Pat Burrell News

Are the Rays going to work with Jake McGee as a closer or stay with him in long relief and occasional starter? -- Tim B., Land O' Lakes, Fla.

If the Rays want to show their fans that they really want to win, the club will find a way to sign Carl Crawford to a long-term deal.

Free agents classified as power hitters can be very alluring in the offseason, since power production is one of those things that every team wishes it could have more of.

With things so quiet on the trade front, you have to assume that the winter meetings will start the momentum of the offseason going - someone will overpay for a reliever that had a career year or a position player that was great two years ago but has been injured since.

When could Desmond Jennings come to the Majors? There's all this talk about starting Matt Joyce, but what about Jennings? He seems very similar to Carl Crawford to me.

The Rays made numerous bad decisions last winter. First of all, signing Pat Burrell and trading Edwin Jackson, but the biggest mistake was to give manager Joe Maddon a three-year contract extension.

ESPN.com reports that Boston Red Sox left fielder Jason Bay refused an initial offer by the team and will dive into the pool of free agency to test the depth of its waters.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu said it best when she said, "The idle mind will sometimes fall into contemplations that serve for nothing but to ruin the health, destroy good humour, hasten old age and wrinkles, and bring on an habitual melancholy." The 2009 baseball season is 99.8% over with only these long drawn out award announcements leaving fans and ...

One gave New York a glimpse of what he had; one served as little more than a tantalizing name to local baseball fans.

Ia m very excited. I was reading the sports wire, and I saw that the Rays are one of the teams who have expressed interest in signing free agent Billy Wagner.

The New York Post reported that the Mets will try to meet with agent Scott Boras tonight in Chicago to get an idea of how much it will take to sign outfielder Matt Holliday, one of the top free agents in this year's class.

During my time at the shortened GM meetings, I was telling one industry official about the Mets' decision to not go after the Rays' Pat Burrell in a trade, due to Burrell's lousy defense.

View full size photo>> 1999: Aaron Ledesma and Rolando Arrojo for Vinny Castilla Aaron Ledesma Expansion Draft $525k OPS .682/2 yrs OPS .554/1 yr 2nd Rd 1990 Mets Rolando Arrojo AFA $325K AmateurFA 1997 for Vinny Castilla Released 2001 $6.25 million OPS .870/9 yrs OPS .569/ 2yrs Bought for Mexican team Pre-Trade: Formerly a second round pick of the ...

View full size photo>> It seems odd, but the most compelling Rays hot stove item has nothing to do with this off-season. Well, it has something to do with this year, just not as much as it does with next year, or the year after next.

Is Milton Bradley still here? Yeah, and he's holding up some of the decisions the Cubs might make as the hot-stove season gets started in earnest with the general managers meetings this week at the O'Hare Hilton.

Jinx, schminx. The Phils are going to win this thing, and the city needs to get ready.

According to a St. Petersburg Times / Miami Herald/ Bay News 9 poll, 54 percent of Floridians strongly support or somewhat support oil drilling 3 to 10 miles off the coast.

The Rays liked how he hit , how he played defense, how he ran, how he prepared, how he hustled, how he set a good example for the young players.

Jimmy Rollins still loves a microphone, even if it means airing a little of the Phillies' dirty laundry in the process.

Today, the Orlando Tuskers of the fledgling United Football League will work out at Tropicana Field in preparation for Friday's game there against the Las Vegas Locomotives.