Roger Mooney
Roger Mooney covers the Tampa Bay Rays for The Tampa Tribune, TBO.com and News Channel 8. He has covered the Rays since their first season in 1998, including 11 years for the Bradenton Herald. Roger has also covered Florida, South Florida and Florida State football, the Bucs and the Lightning.
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Keppinger signs with White Sox
Posted Dec 5, 2012 by Roger Mooney
Updated Dec 5, 2012 at 05:12 PM
ROGER MOONEY
NASHVILLE, Tenn. Jeff Keppinger’s run as a Ray ended Wednesday with news the infielder signed a three-year deal with the Chicago White Sox that is worth a total of $12 million, according to Fox baseball analyst Ken Rosenthal.
The White Sox are considering using the 32-year-old Keppinger as an everyday third baseman, a move that will certainly raise some eyebrows among the Rays.
Credit for Keppinger’s career-year in Tampa Bay last season – a .325 average, .809 on-base plus slugging percentage and a career-high nine home runs – could go to the way he was used.
Keppinger played in 115 games and got 385 at-bats. He did miss 29 games with a broken toe, but his playing time was closely monitored by Rays manager Joe Maddon.
Maddon was careful to use Keppinger in favorable matchups and gave him plenty of rest, including pulling Keppinger from games in the later innings for not only defensive purposes but to also get him off his legs.
The Rays were interesting in resigning Keppinger but his price tag was too high.
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Por (masterzvoice) on December 05, 2012 (Suggest removal)
This is a sad day for Rays fans. Our best bat, Keppinger, just left town.
Now our team batting average just dropped to about .235 having gained nothing from the Escobar trade the previous day.
From and RBI stand point we will not win 80 games this year with what we have and they are talking like things are settled at 1B and SS. I do not understand how.
Even if we pickup a .300 designated hitter for big bucks we will be worse off losing Kep. Come on, he was worth $4 million. What a steal. I mean why did we pay Pena the big money last year to do squat?
Suggest removalPor (masterzvoice) on December 05, 2012 (Suggest removal)
I now predict we will trade Shields or Price outside of our division for nothing more than prospects (good ones maybe) to unload salaries.
I do not expect our batting average or RBIs to increase ANY in 2013 because of this.
The owners will settle for a .500 team and continue to whine about the Trop and do their divisive rant that does nothing to build fans.
Suggest removalPor (masterzvoice) on December 05, 2012 (Suggest removal)
By the way, minimizing Keppinger’s success by claiming it was how Maddon used him is idiotic. Madden did the same with everybody and Keppinger was the ONLY batter to succeed.
He also faced lefties and righties throughout the season starting in 3/4 of the games other than when he injured his toe.
Just think, if we were smart we’d have Kotchman at first and Keppinger at 2nd (or 3rd) both batting over .300 and then Zobrist at short and Longoria at 3rd both batting .290.
That is how you win ball games, not trading down for .220 hitters.
Suggest removalPor (masterzvoice) on December 05, 2012 (Suggest removal)
Hat’s off to TBO.com for bouncing the stupid Facebook linked commenting board. That was worse than worthless.
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