Sorting The Rays Infield

We talked a bit about Jason Bartlett yesterday, but in that, we glossed over the context of just how ridiculous the Rays infield depth is right now. Here’s a snapshot of their IF depth chart, as it stands currently.

1B: Carlos Pena, Willy Aybar
2B: Ben Zobrist, Akinori Iwamura
SS: Jason Bartlett, Reid Brignac
3B: Evan Longoria, Sean Rodriguez

Rodriguez could cover any of in the infield positions, and actually has experience at all three outfield spots as well, so he’s particularly well suited to a super utility role. That kind of jack-of-all-trades guy makes the two-deep-at-each-spot thing unnecessary.

Realistically, the Rays only need six of these guys. There just aren’t at-bats to go around for all of them, and while depth is nice, superfluous players could be better used to acquire others who fit the needs of the roster a bit more. So, of those eight, who should stay and who should go?

The obvious first candidate is Iwamura, who is only under contract for 2010 if the Rays want him to be, with a $4.5 million option for 2010. He’s been worth double that over the last couple of years, but as a 30-year-old coming off ACL surgery, he’s got some risks attached going forward. He’s not going to beat out Zobrist for a job, so his future would seem to lie in another city. The Rays could pick up his option and try to trade him, but I doubt he has enough surplus value above his $4.5 million salary that he’d command much in return. Either way, I’d expect to see Iwamura playing somewhere besides Tampa next year.

That’s one down, but still unnecessary depth up the middle. Aybar serves as a useful back-up to Longoria/Pena and wouldn’t carry enough trade value to command a lot in return, so he probably sticks around. Assuming the team won’t be moving Longoria, Zobrist, or Pena, they leaves the shortstops – Bartlett and Brignac.

We talked about Bartlett yesterday, so let’s focus on Brignac today.

At first glance, his numbers may not seem that exciting – .282/.327/.417 in Triple-A sounds rather weak. However, his .328 wOBA was actually above the International League average, and you don’t find many 23 year old shortstops who can hold their own with the bat. His overly aggressive approach and weakness against lefties limited his overall line, however, and proved to be problems in the big leagues as well.

There’s little chance that Brignac would match Bartlett’s 2009 production, but that statement is true of nearly every shortstop on earth. The question the Rays will have to ask is how much of a difference they expect between the two, and whether that performance difference is worth the cost difference. Given that they are running out of spots on the roster to upgrade, they might not be willing to take the drop-off at SS as they try to run down the Yankees and Red Sox, even if Brignac is the more cost effective solution.

Either way, it’s likely that one of them joins Iwamura in leaving Tampa this winter. They have two quality shortstops in a league lacking for guys who can play the position, and will have a strong bargaining chip to play with whichever way they decide to go.