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Another low cost addition. Prefer doing this rather then burning major assets.

Ray is basically perpetually tantalizing. When he throws strikes he's pretty awesome but he just walks a **** tonne of people.

Travis Shaw on the block or is this his normal rest day?

Ray's been a pretty consistently average/above-average starter prior to this year, and if we decide to get a bit freaky, you could use him as a hellacious two-inning arm.

He's a complete mess this year but he's been an above average SP for a long time now. If he doesn't work out, they could always throw him in the pen as a strikeout option at the end of the year.

Nice to have another averagish starter in the fold who can possibly eat some innings. His career walk rate is problematic. It's between him and Chase Anderson for the 5th spot, methinks.

this is a great pickup. this is how you get a good staff.

robbie will turn things around, that's just how pitchers are sometimes.

literally added three solid rotation pitchers. i've bitched about this front office plenty of times but they've done real good here. even if they don't work out, it didn't cost us much of anything.

Come on, Meat!

They would have been smarter by putting that money in the pot and trying to acquire a real pitcher. How in this world is it ok to pay a pitcher with era's in the 6 and 7's a salary of 8 million a years. They won't be a serious contender until they get another ace at whatever the cost. Baseball is all about pitching, if you have it, you win. Positional players usually get shut down in the playoffs so stop focusing on them, it's all about quality pitching.

antonaki1 wrote:They would have been smarter by putting that money in the pot and trying to acquire a real pitcher. How in this world is it ok to pay a pitcher with era's in the 6 and 7's a salary of 8 million a years. They won't be a serious contender until they get another ace at whatever the cost. Baseball is all about pitching, if you have it, you win. Positional players usually get shut down in the playoffs so stop focusing on them, it's all about quality pitching.

Because there's an assumption that the first several years of Ray's career are more telling than the last 50 innings. Let's look at three pitchers from 2015-2019:

Pitcher A: 718.2 IP, 3.78 ERA (84 ERA-), 0.89 HR/9, 12.2 K-BB%, 3.79 FIP, 3.95 SIERA, 12.4 fWAR.

Pitcher B: 762 IP, 3.96 ERA (88 ERA-), 1.24 HR/9, 18.7 K-BB%, 3.92 FIP, 3.80 SIERA, 12.3 fWAR.

Pitcher C: 823.2 IP, 3.82 ERA (91 ERA-), 1.23 HR/9, 14.5 K-BB%, 4.15 FIP, 4.31 SIERA, 11.7 fWAR.


Overall, you'd give a slight edge to Pitcher A, I think. They are the most consistent, Pitcher B is the most dynamic, Pitcher C is something of a workhorse but pretty average overall.

Pitcher A is Stroman, Pitcher C is Odorizzi (who many want to sign), and Pitcher B is Robbie Ray.


Obviously, you can't simply pretend that 2020 didn't happen, and good news: we aren't! If 2020 doesn't happen, Robbie Ray doesn't sign for 1/$8m, he signs for a pretty large contract. But if you're wondering why we're spending $8m on a guy who just had an awful 50 IP, it's because prior to that he wasn't significantly worse than a guy that many here (incorrectly, IMO) considered to be an ace.

antonaki1 wrote:They would have been smarter by putting that money in the pot and trying to acquire a real pitcher. How in this world is it ok to pay a pitcher with era's in the 6 and 7's a salary of 8 million a years. They won't be a serious contender until they get another ace at whatever the cost. Baseball is all about pitching, if you have it, you win. Positional players usually get shut down in the playoffs so stop focusing on them, it's all about quality pitching.

Ray is a good, quality starting pitcher and has been for years, and Signing him to a 1 year commitment is a great move.

31 bad innings in Arizona doesn’t undo the entire 2015-19 span where he pitched over 750 innings.

Ray at 8m but more importantly on a 1 yr deal, is great value.