| Team Profile/History - The Devil Rays have never had more than 69 wins in a season... until now. With 32 games left to play, Tampa already has 70 wins, a franchise record, and is in Third place in the divison, also a record at this point in the season. Lineup - Berkman and Palmeiro are the anchors of this lineup, but Palmeiro's age may be an issue, how long before he retires? Not a good guy to have on a developing club. Bench - Nothing special at all. No real power threat, no special glove men. Defense - Gonzalez has a good glove at ss, no one else is particularly exciting. Adrian Brown is more liability than any other on the team. Rotation - Miller is a good young #1, after that a lot of question marks. Hopefully one or two of the questions work out and a pitcher or two emerges from the minors for next season. Bullpen - Scary. Nenn, Bradford and Dotel make for a nasty set of relievers. Minors - A lot of hope invested in Villareal, Saarloos and Malone. Saarloos's numbers are, frankly, filthy, they shouldn't allow guys to do those kinds of thing to hitters. Overall Grade - B- Has a ways to go, but extra marks for being the best Tampa's ever seen and giving fans a reason to show up (wins) Over/Under Over - Burba - Released outright in the MLB, not doing too bad in Tampa Under - Daal - Getting shelled for Tampa Prescription - Some starting pitching and some more offensive depth in the lineup, though the former is more urgent, and will resultin more improvement than the latter. |
| Lineup Rafael Furcal Adrian Brown Lance Berkman Rafael Palmeiro Joe Randa Bill Haselman Tomas Perez Alex S. Gonzalez Carl Crawford Rotation Wade Miller Justin Thompson Omar Daal Blake Stein Dave Burba |
| Minors Orlando Hudson Ray Lankford Steve Parris Mark Quinn Oscar Villareal Chone Figgins Josh Karp Francisco Liriano Kirk Saarloos |
| TAMPA BAY DEVIL RAYS *NOTE - This analysis is strictly the opinion of the Red Sox GM, and was done as objectively as possible and strictly for the fun of it |
| GM Pat Bishop RECORD 70-60 3d place on 8/25/02 |
| Bench Pedro Feliz George Lombard Orlando Merced Gary Bennett Bullpen Chad Bradford Octavio Dotel Cory Bailey Corwin Malone Luke Prokopec Robb Nenn Danny Kolb Joe Beimel |
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