Tampa Bay Rays: The Price Is Right

It’s safe to say that the Rays are truly shining this year. With their first winning season in franchise history, it’s looking like the Rays are poised to take home the championship. The Rays have jumped to the ranks of elite, shocking every one in the MLB world on their way. But , they have even more to look forward in their now very bright future. One of the main attention grabbers is clearly going to be the development of LHP David Price.

          Selected first overall in the 2007 MLB draft, this lefty-hurler is predicted to be the future face of the Ray’s organization. Coming out of Vanderbilt posting an impressive 3.21 ERA in his three-year college career, Price was seen as a major step toward the rebuilding process for the once mightily struggling Rays.

            In his brief appearances in the regular season, Price has shown why he was selected first overall. In 14.0 innings of work since being called up in September, Price has given up only 9 hits, 3 earned runs, and struck out 12. His arsenal consists of devastating breaking balls and a formidable fastball, topping out at 97 MPH. When Price can spot the fastball, one of the few problems he is experiencing thus far, the 17 MPH difference between his fastball and his changeup is close to impossible to hit.

            However, his premium pitch is a hard 87 MPH slider with a late sharp break. Combine all of these weapons and you end up with a strong throwing lefty with above average stuff and batter-freezing breaking balls.

            For a pitcher who only has 14 innings experience in the big leagues, making the post-season roster would not be expected. However, Ray’s manager Joe Maddon had a feeling about Price, a sense of intuition that has served him almost flawlessly through the regular season. So Maddon decided to stick to his brass instead of logic and brought Price along for the amazing journey that is October Baseball. A journey that few in the entire Ray’s organization have ever experienced.

            So far Maddon’s intuition proves once again to be quite on point. This post-season, David Price has surprisingly seen 4.2 innings of relief, surrendering only 2 hits and 1 earned run and ringing up 6 in the process.

            A rookie pitcher seeing action in the post-season, nonetheless the World Series, is definitely gaining some highly valuable experience. Being exposed to the most dire of situations existing in all of baseball will surely play a positive factor in Price’s development. Come the regular season, coping with the pressure of starting the season on the major league roster and facing quality teams will surely feel lighter after pitching well against the best team the NL has to offer.

            This is not a prediction that David Price is the Ace pitcher of the AL next year and this is not a statement saying he won't get beat up by the Phillies later in the series. This is simply something the Ray’s can look forward too, as potential is one of the most exciting aspects in all of baseball. So far for the Ray’s, the Price has been right.