David Price: This year’s Evan Longoria
March 25th, 2009 by Cliffy
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/spring2009/columns/story?columnist=stark_jayson&id=4011780
Or.. maybe not. As noted, he is already signed through 2012, so there’s no apparent benefit to sending him down purely to delay the start of his arbitration clock (as appeared to be the case with Longoria last season).
But… what more “seasoning” does this guy need, fer crissakes? Hey, as a Red Sox fan, I’d *rather* he weren’t with the Rays - but I admit I don’t get it.
March 25th, 2009 at 10:57 am
The minors may not be the best fit for Price, but I could see him starting in the bullpen. The Rays have several starting pitchers, and if you read the baseball prospectus book, they have 55 potential aces including Price. Is there an issue with any of the prospects being out of options? Garza, Shields, Kazmir and Sonnestine are locks for the rotation, and Niemann is pitching real well. Perhaps they are simply looking to lesson the workload for him.
March 26th, 2009 at 8:12 am
It’s been pointed out elsewhere that the Red Sox (Buchholz) and Yankees (Hughes) are in a similar position: A very promising young pitcher, who’s had a very good spring, will start the season in the minors. I think Price is easily the best of the three, but still… all three “powers” of the AL East have a young-stud-in-waiting to turn to this season if/when necessary. Nice luxury.
I suspect lessening the workload is definitely part of the reason that Price, et al, will start in the minors. Each (to varying degrees) can still work on secondary pitches as well. And given the makeup of each team’s rotation, and given pitching in general, it seems likely that injury/fatigue will set in at some point i.e. we’ll see each of these guys in The Show this season… the only question is “When?”.