Sports: Now they're younger; will that mean better?

Now they're younger; will that mean better?

By MARC TOPKIN

MONTREAL -- If the Rays can keep playing as they've been playing for much of the past couple weeks, manager Hal McRae is sure they'll win more games in the second half than they did in the first. "That's a certainty," McRae said.

But as much as improvement on their 27-61 record would be welcomed, it won't be the true measure of their second half.

That won't come until the off-season, or next year, or even the following season, when the results -- the success or failure -- of the current youth movement will be determined.

"It's extremely hard to gauge young players, yet right now we have to," general manager Chuck LaMar said. "The true gauge is who you truly believe is an everyday player in the future, or a starting pitcher, or a closer."

The evaluation process, at times, can be painful for fans to watch. It's not that much easier for team officials either.

"It's very hard to measure if a player can hit that, or pitch this, or have that ERA," LaMar said. "It just has to come down to when Toby Hall is given that opportunity, which he will be, do we as an organization believe he will be an everyday catcher? Is Steve Cox truly in the future going to be an everyday first baseman on a winning club? And it's the same for Brent Abernathy, Jason Tyner, Randy Winn, Joe Kennedy, Jason Standridge, Jesus Colome ...

"If we can look at it and say the majority -- not all -- but if the majority have a chance to do that, no matter how bleak the situation looks, no matter how bad our record seems, than truly there is a silver lining to this year. We're not just selling the fans, "Okay, we're going young,' because that just bides time. We're trying to give our young players the chance to truly see of that group how many can become everyday players in the major leagues."

Obviously, such experimenting can make life -- and winning games -- even more treacherous for McRae. But he'll manage, knowing the process is essential to the team's growth and future success.

"We've got to try to finalize among the players that are here what we have, who we're going to keep and where they're going to play, and what are the needs and what holes are we going to fill. And we have a few of those," McRae said.

"I would be happy if we can say, "We need one of these, we need one of those,' because we can't come back (next season) as we are. If we come back with the same personnel, we sort of wasted time. We have to realize what we have, what we're going to take forward, what we're going to eliminate, what areas we're going to improve in."

That should eliminate one of the team's other major problems.

"The team has to complement each other," McRae said. "We don't complement each other. You don't have to have the best players, but the players you have have to complement each other. They can't be the same."

What McRae means is that you can't have a roster with too many DH-type players (like, say, Fred McGriff, Greg Vaughn and Ben Grieve), or too many speedy slap hitters, or too many good-glove, no-hit guys.

"It doesn't mean you don't have good players, but sometimes you don't have a good mix," he said. "The players can fit on a lot of teams in a lot of places, but what you're looking for is a fit and a mix. A good mix. We need a better mix, that's all."

POCKET PLANNER: A revision to the scheduling process cost the Rays a trip to Arizona next season.

Major League Baseball officials, again showing their infinite wisdom, decided it was more important for the Rays to play two series against the Marlins -- preserving that fierce "natural" rivalry -- than to play all of the NL West opponents.

So the Rays miss out on what would have been the first meeting with their expansion brethren Diamondbacks, and get to make one of their more bizarre trips, from home to south Florida to San Francisco to Colorado.

Overall, the Rays again play 19 games against each of their AL East rivals, including 13 of their first 44 against Baltimore. They get just one visit from Detroit, Minnesota, Chicago, Cleveland, Kansas City, Seattle, Oakland, San Diego and Los Angeles.

Flashing back to the 1998 inaugural, the Rays will open the season at home against Detroit, tentatively on Monday, April1.

HOO-RAYS: Raymond's fourth birthday bash is Thursday, and the Rays are expecting several thousand kids to help celebrate as part of Parks and Recreation day.