Finding Ways For Evan Longoria To Fail

With no clear word from the front office yet, speculation is rising in Tampa that the Rays will send hot-crap prospect 3B Evan Longoria (no relation) to AAA to begin the season.


Most observers, including some of Longoria's teammates, have concluded that the reason will be to delay Longoria's service time clock thus allowing the team to control his rights for an additional year. One could certainly argue that this is a smart move for a small market team. However, Andrew Friedman, executive vice president of baseball operations, specifically denied that economics would be a factor in the decision.

So, what's left?

According to club officials, spring training was for evaluating Longoria on all kinds of things.

Friedman and manager Joe Maddon say they'll consider a series of factors beyond actual performance and results, everything from how Longoria carries himself and interacts in the clubhouse; his thought process at the plate and how he makes adjustments during, and between, at-bats; his preparation, work ethic and knowledge of the game; how he plays defense and does the "little" things. And they'll try to gauge other things more subjective such as how he'd handle the frustrations of what would be his first extended slump as a pro.

By all accounts, Longoria has passed the spring tests with flying colors. He's delivered on the tangibles and the intangibles. Coaches have raved, teammates have raved. The only thing he failed to do, it would appear, is fail.

Let's look at that last line again.

And they'll try to gauge other things more subjective such as how he'd handle the frustrations of what would be his first extended slump as a pro.

So, isn't this what it really comes down to? They want to see him fail, because they want to see how he reacts to failure. It's difficult, the story goes, for a hot-crap player to experience failure for the first time at the major league level. I have no idea if there's anything to this, but it has a certain logic and is often offered as a reason why, for example, Brandon Phillips' development curve got skewed.

The flip side of the argument is that a player yet to fail at any level is highly unlikely to fail on a return trip to the International League.

Or, as Cork Gaines puts it:

This is not the first time that the team has stated their concern over the fact that Longoria has yet to experience a slump as a professional.

If this is the biggest concern the Rays have with Longoria, then they have no concerns. "He has never slumped" is not a reason to keep somebody in the minors. "He can't handle curveballs" or "He smokes too much weed" are reasons to keep somebody in the minors. "He is too good" is not.

I think Rays officials are going about this all wrong; if they really want to give Longoria a taste of failure, there must be hundreds of ways.

Here's a few:

1. Make him buy ice cream for spring training teammates and coaches using only spare change found in dirty laundry carts of visitors' clubhouse

2. Eat 100 hot dogs in 5 minutes

3. Resolve nuclear contest between India and Pakistan

4. Compete on American Gladiators

5. Compete on Project Runway

6. Prove that methamphetamine is not addictive

7. Adapt The Wire into Broadway musical

8. Adapt The Eliot Spitzer Story into Disney animated feature

9. Develop perpetual motion machine

10. Foot race with B.J. Upton

11. Crazy race with Elijah Dukes

Just pick one and let's get this over with.

The Baldelli Conundrum, Day 2

So, twenty-four hours after my last post comes this out of Tampa:

Rays right fielder Rocco Baldelli is going on the disabled list for an indefinite period due to an abnormality that has kept him in a constant stage of fatigue.

Baldelli addressed a room full of reporters shortly before Wednesday afternoon's game between the Rays and the Yankees at Progress Energy Park, and the 26-year-old outfielder said he had some type of "metabolic, and/or mitochondrial abnormalities."

If you haven't read my previous post, I hope you still will. In the absence of what's been revelead today as a rare or at least elusive diagnosis, I thought Tampa's looming decision over whether or not to pick up the 2009 option of a talented but injury-prone player was an interesting case study that might tell us a good deal about franchise decision-making. Today, no such study is necessary:

Rays executive vice president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman told reporters the Rays will stick by Baldelli to the best of their abilities to help him out in whatever way they can. He also said Baldelli's condition will likely lead to the Rays not picking up the outfielder's option for the 2009 season.

Let's hope this is not the end of the road for Rocco. I know that he'll get another chance somewhere - talent always does. What we don't know yet and may not for some time is whether his body is up for the challenge.

The Baldelli Conundrum

It's one of the cardinal rules of sports: talent always gets a second chance. And a third. And a fourth. And so on.

