Chris Ray is another guy we wrote off, the day of.  We have a real aversion to Chad Cordero types, guys who never should have been closing, but who did "close" for a short time ... and who are therefore oversold the rest of their careers.

If Ray and Cordero had never pitched the 9th inning, how would they be viewed then?  Ray had 5 k's and 4 bb's per game last year.

.........

True, Ray does still hit 94 on the radar gun.  That's nothing to sneeze at.  The Mariners cobbled a couple of good years out of another fringe guy who had nothing other than velocity, that being David Aardsma.

To illustrate the nature of The Ray Problem, check out his "heat map":

There is no such thing as a wilder heat map than that.  Ray's location is utterly random.

In case you doubt, here's a normal heat map, this from Brandon League, no control artist himself:

League works the outside black against LH'ers, and tries to keep the ball down, and .... well, he actually does that to at least a measurable extent.

Look at Ray's location map again.  What is he attempting to do?  Can you even suggest what he is trying to do?  No, you can't.

Well, smart aleck Dr. D can make one suggestion:  there's a bit of clumping stomach high, slightly outside... what the hitting coaches call "out and over."  Ray may be aiming for the barrel of the bat, like I do when tossing the ball to 4-year-olds, but it's hard to say.

...........

So Ray is a guy who can throw 93-97.  Beautiful.  But he has one pitch and no idea where it's going.  The same is true of, say, Daniel Cortes, and a bunch of other guys, some of them now pitching in rookie ball.

..........

All that said, SSI would have made the same complaint against David Aardsma two years ago.  Hey, we did make the same complaint.

The Mariners came up with a really genius strategy:  tell  him to throw the FB at least 90% of the time -- literally -- and that will help with your release point.  We'll let the park take care of the rest.

Ray represents a second cut at an absurd success story, that being Aardsma's.  

If it hadn't been for Aardsma, we'd say differently.  But since the M's proved me wrong with Aardsma -- in their park -- we've got to agree that Ray is worth a roster spot in 2011.  SSI posters liked Ray better than we did, The Day Of, and looks like they were ahead of the curve on me.

.

I wonder if they'll follow the same 90% fastball strategy in helping Ray to an UP year.  I hope so.

Cut The Cards factor = 8, in Safeco only.

.

Next

.