The Tampa Bay experiments

An intriguing statistical tidbit from the weekend (no longer up to the minute):

Your up-to-the-minute ERA leaders since the Rays started the Jonny Bullpen games on 5/19:

Rays: 2.95
Yankees: 3.03
Dodgers: 3.19
Red Sox: 3.28
Cubs: 3.37

Rays have played vs BAL, OAK, SEA, TOR, NYY, HOU, WAS in this run (collective .536 winning %). 24 last 27 vs teams > .500

— Jason Collette (@jasoncollette) June 26, 2018

Since the Rays shut out the Nationals on Tuesday, the larger point still stands. This is a team running with two traditional starters, and almost five weeks into it, with a bunch of games against good lineups, it's working.

I caught the end of the Rays' 1-0 win Tuesday, which featured some really out-of-the-box managerial strategy from Kevin Cash.

Top of the ninth, the Nats have up Bryce Harper (lefty), followed by Anthony Rendon (righty), Juan Soto (lefty) and Daniel Murphy (lefty). Four high quality hitters. Cash brings in Jose Alvarado, his top lefty reliever. Alvarado promptly walks Harper, who showed bunt on practically every pitch.

Now ... Cash doesn't want Alvarado pitching to Rendon with the tying run on, but he wants him to face Soto and Murphy. What to do?

His answer: He pulled right fielder Johnny Fields; moved Mallex Smith from left to right, shifted first baseman Jake Bauers to left field and had Alvarado play first base (with Bauers' glove), with Chaz Roe coming in to pitch. (As a sidelight to all this, the Rays lose the DH). Alvarado was laughing as he took his new position.

This kind of thing -- moving the pitcher to a defensive position for a batter -- isn't unprecedented. Paul Richards did it a few times in the 1950s, and Whitey Herzog did it in the 1980s. But they generally were putting the transplant someplace where they didn't expect the ball to go. First base may carry the lightest physical demands, but the first baseman is quite likely to touch the ball.

So the Nats announcers are speculating on whether Roe dares try a pickoff throw and if Rendon should bunt toward first and force Alvarado to make a play. There are a lot of ways for the Nationals to try to take advantage of this novice playing first base.

And they did none of them. Harper doesn't take a monster lead and steal second; Rendon doesn't bunt toward first. Rendon strikes out.

And Cash undoes all his earlier moves. Bauers reclaims his glove and returns to first, Smith goes back to left, Carlos Gomez comes in to play right, and Alvarado returns to the mound (and gets his warmup pitches). The Rays have lost their DH for the remainder of the game, but they have their favored lefty to face Soto and Murphy, so they're where they want to be.

Soto singles to center, Harper stops at second. Murphy singles to left; Harper stops at third. All this maneuvering to get Alvarado to face the lefties, and he retires none of 'em.

Now the Nats have right-handed hitters up, Trea Turner and Michael A. Taylor. Cash brings in Sergio Romo, who throws a few sliders and pops up Turner and fans Taylor, end of game.

And all the postgame attention went not to Cash's brainstorm but to the postgame yelling by Romo at Taylor, who apparently drew Romo's ire in a previous game by stealing a base. Eyeroll.

That, in my mind, is just stupid jock stuff. It's nowhere near as interesting as a pitcher playing first for a batter.

The Tampa Bay managerial search

Raul Ibanez might go from active player to dugout boss.

For no real reason, I'm intrigued by the Tampa Bay Rays managerial search. They were, most likely, not expecting to be looking for a manager, and then Joe Maddon jumped ship shortly after their general manager left for a (presumably) more lucrative job in with the Dodgers.

Their search started well after the Twins search. Maddon left after the Twins had essentially narrowed their field down to Paul Molitor and Doug Mientkiewicz, and Terry Ryan said during the Molitor presser that he had talked to Maddon until learning that Maddon was going to accept the Cubs job.

The Rays had released a list of eight preliminary candidates, none of whom were among the people the Twins interviewed or pursued. I thought at the time that there was one obvious favorite, Maddon bench coach Dave Martinez.