Carlos Pena was a first round pick by Texas in 1998, but bounced around five different American League organizations before landing an every day job in Tampa last year at age 29 and fulfilling long-deferred projections of stardom. Pena set club records for home runs, RBI, walks, on-base percentage and slugging percentage.

Knowing that a talented but enigmatic player might figure it out later on can be a complicating factor for organizational decision-making. If you're the Rays, fresh off finding the shiny quarter that is Carlos Pena, what do you do with Rocco Baldelli? A 26-year-old outfielder, Baldelli is a classic 'what if' guy who flashes tantalizing speed and power between increasing intervals of time lost to injuries.

Drafted in the first round (6th overall) in the 2000 amateur draft out of high school in Warwick, Rhode Island, Baldelli rose quickly through the minors, peaking as the #2 prospect in the land in 2003. He also debuted in the majors in 2003 at the age of 21, putting together a solid season that culminated in a third place finish in the American League Rookie of the Year voting. Perhaps most notably, Baldelli accumulated more than 670 plate appearances over 156 games. In terms of durability, it was all down hill from there.

In 2004, he managed 136 games. Over the subsequent three seasons, he totaled 127 games, missing the 2005 campaign entirely. In between ailments, he nevertheless offered glimpses of something close to greatness - or at least very goodness. In 2006, he put up a triple-slash line of .302/.339/.533, with 16 HR, 57 RBI and 10 SB in just 364 at bats. Pro-rated to 600 at bats, Baldelli would have had 320 total bases, good for 10th in the American League - a fine season for a 24-year-old.

Alas, that Baldelli looks like something of a mirage now.

For all intents and purposes, health is a skill that Rocco does not possess. It's no surprise that he's frustrated and defensive:

I’ve been tested for everything under the sun, the whole gamut, trying to find the stem of what all these problems are that I’m having. I can tell you I don’t have MS, there’s no chance. … I know it sounds bad when I’m denying specific things.

He's right, it does sound bad. Can you ever remember a professional athlete so injury prone that he has to specifically deny having multiple sclerosis?

Baldelli's career is at a crossroads, and it comes at a bad time for him. While he has yet to make an appearance this spring, Tampa is forced to make a decision on Baldelli's 2009 option - essentially whether he fits in the team's plans for the future - by April 1.

Baldelli's 2009 option would cost the team $6 million. Even with baseball's escalating salary structure, that seems like an easy no given his precarious health. However, the buy out is $4 million, so the net cost to the team of retaining Baldelli for 2009 is $2 million.

Smart organizations ignore sunk costs. Two million isn't a huge sum in the baseball universe, but it was more than enough to snap up Pena last year or the talented but flawed Corey Patterson this year, or even to make a big splash in Latin America. For a small market team, every $2 million counts.

Still, you have to wonder if emotion will enter the picture in this case. One doesn't have to delve too far into the past to find a time when Baldelli was viewed as one of the cornerstones of the next (first) great Rays squad. A team never wants to give up a player like that for nothing, particularly if he could come back to haunt them in another uniform. Tampa's fans are scarred by sour memories of Josh Hamilton's departure. Hamilton was drafted by Tampa in 1999, the year before Baldelli, and was the #1 overall pick in the draft. Tampa watched him flash prodigious talent in the minors briefly before losing him to addiction.

When team control over Hamilton lapsed and forced a decision about his future, Tampa made him available in the Rule 5 draft in December 2006. Cincinnati took a chance on him and it paid off. Tampa fans who had suffered through the highs and lows of the Hamilton saga for SEVEN years saw him resurrect his career just months later in somebody else's town. It was like putting down a Russian novel after 700 pages only to hear from somebody else that the book had a Hollywood ending and that Steven Spielberg is doing the film adaptation.

It's a fascinating conundrum. It should be easy to say goodbye to a chronically frustrating player who apparently has legs made of vermicelli.

Yet, having snapped up Carlos Pena for nothing, and having lost Josh Hamilton for nada, haven't the Rays' experienced both the positive and negative reinforcement of always giving talent another chance?

While the numbers of can't miss prospects who miss are legion, teams will always value tools and talent. Some team will gamble on Rocco Baldelli. Will it be Tampa? We'll know soon enough.