Deivi Cruz's solid career likely won't be enough to make team.
By TOM JONES
Published March 8, 2004
LAKE BUENA VISTA - Deivi Cruz is busy right now. Too busy. No time to talk. Not now. Too much to do.
"Need to go to work," he said. "Later. We'll talk later."
Later: He's gone. Nowhere to be found. He's off somewhere with, surely, a glove or bat in his hand.
A day goes by and Cruz still has no time.
"After work," he said. "Gotta go to work."
Gotta stretch. Gotta hit. Gotta field.
Gotta make the team.
What makes this so odd isn't that Cruz doesn't want to talk. Usually he is easy to find in the clubhouse by his wide smile or by the laughter of his teammates, who are cracking up at something Cruz is saying.
What is so strange is the part about Cruz scrambling to make a major-league roster. And that he had to practically beg for a job in the offseason. And that the best he could do was get a nonroster invitation to the last-place Devil Rays.
"I guess," said Rays catcher Brook Fordyce, who played with Cruz last season in Baltimore, "Deivi is just one of those guys who goes unnoticed."
Unnoticed? You could say that. When you think of the game's top shortstops, the name of Deivi (pronounced DA-vee) Cruz rarely comes up. Maybe it should.
Did you know only three players - Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter and Edgar Renteria - have played more games at shortstop over the past seven seasons than Cruz? Or that he ranks fifth among shortstops in doubles over the past five seasons with more than A-Rod and Jeter?
Or - and this is the doozy - that he ranks seventh, just a shade below Ozzie Smith, all-time in fielding percentage among shortstops who have played at least 1,000 games?
"He is as steady as you can get defensively," Fordyce said. "Wow, is he steady. You don't notice it until the end of the year and you're like "Holy cow, this guy makes every play.' He is just outstanding."
So how come he didn't have a job after last season? And, more important, how could the Rays not consider him to be the everyday shortstop or at least a utility player?
Cruz, 31, played for the Tigers and Padres before landing in Baltimore last season. But even though Cruz hit .250 with 14 homers and 65 RBIs in 152 games, including 144 starts, the Orioles couldn't resist going after Oakland shortstop Miguel Tejada in the offseason.
So Cruz went in search of a job and still was making telephone calls after the New Year. He practically had to take out a want ad:
NEEDED, A TEAM TO PLAY FOR. GREAT GLOVE, DECENT POWER. WILL COME CHEAP.
"Some odd things happened this winter," Rays manager Lou Piniella said. "A few players fell through the cracks. A few players who should have been signed shouldn't have gone as long as they did (without) getting signed. But it happens. It happens infrequently, but it does happen and this year is one of those years."
And Cruz was one of the victims.
"It must be one of those years when everyone felt they had a shortstop," Fordyce said. "But I tell you, he can go out and play every day, and make plays all day long."
Cruz has a little pop in his bat (15 homers last season) and almost never strikes out (he was fourth toughest in the American League last season with one strikeout every 11.7 plate appearances).
Defensively, he doesn't have great range, but if he can get a glove on it, it usually is an out.
"He makes the plays that should be made," Piniella said. "He's got good life in his bat. And he's a good kid. He works hard and no problems."
Actually, Cruz has one problem: finding a job. Julio Lugo figures to be the Rays shortstop and because the way things are shaking out with the rest of the roster, Cruz is a long shot to even make the team. With a platoon at third base, the signings of Eduardo Perez and Robert Fick and the need to carry 12 pitchers once the season gets rolling, Cruz might be fighting for a spot that simply doesn't exist.
"In my mind," Piniella said, "there's no question he belongs in the big leagues somewhere whether it be as a starting player or certainly as a frontline utility player."
What does Cruz think?
No telling. He said he would talk after work, but now he's gone. He left word with a Rays spokesman: "Gotta go."