On Friday it was reported that the Rays had narrowed the field to three -- and Martinez was not among the three. All three were in the AL Central last season.

The Rays finalists: Kevin Cash, bullpen coach for Cleveland; Don Wakamatsu, bench coach for Kansas City; and -- surprise! -- Raul Ibanez, who played for Anaheim and Kansas City and hit just .167 as a part-time player.

The way things have been going of late, with teams tending to hire completely novice managers, I wouldn't bet against Ibanez landing the job. It's even possible he would be a player-manager, although I think that era ended with Pete Rose almost 20 years ago. Certainly there's no reason to think he's got much juice left as a hitter.

Meanwhile, I am stunned that Martinez not only didn't get the job, he wasn't one of the finalists. It's hard to imagine him staying with the Royals. Maybe he'll follow Maddon to the Cubs. I had expected the Twins to at least pursue an interview with him for the managerial job, and apparently they didn't, bu if he's interested in a lateral transfer, Ryan and Molitor ought to consider him for the bench coach job.

A different list of managerial candidates

Dave Martinez would seem a likely winner of the
Tampa Bay managerial job.

As the Twins were wrapping up their managerial search, the Tampa Bay Rays were starting theirs.

This week, they released a list of eight names. None of whom, for what it's worth, were among the seven candidates the Twins interviewed for their opening.

Unlike the Twins, the Rays have a couple of former big league managers (Don Wakamatsu and Manny Acta) on their list. Also unlike the Twins, they have a current player (Raul Ibanez) and an ex-player who has been in a front office role (Craig Counsell) on their list. Like the Twins, they have their Triple A manager on the list (Charlie Montoya) and coaches from other teams (Ron Wotus of the Giants and Kevin Cash of the Indians).

And, like the Twins, they have an internal candidate who should be seen as the favorite for the job: Dave Martinez. The 50-year-old Martinez had a 16-year playing career that included three seasons with the then-Devil Rays. More significantly, Martinez has been Joe Maddon's right-hand man on the coaching staff for years.

I had expected Martinez to be on the Twins radar. I will be surprised if the Rays don't promote him.

What the Twins don't get about the Rays' "interchangability"

Ben Zobrist plays all over the field for Tampa Bay.
He also hits well enough to fill a key place in the batting
order, so he's not a bench player.

Ron Gardenhire on Sunday apparently talked a great deal about wanting a bench of "interchangable" multi-position players, and cited the Tampa Bay Rays as a model.

The Rays do have a number of players who play all over. Ben Zobrist, for example, has started games at every position except pitcher and catcher in his eight years with Tampa Bay. Last year Zobrist started 117 games at second base, 26 in right field and 11 at shortstop — and switched positions multiple times mid game.

Sean Rodriguez is another Swiss utility knife of a player: In 2013, he started 30 games in left field, 17 at first base, five in right, three at short, one at second. In 2012, it was 42 at short, 27 at third, 17 at second. Rodriguez, like Zobrist, has started games at seven different positions for the Rays (four seasons).

But the thing is: These guys play. Zobrist gets more than 600 plate appearances a season. Rodriguez is more of a bench guy, but he averages well over 100 games a year.

Zobrist has made two All-Star teams and been on Team USA for the World Baseball Classic. His versatility may be his calling card, but what makes his versatility valuable is that he hits enough to be in the lineup — and not only that, but in the top half of the lineup. Rodriguez isn't as good a hitter, but he does enough at the plate to play at least half the time.

Gardenhire spent a big part of spring training running Eduardo Escobar and Jason Bartlett and Chris Herrmann all over the field. One of those guys (probably Escobar) will be on the Opening Day roster. (Herrmann has already been sent back to the minors.)

The thing is, Escobar won't be in the starting lineup at any of his multiple positions on March 31. Zobrist will, and Rodriguez might.

Gardenhire's desire for interchangeable parts is as a security blanket for injuries; his benches are generally guys waiting for somebody in the lineup to get hurt.

