Rays hope to avoid AL East cellar

With the Rays on the rise and the Orioles on the decline, Tampa Bay and their 27 loyal fans are downright giddy about the prospects of not finishing last in their division in 2008.

Things haven’t been this exciting in Tampa since the mid-90s when the city was awarded an MLB franchise. Since first taking to the field in 1998, the Devil Rays – Oops, just Rays now – have avoided the AL East cellar just once in 10 tries. Sure, they’re going to get an assist from a bad Baltimore club this year, but the signs are there that better days are ahead for the club.

It could hardly get much worse.

Baseball ops chief Andrew Friedman, with the assistance of Gerry Hunsicker, is doing his best to turn things around in Tampa. Pitching, long the bane of the club, was addressed this winter with the addition of Matt Garza through a big six-player trade with Minnesota, and the Rays inked veteran free agent Troy Percival to perform in the closer’s role after Percival made a strong return from injury in 2007.

Tampa also has some of the game’s most exciting young position players in Carl Crawford, B.J. Upton and Evan Longoria, with Longoria one of the favorites to compete for AL Rookie of the Year honors in 2008.

But before you rush out and lay any money down on the Rays to be a rags-to-riches story this season, please glance at the division in which they reside. Do you really think they’ll be able to finish higher than Boston, New York or Toronto?

PITCHING
It’s a good thing the front office went out and acquired another decent starting pitcher this winter for manager Joe Maddon and pitching coach Jim Hickey to work with. The club is currently holding its breath in regards to their ace, Scott Kazmir, after the lefty was diagnosed with a strained elbow not long after camp opened. The prognosis originally had Kazmir being ready to go when the season opens, but that is a long shot now as reports are he’s still feeling some pain when throwing.

Without Kazmir, this team is in trouble. Even with the southpaw making 34 starts last season, Tampa finished dead last in the AL in ERA (5.53), hits allowed and homers allowed. The one stat they did well in was strikeouts, with their 1,194 ranking atop the AL leader board. Kazmir’s league-leading 239 accounted for more than 20% of that team total.

Getting the Opening Day nod this year will be right-hander James Shields who had a solid season in ’07 going 12-8 in 31 starts with a 3.85 ERA, a club-high 215 IP and 184 strikeouts (ninth in the AL). Garza will pitch behind Shields to start the season, and has looked pretty good in his spring starts.

There had been a battle between four arms for the last two spots in the rotation before Kazmir’s injury. Now it appears that Andy Sonnanstine, Edwin Jackson and Jason Hammel (all right-handers) will slot in after Shields and Garza. Lefty J.P. Howell will probably start the year as the long man out of the pen.

Should the need arise for an additional starter – Or should I say when the need arises – look for big right-hander Jeff Niemann to get the call. In case that name doesn’t ring a bell, the 6-9 Niemann was one of three Rice pitchers selected in the first eight picks of the 2004 draft (Niemann went fourth overall with Philip Humber and Wade Townsend the other two Owl arms to set the draft precedence).

Percival came back strong after missing most of 2005 and all of 2006 with an arm injury. His career appeared over until he bounced back with 40 solid relief innings for the Cardinals a year ago, good enough to net the 38-year-old a two-year deal with the Rays this winter.

The primary setup chores should go to Al Reyes, who tallied 26 saves as the club’s closer last year, and Dan Wheeler. Filling out the rest of the relief corps will be Gary Glover, Grant Balfour and Trever Miller, with Miller drawing the lefty-specialist's gig.

OFFENSE/DEFENSE
It’s not often that you’ll see a team take a step back in homers and steals yet improve in runs scored. But that’s exactly what Tampa did in 2007 compared to their 2006 offensive stats. The Rays were dead last among AL clubs in runs scored in 2006 (689), knocking 190 homers and stealing 134 bases. They subtracted three homers and three steals in 2007, but rose to eighth in the league with 782 runs scored.

The reason they were able to do that was in part due to adding 35 points to their team OPS. Just another lesson in why you have to look inside the numbers and not just read the bottom line.

Now hitting coach Steve Henderson will try and keep the offense on the rise, and two-thirds of the starting outfield will be critical factors in making that happen. Left fielder Carl Crawford and center fielder B.J. Upton each possess tremendous ability, and the outfield pair afforded Tampa the ability to trade another big offensive weapon, Delmon Young, to add depth to their mound. Crawford has seen his numbers steadily increase since joining the lineup full time to begin the 2003 season. He’s off career bests in batting average (.315) and on-base (.355) and swiped 50 bases for the fourth time in five seasons. Upton, now shifting to center full-time, exploded in his first full MLB season, hitting 24 bombs, stealing 22 bases, batting .300 even and driving in 82.

Right field will go to journeyman DL veteran Cliff Floyd after it was discovered that perennial Tampa DL move, Rocco Baldelli, is likely done for the season with a serious ailment that has been described as “metabolic and/or mitochondrial abnormalities.” With Baldelli already lost and Floyd almost assuredly soon to be, it means right field could become a bit of a revolving door between non-roster invitees John Rodriguez and Eric Hinske, plus perhaps Jonny Gomes who was originally expected to get the majority of his playing time at the full-time pinch-hitter, or what is commonly called DH in the weenie AL.

It’s strange to think about the Rays hitting fewer homers in 2007 than 2006 when you remember that Carlos Peña set a new club record with 46 round trippers last season. Peña is back at first this year, the only infielder to return to his 2006 position.

Akinori Iwamura will move to second base for 2007 after a decent all-around first season in the majors following his move from Japan. His midfield partner at shortstop will be Jason Bartlett, part of the return from the Twins for Delmon Young.

Third base is technically still a battle between ROY candidate Longoria and Willy Aybar. But look for Longoria to get the nod any day now since he’s leading the club in RBI this spring and has a slugging percentage more than 200 points above Aybar’s.

Infield backups will include Aybar, Ben Zobrist and the aforementioned Hinske.

Behind the plate, Dioner Navarro will handle the primary catching job. Shawn Riggans is the listed No. 2 catcher on the depth chart, but Mike DiFelice is also in camp and having a nice spring, and there are rumors the club might look for a veteran backstop on the wire once final cuts come.

Key Player(s): Getting Kazmir back as soon as possible will be key to this team setting a new club record in the Dubya column. And they don’t have a lot of depth, so keeping Crawford and Upton healthy all season is also huge.

Futures: If the Rays just avoid a 90-loss season, it will be a marked improvement over last year and mark the first time in franchise history they avoided the 90-L plateau. My simulations say they will do just that, and end at 73 wins. TheGreek likes my 73-win total, but they’ve set some strange prices with the Over 73½ at -200 and the Under prices +170. If I knew Kazmir was going to miss significant time, I’d jump on the Under at that price. Of course, if TheGreek also knew it the value wouldn’t be there.

5Dimes has the Rays listed at +2800 in the AL East, compared to +12500 for the Orioles, a gap that seems ridiculously large to me. Tampa is +5500 to win the AL and +8500 to prevail in the World Series.