Archive for Tampa Bay Rays

A few weeks ago, I approached Tampa Bay (and former San Francisco) infielder Matt Duffy in the visiting clubhouse at Fenway Park. I wanted to talk to him about the mental side of the game. He was getting dressed, so we agreed to meet in the dugout in five minutes. At that very moment, Brian Kenny began talking about the idea of clutch on MLB Network, which was showing on the TV a few steps from where were standing.

Duffy kept his eyes and ears on the MLB Network discussion as he pulled on his uniform and cleats. With that in mind, I began our subsequent conversation with that very subject. From there, we segued into his mindset as a hitter, which is heavily influenced by Harvey Dorfman’s The Mental Keys of Hitting.

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Duffy on clutch hitting and heart rate: “I think there is something to [the idea of clutch]. When you look at the RBI leaders every year — the guys who do well with runners in scoring position — for the most part it’s the same guys. To me, that’s not an accident. I think a lot of people think RBIs are purely a result of the opportunities you have. That does play into it, but I also think that, in certain situations, if I can keep my heart rate at a more efficient level than the pitcher does, more times than not I’ll succeed. I don’t want my heart rate to be so low to where I’m not awake, but I also don’t want it to be so high that I’m jumping at everything in the box.

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Richie Martin grew up in Tampa and plays in the Oakland A’s organization, but he has a lot of Detroit in him. The 21-year-old shortstop prospect was born in the Motor City and still has family there. There are baseball connections. Martin’s 74-year-old father was a high school teammate of Tigers legend Willie Horton — the two remain friends — and the youngster considers Chet Lemon a huge influence and “almost a second dad.”

Martin — the 20th-overall pick in the 2015 draft —played youth baseball for Lemon beginning when he was 12 years old. Not surprisingly, he’s friendly with the former centerfielder’s son, Marcus Lemon, who plays in the White Sox system. The two share more in common that athletic talent. Both are creative. Read the rest of this entry »

Matt Bowman isn’t your stereotypical baseball player. The St. Louis Cardinals rookie right-hander majored in economics at Princeton, and his senior thesis looked at how much a win is worth in free agency. He doesn’t fit the physical profile, either. A slender 6-foot-even, he looks more like… well, an Ivy League economist.

Last year he pitched like one. In 140 innings for Triple-A Las Vegas, Bowman went 7-16 with a 5.53 ERA and a 4.95 K/9. To little surprise, he was left unprotected by the Mets, who had selected him in the 13th round of the 2012 draft. The last thing he expected was for a team to gamble on him in the Rule 5.

“I was surprised that I got picked up,” admitted Bowman. “I didn’t feel that I deserved a 40-man spot with the Mets and I certainly didn’t think that any team would be looking at me as someone who could contribute, or even hide, on a major league roster. When my agent said the Cardinals picked me up, not a whole lot of it made sense. These guys are perennial contenders and I was coming off a terrible year in Triple-A.”

The 25-year-old’s level of honesty and humility are also atypical. When I asked if he’s surprised at how well he’s pitching, I received an answer I wasn’t expecting. Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier this week, I interviewed Giants rookie right-hander Derek Law in the visiting dugout at Fenway Park. Approximately 10 feet to our right, another conversation was taking place. Johnny Cueto was shooting the breeze with Luis Tiant.

Tiant was a favorite of mine during his glory years. Law was born in 1990, eight years after the Cuban legend threw his last pitch, but he was every bit as captivated with the nearby confab.

“I’m a huge Luis Tiant fan,” Law told me. “I’d love to go over and get his autograph after this. My dad pitched for a bit and I’m big into baseball history. Tiant is one of the guys I’ve really taken a liking to.”

The windup is a big reason. Cueto essentially copied the one El Tiante artistically employed on his way to 229 wins. Not surprisingly, the youngster has asked his Giants teammate about the wiggle and turn. Read the rest of this entry »

There aren’t many knuckleball pitchers in baseball, but there are a lot of would-be knuckleball pitchers. Most everyone has tinkered with the butterfly. It’s common for players — particularly position players — to mix in knucklers when playing catch before games. A handful of them can really make it dance.

Who are the best among the wannabe Wakefields and Niekros? To answer the question most accurately that would require extensive polling throughout both leagues. I considered tackling the task, but ultimately decided that such an exercise was a bit too frivolous.

Querying a cross-section of players was far more practical. I talked to a dozen, most of whom have experience either throwing or catching the game’s most enigmatic and entertaining pitch. Along with asking who has the best they’ve seen, I had several of them to assess the quality of their own knuckleball.

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Alex Avila, White Sox catcher: “It would have to be Danny Worth. He’s actually pitched in a game with it. We were with the Tigers, it was a blowout game, and he came in. He’s got a great arm — he’s an infielder — and he’d always throw a knuckleball warming up, just messing around. He threw a bunch of them, and it was dancing pretty good.”

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Tony Barnette has been a pleasant surprise in Texas. Signed in December after spending several seasons in Japan, the 32-year-old right-hander is performing well out of a Rangers bullpen that is statistically the worst in the American League. He’s been especially sharp as of late. Over his last eight appearances, Barnette has allowed just four hits and one unearned run in 13 innings.

Drafted by the Diamondbacks out of Arizona State in 2006, Barnette changed continents four years later after a 14-win season in Triple-A. The reason was simple.