Joe Maddon, Gardenhire's Tampa Bay counterpart, is looking for matchup advantages. Maddon uses the versatility of Zobrist (a switch-hitter) and Rodriguez (right-handed hitter) to enable complex, multi-level platoons, much as Casey Stengel did with the Yankees of the 1950s.

I don't think any of Gardy's potential "interchangable parts" hit well enough to fit the Maddon model.

The value of stalling a prospect

Wil Myers: Too good for the Rays to have on the roster
for the full season.

Wil Myers is widely regarded as one of the brightest prospects in baseball. Last year, in the Kansas City farm system, he tore through Double A and Triple A to the tune of a combined .314/.387/.600 with 37 home runs.

If there was a credible prospect rankings list this spring that didn't have him in the top four, I missed it. Top-level talent and major league ready.

The Tampa Bay Rays dealt James Shields, a quality starter, to the Royals; Myers was the centerpiece of the return. He fits the offense-starved Rays' needs perfectly — an outfielder with a power bat.

Last weekend, the Rays optioned Myers back to Triple A in an obvious ploy to delay his arbitration eligibility. For a sound detailed dissection of why it makes sense for the Rays to stall his career, click here. To sum it up in a sentence, by this analysis the Rays figure to save some $15 million if they keep him in the minors for half the season.

Few teams are as consistently budget-conscious as Tampa Bay. (Oakland would be an obvious one.) The financial logic behind holding back a young stud is powerful. It also has its drawbacks. In the case of the Rays and Myers, not having him in the major league lineup for half the season could cost the team a couple wins, and that might be enough to cost them a division title.

The logic that has the Rays sacrificing a few games now for the sake of 2019 is why there are Twins followers who suspect/expect that Aaron Hicks will not get to open the season with the big club.

But the situations here are not truly identical.

• Hicks, unlike Myers, hasn't been in Triple A yet. 
• The Twins have deeper revenue streams than do the Rays.
• The risk of Hicks becoming too good for the Twins to afford is lower than the risk of Myers becoming too good for the Rays to afford.
• And even if Hicks does become pricier than the Twins want to pay, the Twins have other, probably superior, outfield talents deeper in the system (Byron Buxton as the most notable example).

Terry Ryan and Co. have been careful to avoid declaring the center field competition over. I continue to believe, however, that Hicks is the most logical winner of the job. And I continue to believe that the financial considerations that will keep Myers out of the majors for a while this year will not block Hicks this April.

Pic of the Week

Guy Boucher, the head coach of the Tampa Bay
Lightning, shot his pregame first pitch from the
mound Friday at Tropicana Field.

Most first pitches are thrown. This one was struck. Guy Boucher set the ball on the rubber and flipped a wrist shot — for a strike — to catcher Stephen Vogt, who was also holding a hockey stick. Pretty impressive.

The Rays were honoring the 20th anniversary of the Lightning, but that might be as much NHL hockey as we see this season. 

One idea for a first base trade

Chris Parmelee had a big series this weekend in Kansas City,
with two home runs.

Following up on my Monday print column on the Twins' looming offseason decision about first base ...

Here's the core for a potential trade: Chris Parmelee to Tampa Bay for James Shields.

Allow me to interject here that this is solely me thinking aloud. This is not based on any sort of inside information, or even on a trade rumor. It's not necessarily something either team is thinking about -- but as I see it, it's something both teams ought to be considering.

James Shields is 12-8, 3.91 for
Tampa Bay this season

Shields, 30, is a good starting pitcher -- not the kind of guy who's on the short list for Cy Young Awards, but better than anybody the Twins now have.

Shields has won between 11 and 16 games in each of the past six seasons (including this one) while piling up innings (200-plus each season 2007-2011, with 182 so far this year) and racking up above-average strikeout rates.

