The Blue Workhorse

The Tampa Bay (no longer Devil) Rays are following the design Atlanta’s John Schuerholz so masterfully created after taking over as the general manager for the Braves and are now doing the unfathomable by leading the Boston Red Sox, the New York Yankees, and the remainder of the AL East while having the best record in baseball.

The Rays have used each of their high draft picks to build their organization from the farm system up much the same way the Atlanta Braves have been renowned for doing. Tampa Bay also has focused on building around a talented young pitching staff (their starting rotation is aged 24-26) just as Schuerholz did with Atlanta.

How similar are this year’s Rays to the Atlanta squads from the early ’90s? We’ve compared this year’s squad of the AL East leading Rays, who are coming off a sweep of perennial power Boston, to the Atlanta squads from their early 1990s heydays:

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While #2 overall fantasy player Hanley Ramirez’s statistics are impressive, no one is that surprised after he was a top 5 pick in nearly every fantasy draft, but when Nate McLouth puts up similar numbers and is ranked as the #7 fantasy player overall…eyebrows are raised.

The McLouths and Cliff Lees of baseball is exactly what this list celebrates - the players who produce tremendous statistics considering the value they cost their fantasy owners, whether that be a late round pick or a timely pick up off the waiver wire:

For the past two seasons, there have been concerns about a couple of the most known and dominant closers in the game. Last season, it was New York Yankees’ stopper Mariano Rivera after he got off to a rough start. This season the troubles are in the other league, on the other coast as Trevor Hoffman, the man who enters to “Hell’s Bells,” has left without the lead, or a save, already twice in the early stages this season.

After week one of the MLB season, there have been several teams, including the Padres, that have already run into bullpen issues, particularly on Opening Day, so we decided to examine each of the 30 major league teams bullpen performances thus far and see which teams should really be concerned with their bullpen.