OT: Buccaneers, Rays & Other Tampa Bay Sports Teams

[JTBF81]

MLB needs better seeding. The stupid ass Astros get a bye but hey the Rays won 9 more games. I love how strong divisions get punished in every sport. I'm happy about a 99 win season but this team has been so rocked by injuries that any kind of win may as well be celebrated


Also proud of the Bucs today. I normally hate early bye weeks but they're banged up too and need it

Agreed, and now they get a high scoring offense in Texas, and if they advance, they are locked in to facing the only AL team ahead of them in the LDS because they don't reseed.

 

[These Are The Days]

Agreed, and now they get a high scoring offense in Texas, and if they advance, they are locked in to facing the only AL team ahead of them in the LDS because they don't reseed.

I wish I was optimistic but I'm really not. I'm just not. You know what would make a difference? McClanahan, Baz, Springs, Lowe, Franco. I mean who else am I missing? Again I am over the moon about this year and this team but I swear it's like the combined forces of nature and stupidity just won't let anything good happen so they edged out 99 wins.

I don't blame Cash for this. I mean yes, he makes stupid pitching decisions but I put it more on the rest of his staff for blowing out our guy's arms for years and just doing the surprised Pikachu face everytime someone else needs Tommy John

If everyone stayed healthy, the Rays probably win something like 106-108 games in spite of dumb pitching decisions at time. Not a GOAT season but at least for the Rays it would have been

 

[JTBF81]

I wish I was optimistic but I'm really not. I'm just not. You know what would make a difference? McClanahan, Baz, Springs, Lowe, Franco. I mean who else am I missing? Again I am over the moon about this year and this team but I swear it's like the combined forces of nature and stupidity just won't let anything good happen so they edged out 99 wins.

I don't blame Cash for this. I mean yes, he makes stupid pitching decisions but I put it more on the rest of his staff for blowing out our guy's arms for years and just doing the surprised Pikachu face everytime someone else needs Tommy John

If everyone stayed healthy, the Rays probably win something like 106-108 games in spite of dumb pitching decisions at time. Not a GOAT season but at least for the Rays it would have been

Yeah, without a doubt if Franco doesn't possibly flush his career away and Mac and Springs stay healthy, Rays easily get to somewhere between 105-110 wins and have home field right now throughout. It wouldn't have guaranteed anything of course, but having a playoff rotation if Mac, Springs, Eflin and Glasnow, with guys like Rasmussen available as well, yeah, I'll take that rotation 10/10 over anyone's.

 

[JTBF81]

Great managing Cash, have power hitting Siri at the plate with runners.at tne corners and try a safety squeeze.with a power hitter(frankly, Siri shouldn't have even started this game if his hitting is that far out of sync). Also terrible to try and bunt that particular pitch. 3 f***ing errors already as well, just amazing fielding...

 

[JTBF81]

Lol, remember, they brought Siri in for his great defense rather than have a more ready offensive weapon today...

 

[JTBF81]

And this is also why, when you have a 16 game winning clear Ace, you start them game 1 in a best of 3, not some picture of inconsistency that has on e again, pitched like trash today.

 

[JTBF81]

Defensive expert Siri everyone, so glad Cash started him today, as he's been such an asset....for the Rangers anyway.

 

[Hoek]

And you guys were worried about the bullpen...

 

[These Are The Days]

I don't know if I'm more disappointed in the comedy of errors or the fact the Rays can't sell out a playoff game. Holy shit

 

[Hoek]

I don't know if I'm more disappointed in the comedy of errors or the fact the Rays can't sell out a playoff game. Holy shit

I think afternoon weekday playoff games are huge load of bullshit though. Joke of a league.

 

[JTBF81]

The Rays are quite possibly the biggest joke I've ever seen. About to drop to 1-8 in their last 9 pkayiff games, and a team averaging almost 5.5 runs per game getting shutout again. Pathetic from everyone from Cash on down.

 

[DMB06]

In the playoffs you need consistent players. Because the Rays refuse to spend money, and never will regardless of a new stadium or not, they're never going to have consistent players on their roster. Those players cost more money than the Rays are willing to spend. This team is basically the San Jose Sharks of 5-6 years ago, permanently. They'll put together decent regular seasons but will never be a threat once the post season arrives.

 

[These Are The Days]

Lol

 

[Summer Rose]

What a joke. One f***ing run in two postseason games. I am livid.

 

[JTBF81]

I'm sure Cash will go on and win some more manager of the year awards now(or get nominated at least), which is an even bigger joke perhaps, but this team is going nowhere with him at the helm or with the current composition. Maybe when he's fired and the team actually acquires some proven and consistent talent, they'll have a chance. Until then, I'm done wasting any more time watching them.

 

[Renopucker]

It was just such a total embarrassment:

Smallest crowds since blah blah (twice mentioned)
Most innings without a run since blah blah
No second base since blah blah
A passing reference to the decimation of staring pitching and other injuries

And, more snide comments. All on national TV.
So that's that.
C'mon man, just drop the puck!!!!!!

 

[These Are The Days]

In the playoffs you need consistent players. Because the Rays refuse to spend money, and never will regardless of a new stadium or not, they're never going to have consistent players on their roster. Those players cost more money than the Rays are willing to spend. This team is basically the San Jose Sharks of 5-6 years ago, permanently. They'll put together decent regular seasons but will never be a threat once the post season arrives.