But the Rays are so awash in young pitching talent that Shields may be no better than their fourth best starter (certainly behind David Price, maybe behind Matt Moore and Jeremy Hellickson). Plus they have Jeff Niemann, Wade Davis, and rookie Alex Cobb.

Shields is also getting more expensive than Tampa Bay is likely to retain; his contract has club options for 2013 ($9 million with a $1.5 million buyout) and 2014 ($12 million with a $1 million buyout). They're likely to try to move him this winter.

And first base has been a black hole for the Rays this season as they chase the Yankees. Carlos Pena is hitting .188/.318/.338, which wouldn't get the job done for a Gold Glove shortstop.

Parmelee would fit their mode: Young, cheap, with some positional flexibility -- and he sure looks like he can hit.

With Carl Pavano ($8.5 million), Scott Baker ($6.5 million), Jason Marquis ($3 million) and Francisco Liriano ($5.5 million) all coming off the books, the Twins could certainly absorb Shields' option for 2013, probably for 2014. And he would definitely make the Twins rotation better.

To do such a trade, of course, the Twins would probably want to secure Justin Morneau beyond 2013. If they mistrust his ability to remain healthy and productive, they probably won't want to trade Parmelee.

There may be other reasons either team would shy away from such a deal, but I don't know what they would be. Both teams would be trading from a surplus and filling a need.

If not Nishi, who? Here's an idea

My Monday print column was on what I called "the Nishioka dilemma" -- that Tsuyoshi Nishioka appears overwhelmed even by the utility infielder job, yet the Twins not only have a significant investment in him but few palatable alternatives.

Then, in listening to the radio broadcast of the Twins exhibition game with Tampa Bay, it dawned on me that the Twins favorable waiver wire position can be a factor.

Tampa Bay has a number of players for its middle infield, and Joe Maddon mixes and matches to take advantage of their strengths and cover their failings. The bulk of the playing time in 2011 went to four men: Ben Zobrist, Sean Rodriguez, Reid Brignac and Elliot Johnson. All four remain with the Rays, but they also imported Jeff Keppinger.

It's an intriguing mix. Zobrist is a switch-hitter with power and a multitude of positions; a shortstop in the minors, he has played just about everywhere other than short for Maddon. Rodriguez, who also plays second and third, is stretched at short, but is a better hitter than either Brignac or Johnson, who are both, at least by the defensive metrics I've seen, superb shortstops. Keppinger is somewhat in the Rodriguez mode -- plays all infield spots, hits lefties OK.

Johnson is the guy I'm suddenly looking at. He's 28, a switch-hitter, and out of options. While he didn't hit much last year in the majors, he had an absurdly good season with the bat in Triple A in 2010 -- I say absurd because there's little in his nine-year professional record to suggest he could have that good a season.

I can see the Rays putting him on waivers late in spring training. And if they do, I hope the Twins claim him. Nobody can beat the Twins to him on a waiver offer. They have American League priority.

Johnson's not a great player -- but he's better than the Twins current set of alternatives.

Addendum: A point I should have made when I first posted this: Johnson is merely a specific name. That the Twins have the first waiver claim in the American League during spring training gives them dibs on anybody an AL team tries to outright to the minors.

Joy, sorrow and endurance

Joy for the Rays; despair
for the Braves.

The best day of the year is Opening Day. Summer lies ahead, and hundreds of baseball games, and anything is possible.

And the worst day is the final day of the season — with winter ahead, and all the games behind.

I spent much of this September wishing the Twins ordeal would end. And now that it has, I wish it weren't — that there would be more at-bats for Rene Tosoni and Chris Parmelee, more warm nights at the ball yard.

It's best that it does end, of course; it has been a miserable season for the Twins, and getting out of it without hitting triple-digits in the loss column is as close as they can come to leaving with a good taste in their mouths.

It's best that the season end, too, because without a finish line there can be no drama such as that of Wednesday night, when the Rays and Red Sox and Braves played excruciatingly tight games with their seasons at stake. Two of those games went extra innings, the third was decided in the bottom of the ninth.

