2006 Tampa Bay Devil Rays Season Review

Some Building Blocks, but the Main Structure Needs Work

What went right: Carl Crawford had an excellent season. He reached double-digits in triples and homers while hitting over .300 and stealing 58 bases. He’s a franchise player that the Rays need to build around. Ty Wigginton had 24 home runs and 79 runs batted in while hitting .275. Then again, have Wigginton as one of your strong points says a lot about the state of the team. Rocco Baldelli returned strong from injury to hit .302 with 16 home runs and 57 RBIs. He also stole 10 bases. An improvement in strike zone judgment will make Baldelli a more complete player. Scott Kazmir showed his immense promise by compiling a 3.24 ERA to go along with 163 strikeouts in 145 innings. Mark Hendrickson was a nice surprise. He kept the team competitive in his starts. The Rays took advantage of his increased stock and dealt him and Toby Hall to the Los Angeles Dodgers for Dioner Navarro and Jae Seo.

What went wrong: Starting pitching was bad and the bullpen wasn’t much better. Outside of Kazmir and Hendrickson, only one other pitcher who pitched over 50 innings (Ruddy Lugo) had an ERA below 4.00. By the end of the season, there wasn’t a consistent closer available either. San Francisco castoff Tyler Walker finished with 10 saves to go with an ERA very close to 5.00. The offense was filled with empty at bats from Jorge Cantu (.249 average, 91 strikeouts in 413 at bats), Damon Hollins (.228 average, 64 strikeouts in 333 at bats), and Jonny Gomes (.216 average, 116 strikeouts in 385 at bats). Trading away Julio Lugo to the Los Angeles Dodgers and Aubrey Huff to the Houston Astros only served to weaken the offense further.