is ahead of some of the more "famous" names in the farm system.

The card is a Bowman 2009 DP&P Gold Border.

Prospect #4 Update

Alex Cobb got his first Major League win tonight. He pitched 6.1 strong innings against the Angels giving up one run on seven hits. Congratulations Alex,

Not A Prospect.

My newest Shields card. Yay!!!!!!

Rays Prospect Card #4

Todays prospect is Alex Cobb, seen here in Bowman 2008 Orange Border sweetness. Cobb was a fourth round draft pick back in 2006. Since then he has been promoted up the farm ladder every year, finally being called up to the big team a couple of weeks ago. His minor league record stands at 34-23 with a nice 2.97 ERA. His first start in the majors didn't last five innings partly due to Cobb tipping his pitches, his second start was much nicer going 6.1 innings only for the bullpen to lose him his first major league win. He starts Tuesday against the Angels Dan Haren, hopefully the offense finds it's hitting stroke and Cobb can secure his first victory.

Rays Prospect Card #3

Todays prospect is Flagstaff Arizonas very own Kyle Lobstein, seen here in all his 2008 Razor glory. 21 year old Lobstein is currently pitching with the single A Charlotte Stone Crabs. His record this year is 4-2 with a very nice 2.22 ERA. Indeed only last night he pitched seven scorless innings and gave up only one hit. Kyle hits between 89-92 mph with his fastball and has a decent curve and change up and controls all his pitches well. Where he fits in to the Rays future is anyones guess,but if he keeps pitching the way he has in the last couple of weeks a promotion to double A Montgomery could well be on the cards. One to keep an eye on I believe.

Rays Prospect Card #2

. My second card on my prospects list is a Donruss EEE 2010 Red Status 30/100 of Josh Sale. Josh was the Rays first round draft pick in 2010, hailing from Seattle 19 year old Sale was the highest rated High School hitter in the draft. No stats available yet as Josh is destined to play in short season rookie ball. Rated #88 on Baseball Americas prospect list. High hopes abound for young Mr Sale, the Rays seem to have an abundance of good pitching down on the farm, hopefully Josh can be the hitter the Rays so desperatly need.

Rays Prospect Cards #1

I thought after my break from blogging due to some family worries I would take a look at the Rays prospects that I have.
First up is Matthew Moore the Rays number one pitching prospect, shown here in all his Bowman 2009 glory. Moore was drafted by the Rays in the 8th round of the 2007 draft. He is currently ranked the #15 prospect by Baseball America. Currently pitching for the AA Montgomery Biscuits Moore is 3-3 with a 2.76 ERA but the stat everyone seems to be interested in his his strikeouts. So far this year Moore has K'ed 82 batters in only 58.2 innings, this gives him a SO/9 of 12.6. Over his four year minor career his SO/9 is 12.8, pretty impressive by anyones standards. Last year he struck out more batters than any other pitcher throughout the minor leagues, 208 K's in 144.2 innings.

The question on most Rays fans lips is " Will we see Moore in the bigs this year?". The Rays are very protective of their pitching prospects and everything points to him not making his MLB debut until 2012. Most experts are guessing he may be pointed in the direction of closing, but it would be interesting to see him as a starter.

Stay tuned for more prospects in the days to come.