Tampa Bay overcame a 7-0 deficit with six runs in the eighth and a two-out, two-strike homer in the bottom of the ninth — from a guy hitting .108 — to tie the score. They won in the 12th inning — concluding a stretch drive that saw them overtake the Red Sox, who had led the wild-card hunt by nine games earlier in the month.

Boston's payroll exceeded $160 million; Tampa Bay's was under $42 million. While I'd rather see the Yankees miss out on the playoffs than Boston, I'll pretty much always pull for the $40 million team over the $160 million team.

Good team, bad attendance

The Tampa Bay Rays are a good baseball team, perhaps the best team in all of the sport. They went to the World Series two years ago, so it's not a complete surprise that they're good this year.

Baltimore's Koji Uehara
pitched Monday before
a Tampa Bay audience
of empty seats.

So there they were Monday — narrowly ahead of the defending World Series champs for the divisional lead, one win away from clinching a playoff berth — and their announced attendance for a home game with Baltimore was a lowly 12,000 plus. There may not have been 10,000 paying customers in the joint.

They aren't the worst-drawing team in the league — there are five AL teams (Cleveland, Oakland, Kansas City, Toronto and Baltimore) doing worse at the gate. Still, for a quality team to draw as poorly as the Rays  is a problem.

Tropicana Field is not among the 19 stadiums in which I've seen a game. All I know of it is what I see on TV and what I read. There is a general consensus that, as a baseball venue, it's worse than the Metrodome; in my experience, that's pretty bad. An unappealing facility in an unappealing, not-easily accessed location is a handicap.

I spent a lot of money over the Metrodome years to watch the Twins play there, because I am a Twins fan and that's where they played. I wouldn't — and never did — write that anybody else had to make that same choice. It is no coincidence that the Twins attendance shot through the roof this year with Target Field. The Metrodome handicapped the team as a draw. But when the team was really good, the handicap was brushed aside. People packed the place.

That isn't the case in the Tampa-St. Petersburg area. Whether that's because there is no sense of fan connection to the relatively new Rays, because the economy is so sour there, because the facility really is that much worse than the Metrodome, because the franchise doesn't market the team as well — any or all of those things may be real factors.

It will be interesting to see how well, or poorly, the Rays draw during the playoffs.

Rays following the Twins template

The Twins got a break on Thursday and escaped St. Petersburg, Fla., with a split of the four-game series. I'll take it.

The Rays are a very good team indeed, a squad with many of the strengths of the first edition of the Gardenhire-era Twins, only turned up a notch.

They are not a particularly good hitting club -- they've been no-hit twice this season already and been victimized in consecutive years by perfect games. Yes, they are fourth in the American League in runs scored, but seven AL teams have better OPS.

Their strengths are in their pitching -- they have the AL's lowest ERA, the most strikeouts, and the third fewest walks -- and their defense, which is rooted in their team speed.

That's essentially what the Twins of the Hunter-Santana-Koskie-Radke era. But the Rays do it better than those Twins did.

And the current Twins squad is nothing like that. The defensive limitations of the Twins outfield never seemed more obvious than on Wednesday night, when Delmon Young and Denard Span repeatedly turned fly balls into doubles. This Twins squad is rooted in its offensive capabilities, not in its power arms and certainly not in its defensive range.

The Rays are certainly a fun team to watch. It's too bad so few do.

The Iwamura deal

Few trades or moves are announced during the World Series — Commissioner Bud frowns on it even as he consumes a good fourth of the time between the end of the regular season and the opening of spring training with repeated off days.

It's the hot stove league equivalent of Jorge Posada going to the mound eight times in an inning, four times in one at-bat. Wasting time for the sake of wasting time.

But stuff is happening behind the scenes. Teams are talking, deals are being struck. And one such deal — which has a quick timeline to be consummated — has leaked out: Tampa Bay sends infielder Akinori Iwamura (above) to Pittsburgh for reliever Jesse Chavez.

