TDA Bullpen - Our Writers' Blog

Tuesday, November 11, 2003

Around this time of year, everyone in baseball is wondering which team is in the best position for the free agency period. I'm going to go out on a limb and pick a team that I believe will be .500 next year, a vast improvement over last season and a step further in building a contending squad. Ready for this one?

The Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

Here's why: don't ever count out a team with Lou Pinella as manager. There are a group of players out there who swear by him and would love to play for him again. They also finally have their young guns starting to show that they'll be stars in a few years. Aubrey Huff (.311, 34HR, 107RBI) is their centerpiece and future (if not present) star. Rocco Baldelli and Carl Crawford had great seasons for players who are that young; they're bound to improve, as well as add speed to a lineup that has some pop in it. If Travis Lee comes back, he'll be a good fit late in the order his 17HR and 70RBI. Add a few cheap bats (Reggie Sanders?) and you've got a diverse lineup filled with different types of threats. And there are rumors of a Tino Martinez trade in the works. Perfect thinking: this young team could use a veteran or two.

The problem is the Rays' pitching staff. Victor Zambrano showed promise, but the rest of the staff was dismal. If the Rays are willing to spend a little bit of money, they could search for the next Esteban Loaiza among this year's crop of cheap veteran pitchers. Rumors are also swirling about the Rays interest in Cuban defector Maels Rodriguez.

I like the Rays chances for a huge improvement next year because their young lineup will be a year older, and they're starting to get serious about free agents who aren't leftovers from other teams (Marlon Anderson and Julio Lugo are great examples). However if they run into another offseason as they did a few years ago, when they acquired Fred McGriff, Greg Vaughn and Vinny Castilla, who all vastly underproduced, it could spell another five years of basement baseball for the Devil Rays. If that happens, we'll be seeing a lot more clips of Pinella's hat-kicking rants than usual.

posted by Charles Curtis 2:00 PM

Sunday, November 09, 2003

I wasn't going to write about the US Olympic team's defeat. Any system that selects baseball teams on the merit of a one-game series really isn't worth discussing.

But then I read the following quote from Tommy Lasorda: "Baseball is America's game. It doesn't belong to the Japanese or the Cubans or Koreans or the Italians. This is sad, very sad."

Tommy can go to Hell. I've seen well over five hundred ballgames in my time. Only twice have my ears hurt. I mean really hurt. I mean stood too close to the speakers at the front of the mosh pit and make a deal with God to make the ringing stop hurt. Once was at a game at the Tokyodome where my fellow fans in the bleachers screamed the entire nine innings. The other was in the Dominican Republic during the Caribbean Series a few years back. The fans there certainly certainly had spirit, are you telling me that they can't claim any kind of ownership in the game?

I've sat in ancient stadiums just across the Mexican border. In one, the scoreboard had ceased to work many years ago. Yet all the fans knew the score, the outs and the count. Take away the scoreboard at an American game, how many people would know what was going on after an inning or two? These Mexican fans can't claim baseball the same as American fans?

Who is Esteban Bellan? He was a member of the Troy Haymakers in 1871, and a Cuban. Cubans have been part of the big leagues since the very first season. In 1878 the first pro league was formed in Cuba. The game had been introduced in Japan in 1873. Those two dates make nice bookends on the founding of the National League in 1876.

The worst part of this is that Tommy really should know better. He managed 3000+ games. He played many winters in Cuba, and has toured Japan. He was a key part of Fernandomania. Tommy is an old-timer who sees the world in a certain way (witness his reaction to his dead son's homosexuality). But being raised in an older belief system is no reason to cling to it. Contrast his view with an old-timer like his former employer Peter O'Malley. O'Malley was always an advocate of the international aspects of the game. Heck, our sister publication International Baseball Rundown went to the presses many times because O'Malley helped to make it possible. What's really sad that Tommy doesn't see things in the same light.

posted by David 9:46 AM