I don't think it's that bad. Let me give you a really bad example. I'm not inviting you to square up or anything but say I blindfold you, tie your ankles and cuff your hands behind your back. I get none of that AND get to have a baseball bat and challenge you to a fight. You might land a good drop kick or bash me with your head and that's it. You're the Rays in this case and I'm every other team in MLB. No one. NO ONE is overcoming the crap they had to deal with. Everything you've said has been applicable to probably every other year but this one. This team would have won the World Series if it weren't for the same kind of baseball voodoo you only see the Cubs and both Sox fans complain about hitting us. If it could go wrong it did for them. But yet they won 99 games

I am trying to remain hopeful the new ballpark will change things for the better. These guys need to get healthy in the meantime

 

[Rschmitz]

I don't know if I'm more disappointed in the comedy of errors or the fact the Rays can't sell out a playoff game. Holy shit

Apparently the organization doesn't don't mind it because their signing up to stick around for another 30 years in the same location

 

[Filthy Dangles]

Apparently the organization doesn't don't mind it because their signing up to stick around for another 30 years in the same location

I'm sick of hearing about this. Almost all other teams sell out weekday games in the playoffs. Other teams and fans have more treacherous drives to their stadiums to see their team. St Pete has really grown over the past few years.

The truth is people just don't care much about the Rays even if they played in Tampa, it's a shame but what it is.

It's always gonna be like this for the Rays, no matter what

 

[Hoek]

When looking at Miami as well, I think Florida is just too used to seeing baseball as a fun little "spring training" thing over the decades to take it as diehard of a sport. It's kind of funny how we are much more of a hockey town than baseball.

 

[Filthy Dangles]

When looking at Miami as well, I think Florida is just too used to seeing baseball as a fun little "spring training" thing over the decades to take it as diehard of a sport. It's kind of funny how we are much more of a hockey town than baseball.

Baseball, the sport itself, is huge in Florida and way bigger than hockey, with a huge portion of Big Leaguers coming from there. Also College Baseball is huge down there. UF, FSU, UM are some of the top baseball schoosl in the country with lots of success, and those schools and teams have obviously existed for much longer than Rays/Marlins.

Quite simply, the Rays and Marlins are still relatively 'new' teams compared to toher MLB teams and haven't done enough to build large fanbases.

Everyone knows Tropicana Field, the stadium itself and it's location are not ideal, but it doesn't come close to fully explaining the piss-poor attendance imo.

I think being in the AL East with Boston and NYY hurts too. Transplants who would otherwise latch on to the Rays as a 2nd/alternate team, can't because their big division rivals with their primary team.

Never quite having a Mike Trout/Aaron Juge/Albert Pujols to latch onto as the face of the franchise kinda hurts too

 

[DMB06]

The Rays are boring, if we're being honest. When you don't have any big names and no true franchise players (that aren't having sex with 14 year olds), there's not much to get excited about. I mean, baseball in general is boring. Throw out a team of mostly .240 hitters and it's like an extra dose of ambien. I know there are people that disagree, which is fine, but many will agree. The Rays are a boring team with bad ownership playing in a crappy ballpark in an annoying location.

 

[Rschmitz]

I'm sick of hearing about this. Almost all other teams sell out weekday games in the playoffs. Other teams and fans have more treacherous drives to their stadiums to see their team. St Pete has really grown over the past few years.

The truth is people just don't care much about the Rays even if they played in Tampa, it's a shame but what it is.

It's always gonna be like this for the Rays, no matter what

So what exactly is your conclusion, they should just give up and move to another state or dissolve? Status quo?

Here's some simple logic, if people don't care enough about the rays to drive two hours to attend the game, then maybe they care enough to drive 30 minutes. At least moving the team to a more centralized location is an attempt to do something than just complain about how apathetic the fanbase is. If the locals aren't that passionate about the team because they don't have 100 years of history behind them, than do more to reach them. You can't reach them any better than actually moving 100 miles in their direction.

 

[Rschmitz]

When looking at Miami as well, I think Florida is just too used to seeing baseball as a fun little "spring training" thing over the decades to take it as diehard of a sport. It's kind of funny how we are much more of a hockey town than baseball.

This same thing was said about hockey here before 2010. The fact that we are more of a hockey town than a baseball town isn't a funny coincidence, there are two massive differences. Vinik has spend that past 13 years building the fanbase up instead of complaining about them, and we have a centralized arena. Vinik specifically mentioned the location of the stadium as a driving factor to purchase the team.

 

[Rschmitz]

Baseball, the sport itself, is huge in Florida and way bigger than hockey, with a huge portion of Big Leaguers coming from there. Also College Baseball is huge down there. UF, FSU, UM are some of the top baseball schoosl in the country with lots of success, and those schools and teams have obviously existed for much longer than Rays/Marlins.

Quite simply, the Rays and Marlins are still relatively 'new' teams compared to toher MLB teams and haven't done enough to build large fanbases.

Everyone knows Tropicana Field, the stadium itself and it's location are not ideal, but it doesn't come close to fully explaining the piss-poor attendance imo.

I think being in the AL East with Boston and NYY hurts too. Transplants who would otherwise latch on to the Rays as a 2nd/alternate team, can't because their big division rivals with their primary team.

Never quite having a Mike Trout/Aaron Juge/Albert Pujols to latch onto as the face of the franchise kinda hurts too

So you do admit stadium location is important. These are actually all great points, but then why is your conclusion that we shouldn't move the stadium to a better location? You're complaining about the demographics of the locals being transplants, but then why stick to one of the major transplant hot spots in St.Pete? You're going to get a hell of a lot more home grown Floridians in Hillsborough county, your working class families might actually be able to attend the game on time if it's on this side of the bay.