With a deadline to finalize the 40-man roster prior to the December 6th Rule Five Draft looming, the Rays added four players to their roster yesterday; shortstops Hak-Ju Lee and Tim Beckham, as well as LHP Felipe Rivero and Enny Romero. This move follows the re-signing of RHP reliever Joel Peralta Wednesday. Adding Lee, Beckham, Rivero, and Romero protects them from the Rule 5 draft which will take place on December 6th at the end of the winter meetings. The four of them would have been eligible for the Rule Five Draft for the first time.
Tim Beckham most notably sticks out. As you may recall, Beckham was suspended for 50 games last season due to testing positive for drugs for the second time. Beckham, the first overall pick in 2008, posted a .256 BA/.325 OBP/.361 SLG/.686 OPS line with six homers, six steals in 323 plate appearances with AAA Durham in 2012. Overall, Beckham has a .709 career OPS in 2187 career plate appearances in the minors. Beckham was heralded as one of Baseball America’s top 100 prospects list in 2010, but seems to have been stuck in a rut of sorts since. You can see the current Rays roster by clicking on the photo below.
In other news, former Ray Jonny Gomes is back in the AL East. Whoop whoop. MLB Trade Rumors reported yesterday that Gomes has been offered two-year contract worth $10MM by the Boston Red Sox. You know, the same Red Sox that dumped a fair portion of their roster last year…the same team that hasn’t seemed to learn from prior transgressions, offering Gomes twice the amount he was making in Oakland in 2012. Gomes posted a posted a .262 BA/.377 OBP/.491 SLG batting line with 18 home runs and 44 walks in 333 plate appearances. Gomes is a career .284 BA/.382 OBP/.512 SLG hitter against left-handed pitching, hitting southpaws well in 2012. As Dustin, a good friend of the blog, so eloquently put it,
I wish I felt reassured about the fact that Gomes is gonna play a lousy LF, but you can field a statue in left at Fenway and do just fine. It is nice to hear that the Sox sank $10 million into a guy who can’t hit RHP. I’m still gonna try to remember fondly the post-game interview with a smiling and breathless Jonny Gomes right after he scored a game-winning run against the Yankees back in 2008, when he was asked how it felt to be a Ray. “I tell you what. It doesn’t suck.”