Tampa Bay Rays make the biggest move in club’s history – MLB News
According to a leading sports website, the Tampa Bay Rays have traded pitchers James Shields and Wade Davis to Kansas City Royals for four prospects from Royals’ Minor League system. The trade is arguably the biggest in club’s history, reports www2.tbo.com.
Rays have a history of exchanging their experienced players for youngster. Late on Sunday, the Rays once again showed that it is part of their nature to intertwine today with tomorrow.
The highly touted outfielder Wil Myers, right handed pitcher Jake Odorizzi, third baseman Patrick Leonard and left handed pitcher Mike Montgomery are the four minor leaguers involved in the trade.
The 22 year old Myers was one of the most promising prospects from Royals’ farm system. He displayed some top quality hitting skills in 2012 as he combined to hit .314 with 37 home runs and 109 RBI’s in Royals’ Double A and Triple A clubs. For his consistent performances, he was presented with the Minor League Player of the Year Award by USA Today, Baseball America and Topps/Minor League Baseball. It will be interesting to see if he can live up to the expectations should the Rays present him with an opportunity to make his Major League Baseball debut in 2013.
"Personally I think this is the most difficult trade we've made to date," Rays executive vice president of baseball Andrew Friedman said. "Both guys were drafted and developed here. They've been key players in this organization's turnaround, and they're both high-quality people. It's a painful loss for our club, but I'm confident in our resilience."
"As you know, we're always cognizant of our financial situation and we're managing it with every transaction we make, whether it's a trade like this or we're signing a player to a contract like we did with Evan (Longoria) just a little bit ago," team president Matt Silverman said.
Shields and Dave were two of the best pitchers’ in Rays’ starting rotation. Shields, in particular, gave consistent results in his big league seasons with the club. He average 200 innings in each of those six seasons and led the club in strikeouts, innings pitched, wins, losses, shutouts and complete games. In Davis, the Rays had a hard throwing and reliable right hander who moved to the bullpen in 2012.
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