Three comments:

* A couple of offseasons ago, when the Twins made the Delmon Young trade, I said that if the Twins were going to trade for a Tampa Bay infielder I would rather it be Iwamura than Brendan Harris. And when word popped out Tuesday afternoon that the Rays were about to trade Iwamura, my initial thought was: To the Twins, I hope.

But on further reflection, I decided he wouldn't be an ideal fit.

His stat line, to be sure, plays better at the top of the order than does Orlando Cabrera's. And the Twins could, depending on who else they have on the roster, deploy him at either second or third.

But he's a left-handed hitter, and adding him would mean a lineup with lefty bats one through five — Denard Span, Iwamura, Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau, Jason Kubel.

* This is essentially a salary dump. The Rays hold (the trade isn't official until Commissioner Bud says it is, and he's not OKing anything until after the Series) a $4.85 million option on Iwamura with a $650,000 buyout. And they have to exercise that option by the day after the World Series. They have cheaper talent on hand to plug in at second base — more on them later — and didn't want to commit the money to Iwamura without a trade in hand.

That the Rays are dumping salary one offseason after a World Series appearance says something about the economy in southwest Florida (which is bad) or the long-term viability of major league baseball in Tampa-St. Petersburg (which has been questioned before). Iwamura is at least an average second baseman; I would have thought he could bring more than a marginal reliever.

*Ben Zobrist, who hit 27 homers while splitting time at various positions, is getting the quick attention as Iwamura's successor at second base. But don't discount rookie Sean Rodriguez, part of the Rays haul from Anaheim for Scott Kazmir. If manager Joe Maddon is hell-bent on fixing Zobrist into one spot in the field, it might be right field.

Bullpen Ray guns

The Twins today open a series in Tampa Bay against the defending AL champs, which sets up a compare and contrast opportunity regarding the two bullpens.

Ron Gardenhire is a slave to current convention in handling the relief corps. Joe Nathan pitches the ninth inning in save situations. He gets three outs and he's out; he has yet to pitch more than an inning at a time. He is the only Twin with a save so far.

This is probably not the optimal use of a relief ace; there's no way a three-run lead in the ninth is more crucial than a tie in the seventh or eighth, but that's the way managers regulate the workload these days. As for the three-outs-and-done ... well, Nathan's 34, and he didn't seem to handle four- and five-out assignments with any success last season, when the middle relief implosions prompted Gardy to expand Nathan's workload.

Anyway: Nathan in the ninth, Jose Mijares and Matt Guerrier as the primary set-up men, R.A. Dickey as the long man, Sean Henn (theoretically) as a LOOGY, Jesse Crain and Luis Ayala trying to re-establish themselves as serious options. It's a bullpen of set roles, and four of the seven, at least, are doing well in those roles (Nathan, Mijares, Guerrier, Dickey).

Joe Maddon is a bit more adventuresome, or at least he was late last season, when Troy Percival was on and off the DL and not always available when active. The Rays have six pitchers with saves — Percival has six to lead the team, and may never have another (he's on the disabled list again and contemplating "retirement;" I put quote marks around the word because he's "retired" and returned before.)

Last season, six Rays had at least two saves. Percival, who led the team in saves (28), also had four holds — meaning he was occasionally used to protect leads in the seventh or eighth innings.
Maddon shuffled lefty J.P. Howell, former Twins fireballer Grant Balfour, journeyman Dan Wheeler and phenom David Price — plus ROOGY Chad Bradford and LOOGY Trevor Miller — through a variety of roles in the postseason with success.

This year, the no-role bullpen has struggled. Howell's faring well — 2.63 ERA and 27 strikeouts in 24 innings — but Balfour's ERA is 5.75, and he's walked 14 men in 20 1/3 IP, and Wheeler has thown four home run balls in his 16 innings (4.86).

The bullpen may not be Maddon's greatest concern these days; his middle infield is on the DL, and two of his starters, Scott Kazmir and Andy Sonnenstine, have ERAs above 7. But he's not getting much relief from his no-role pen either.