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KRIEGER: Crystal ball? Tampa Bay didn't need one

By Dave Krieger, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published October 21, 2008 at 8:12 p.m.

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Prescience is an enormous asset if you want to run a major league baseball franchise, but it's pretty hard to measure unless, say, you start your career at a doomed investment bank and get out before it crashes.

For Andrew Friedman, leaving Bear Stearns in 2001 might have been an even better move than drafting Evan Longoria.

"Not going to say that," the Rays' executive vice president of baseball operations demurred with a smile Tuesday, standing on the field where his young team will host Game 1 of the World Series tonight.

Considering all the victims of its collapse, Bear Stearns remains a sensitive subject.

"It's impacted a lot of people that I know well, so I've tried to follow up with them, but in terms of the big picture part of it, I haven't really followed it that closely with everything we've had going on," Friedman said carefully. A former scholarship outfielder at Tulane, the 31-year-old executive knows how to take a pitch.

Friedman's team is this year's Rockies, a hapless expansion franchise that came out of nowhere to reach the World Series. It's a story so unbelievable it would sound like a Disney movie if it hadn't happened just last year.

"It's not like the Rockies paved the way for us to make it here, but that was a big deal, I think, for a lot of young players, to see the success that they were having against all the odds," Rays outfielder Fernando Perez said.

In fact, the Rocks provided more than inspiration. They provided a key piece of the puzzle.

It is too early to judge Greg Reynolds, the pitcher the Rocks took with the second overall pick of the 2006 draft, but it's already clear they did the Rays a huge favor by leaving Longoria for them at No. 3. Considering Reynolds' rocky major league start this year (2-8, 8.13), it's worth noting that the Rays would not have taken him at No. 3 even if the Rocks had drafted Longoria.

"We went into the spring thinking we were going to take a pitcher," Friedman said. "It was a focus of ours organizationally. But to Evan's credit, he kept moving up our draft board. By the time we sat down for meetings, he was the No. 1 guy on our board. The night before the draft, we actually thought Colorado was going to take him. We had decided to go with (Tim) Lincecum had Colorado gone with Longoria."

Stocked with third basemen and dubious of Lincecum's staying power at 5-foot-11, Rocks scouting director Bill Schmidt chose the 6-7 Reynolds instead. When the Rays took Longoria, Lincecum slipped to the Giants at No. 10, for whom he went 18-5 this season.

"Longoria was in our discussions," general manager Dan O'Dowd recalled. "We felt pitching was our bigger need. We had (Garrett) Atkins, (Ian) Stewart and (Jeff) Baker. We thought we had depth there."

Friedman had the professional courtesy not to second guess.

"The draft is so subjective and different teams evaluate different players differently and are looking for different things," he said. "So nothing surprises us in the draft, but of that group of pitchers, Reynolds was certainly a guy that was on that list."

Which, let's be honest, is probably not the most enthusiastic player evaluation you've ever heard.

A year later, the Rays did choose a pitcher with the No. 1 pick. David Price, just one year removed from Vanderbilt, pitched them into the Series on Sunday by closing out the Red Sox in Game 7 of the ALCS.

In fairness, you can second guess certain draft choices of any team in any sport. The Rays missed their share, too, which is why it took them a decade to take advantage of their routinely poor finishes. When I mentioned to veteran Jonny Gomes that all those high draft picks had to pan out eventually, he shrugged.

"Well, you would hope so, but the first, what, five, didn't. It's tough for five first-rounders not to pan out due to one thing or another. It just shows how tough it is to be an impact player in the big leagues."

Like the Rocks, the Rays made the Series with one of the smallest payrolls in baseball. The Rocks' fall a year after wearing baseball's glass slipper is a cautionary tale for Tampa.

"We've talked about this a lot in the last couple of years," Friedman said. "Our goal wasn't just to reach this point. It was to also have the infrastructure in place, the nucleus in place, to be able to sustain it over many years. Much easier to say than to do. But it's definitely the biggest challenge, especially for smaller revenue teams."

The former Bear Stearns analyst will worry about that next year. In the meantime, he'd like to do something else the Rocks couldn't - put a happy ending on the fairy tale.

Comments

  • October 22, 2008

    7:34 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    1somelikeithot writes:

    Why do you writer's always compare the Rays to the Rockies? As far as expansion teams go, the Rockies didn't pave the way for any team. Did you forget about the Marlins, who have won two WS titles? How about the Diamondbacks? Geez, you people are desperate.