September 18, 2006
Devil Rays Last
On Saturday, the Royals moved past the Devil Rays in the standings. The Devil Rays are on a seven game losing streak, and once again appear headed for a 100 loss season. It's a bit surprising, since they got off to a decent start for the team. Through the end of June, the team was 35-45; that's not going to win you anything, but you're not a door mat either. They were in line for 71 wins. Tampa even posted a winning record in June! Now they'll be lucky to win 61.
What went wrong? The pitching staff and the offense both went south in July. In August, the pitchers rebounded but the offense switched from no on-base some power to a little on base no-power. In September, everyone is bad again. Losing Scott Kazmir to injury and Hendrickson and Lugo to trade didn't help. It's a young team going through a tryout period. I'd rather have that than a bunch of over the hill veterans who used to be good. But for the ninth year of their existence, they're losing over 90 games, and quite possibly 100.
With young players, however, they have to do better than Crawford and Baldelli. Both put up their best OBA seasons, and were in the mid .340s. With their power, they're fine role players, but teams need stars that get on base a whole lot more than that.
Carl Crawford a role player? Is Jose Reyes a role player? Sure he is not going to win any OBP titles, but the guy is only 25 and already has three 50-steal seasons. He has also improved his batting average and home run totals for 4 straight years. Not bad considering he played the first two months of the season with a sore wrist. On top of that he is highest rated left fielder in baseball. This is a guy that should hit .310-25-100-50 in '07. Look at his numbers, he is not that far away. Once the team starts playing decent baseball, Crawford will be a perennial all-star.
I understand the importance of OBP, but it is not the end-all be-all.
And what is the price of those numbers from Crawford? 420 outs? That's a lot of outs down the drain. If you're going to have someone like that, like Jose Reyes, it's good to have two or three players (Wright, Beltran, Delgado) who give up outs sparingly.
Funny thing is....Tampa's got a winning record at home (38-36). They're just awful everywhere else (19-56). It ain't the artificial surface either... 'cause they're 2-8 in Minnesota & Toronto.
In fact, since June 18th...
Home: 24-21
Road: 4-31
The D-Rays are killing themselves on the road.
I agree with Cork - Crawford may not be a Manny-type franchise player, but he's a legitimate star on the ascent with his speed and power. The real answer is that if one of your stars isn't a real high OBP guy, you need to focus on getting better OBPs from your role players.
