Few Rays of hope in Tampa Bay's lineup

Center fielder Rocco Baldelli came to spring training as a nonroster prospect for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. By early March he had made the team and was penciled in as the No. 9 hitter. A week later he became the No. 6 hitter. And now he is the No. 2 hitter. At this rate he'll probably be enshrined in the Devil Rays Hall of Fame by Memorial Day. Baldelli, 21, is an impressive prospect, but his supersonic ascension says more about Tampa Bay than it does about him.

Take this response, for instance, when manager Lou Piniella was asked why Baldelli was given the starting center field job: "We don't have anybody better, No. 1. No. 2, we are going to go with our young kids as much as possible."

The Devil Rays are headed for some serious problems this year. It is never a good sign for an organization when it gives jobs to young players without competition or the spirit of having earned them. What compounds Tampa Bay's problems is that its young players, including Baldelli, will have to learn plate discipline and patience at the big-league level. That's supposed to happen in the minor leagues, but Tampa Bay has been negligent there. The Devil Rays, through their development system as well as the veteran players they sign for their major-league team, have shown an astonishing disregard for the strike zone.

"We don't walk at all," Piniella said. "I think we must have a sign from the third base coach that says, 'Thou shalt not pass.'"

The Devil Rays did not have a single player on their 40-man roster who walked even 70 times last year (including combined stats from different levels). To that group general manager Chuck LaMar brought 33 nonroster players to camp -- a ridiculously large number that made for an unwieldy, awkward setting -- including third baseman Chris Truby, a guy who drew 10 base-on-balls and struck out 98 times last year. Those are awful numbers of historic proportions.

LaMar traded for Rey Ordoñez, the worst offensive starting player in baseball, who after almost 3,000 big-league at-bats has a .290 career on-base percentage, which makes Bud Harrelson (.329 in a pitcher-friendly era) look like Alex Rodriguez. Lamar signed Travis Lee, whose 54 walks and 104 strikeouts helped prompt this classic sign at the Vet: TRAVIS LEAVE; and Marlon Anderson, another Philadelphia expatriate who posted a .315 on-base percentage last year.

More troubling, though, is the lack of plate discipline that is apparent throughout the Tampa Bay system. Four of the Devil Rays' best young hitters -- Baldelli, Carl Crawford, Aubrey Huff and Toby Hall -- who will be in the Opening Day lineup, drew a combined 35 walks in 667 at-bats last year at Triple-A Durham. Baldelli had zero walks in 96 at-bats there.

"You might as well learn sometime," Piniella said. "You might as well learn it here [in the majors]. ... I thought Baldelli could play center field and bat ninth. Well, I've got about four guys competing for the ninth spot. We might not have that luxury."

So now the Devil Rays' lineup will look something like this:

Table setters: Crawford and Baldelli will bat 1-2. They each run well, but getting on base may be a problem. Crawford is an exciting talent but posted a .335 OBP in Triple-A last year. The two youngsters combined for 52 walks and 207 strikeouts in 2002.

Middle of the order: Left-handed hitters Huff, Ben Grieve and Lee bat 3-4-5. Grieve wins the organization's Best Eye Award; he walked all of 69 times.

The rest: Damian Rolls, Anderson, Hall and Ordoñez. They won't exactly force managers to make many late-inning pitching changes. And Crawford and Baldelli can forget about plentiful RBI opportunities.

The lineup screams for a right-handed run producer, but Greg Vaughn looked so bad in spring training the Rays preferred to pay him $9.25 million not to play for them. File him with Jose Canseco and Wilson Alvarez as payroll sinkholes.

Piniella has been frustrated much of the spring. First it was the overabundance of players in camp. Then there was that caught-on-camera dugout blowup (which the Rays should turn into a TV promo. This is what they signed on for. All those billboards of Piniella's mug around the Tampa Bay area? The man's not smiling, folks). Then Piniella began holding individual meetings with players, telling them to be more assertive in putting a premium on winning. Then Piniella voiced his frustration to the media.

"It's almost an acceptance," he said of his team's losing culture. "We're the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, we're supposed to lose. That's the first thing you need to get out of.

"There has to be a little more urgency. They're very nice kids and they play hard, but we need to get a little more mentally tough as far as playing the game and [not] accepting losing.

"There's a lot of work to be done down here [in spring training] in the winning area. Where do we start? Let me count the ways."

Piniella's attempt to change attitudes in Tampa Bay is commendable. But his biggest problem is that he has an awful offensive team that doesn't know how to get on base. A tantrum or individual meetings won't change that.

To complicate matters, Piniella has a largely inexperienced pitching staff that will not get many runs to work with, a difficult combination. The worst-case scenario for Tampa Bay may be a slow start that saps whatever confidence its young players have, yet that exact scenario is staring the Rays right in the face. They play 13 of their first 16 games against the Yankees and Red Sox. And guess which teams walked the least number of batters in the AL last year? Right, the Yankees and Red Sox.

"Losing does wear me down," Piniella admitted recently. "I can tell you that."

What's he going to feel like in August?

Giveaway/Takeaway

Not only do the Devil Rays figure to draw few walks, but their young pitchers are likely to surrender many. Last year only one team, Milwaukee, had a greater differential than Tampa Bay. Here are the best and the worst from 2002 in walk giveaway/takeaway margin:

Walk differential
Best
1. Yankees	+237
2. Diamondbacks	+222
3. Mariners	+188
4. Athletics	+135
5. Red Sox	+115
Worst
1. Brewers	-166
2. Devil Rays	-164
3. Dodgers	-127
4. Rangers	-115
5. Tigers	-100

A new M.O. for DH

Whatever happened to Harold Baines, Hal McRae and Paul Molitor? The full-time designated hitter is losing popularity. Yes, Edgar Martinez, when healthy, still anchors the Mariners lineup, but more and more managers seem to prefer using the DH as a rotational position. They move players through the DH spot depending on pitching matchups and the need to give position players the occasional "half-day off."

Those who support the DH long have argued that it keeps star players in the game longer. When they aren't competent enough to play the field, the argument goes, they can still stick around to get their hacks. I always loved Kent Mercker's comeback to that notion: "When I start to lose my fastball, will they let me pitch from 50 feet?"

Last year only two players appeared in 100 games as a DH: Frank Thomas of the White Sox and Ellis Burks of the Indians. Are people buying tickets to watch them hit? It seems the DH isn't so much for the Hank Aarons of baseball any more as it is a fallback for young players who don't develop defensive skills (e.g., Josh Phelps, Brad Fullmer, Randall Simon and Huff last year). Mostly, though, it has become a tool that allows managers to have more flexibility with their lineups.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Tom Verducci covers baseball for the magazine and is a regular contributor to SI.com.

 

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