“They wanted me,” said Barnette. “The Diamondbacks didn’t protect me and I wasn’t taken in the Rule 5, so I was looking at going back to the minors. I was at the stage of my life where you think you’re on the cusp of the big leagues and all of a sudden the powers that be say, ‘No you’re not.’ It was basically, ‘You’re welcome to stay, but if you want a change of scenery, good luck on your travels.’ Japan made the offer, and I decided to pack up and take my chances.” Read the rest of this entry »

Jeremy Sowers doesn’t turn 33 until later this month. He’s young enough that he could still be pitching. Having succumbed to shoulder woes and ineffectiveness, he’s instead embarking on a new career with the Tampa Bay Rays.

Drafted sixth overall in 2004 out of Vanderbilt, Sowers never did fulfill expectations on the mound. In four seasons with the Cleveland Indians, the left-hander logged a 5.18 ERA while winning just 18 of 48 decisions. Known more for moxie than velocity, he fanned 10% of the batters he faced across 400 innings of work.

Unable to sufficiently school hitters, Sowers stepped away from the game and returned to the classroom, earning an MBA from the University of North Carolina. Now he’s back in baseball. After a summer spent interning with the Orioles, Sowers is currently a major-league operations assistant with the Rays, a position he sees as a stepping stone to bigger and better things.

Sowers talked about his path from first-round pick to entry-level baseball ops on a recent visit to Fenway Park.

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Sowers on working for the Rays: “Just because I played does not qualify me as an absolute source of information about this game. I think I offer a unique perspective, but my value is only increased by hearing out and understanding everybody else’s perspective. To use a really crappy movie analogy, in Sling Blade, everybody is trying to figure out how to make a lawnmower work. All of a sudden, the one character is like, ‘I reckon there’s no gas in it.’

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Corey Dickerson has always hit. The 26-year-old outfielder slashed .321/.379/.596 in the minors, and then .299/.345/.534 in parts of three seasons with the Rockies. He doesn’t expect a move from Colorado to Tampa Bay to derail his production.

Maintaining lofty numbers will nonetheless be a challenge. Coors Field is a hitter’s paradise, and Dickerson certainly took advantage. In 122 games at his former home park, he slashed .355/.410/.675. Tropicana Field represents a whole new kettle of fish. Along with catwalks and a “touch tank,” it is among the most pitcher-friendly venues in MLB.

Dickerson’s slow start at the Trop — a .564 OPS — doesn’t mean much. Ten games is ten games. Far more meaningful is the fact that he’s undaunted by his new hitting environment. And don’t expect to hear him complain about inter-division road trips. Compared to the NL West, the AL East is bandbox city.

Dickerson talked about his hitting approach, and acclimating to a new league, on a recent visit to Fenway Park.

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Dickerson on sticking with his aggressive approach: “If I deviate from what I do, at all, it messes with me both mentally and physically. You get to the major leagues doing what you do best. That’s what you have to stick to: being the best version of you. You might change the way you attack the baseball — you might channel your aggressiveness — but you have to stay true to yourself.

“When I first got called up… everybody tries to help you out. I heard, ‘You have to hit the fastball’ and ‘You have to be a little more patient at the plate; try to see a few more pitches and work better counts.’ But nobody has really ever messed with me. No one has messed with my swing or my stance, or anything like that. They’ve mostly just said, ‘You can hit, so keep doing what you’re doing.’”

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Brandon Guyer was hit by a pitch three times on Thursday, twice by David Price and once by Noe Ramirez. The Tampa Bay outfielder also had a pair of singles, reaching base a personal best five times as the Rays bested Boston 12-8.

The triple HBP feat tied a MLB record. It had happened 22 times previously, and Guyer was no stranger to the list. Last October, he hobbled to first base courtesy of three Mark Buehrle inside offerings. On the season, he was hit 24 times, the most of any American League player.

Following Thursday’s game, I asked the University of Virginia product about his proclivity to get plunked. Read the rest of this entry »

The Rays system has considerable upside and depth throughout its minor-league levels. Reviewing the organization, I was particularly struck with how many pitchers I liked, including many whom I figured wouldn’t be able to stick as starting pitchers but would be very viable members of the bullpen. Indeed, most of their near-ready starting options are already in the majors or well on their way to becoming relievers. Blake Snell and Brent Honeywell give them a lot of upside while the club waits for some of their lower-level pitchers to develop.

Though I find that I’m less sold on many of the more popular bats, or at least those who are closer to the big leagues, there are a ton of options both as future regulars and as valuable role players who can succeed in situational exposure. Luckily, the Rays have been awesome at maximizing those types of assets, so even if more hitting prospects flame out, they have a strong pipeline to supplement the core at the major-league level.

On that note, I really like Kevin Padlo and Adrian Rondon as prospects who will take at least a few years to make it to the parent club. You’ll see I’m much less optimistic on Richie Shaffer and Casey Gillaspie despite their solid years in 2015. Shaffer’s power probably gets him a shot in the big leagues soon, but his lack of overall value makes him a fringe option in my opinion. Gillaspie could just be a case of hand-eye coordination and raw strength making up for unathletic moves, but I need to see him face better pitching before trusting his results more than what I see him doing with the bat, and he too has limited value elsewhere in his profile.

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