By MARC TOPKIN
© St. Petersburg Times, published July 29, 2001
ARLINGTON, Texas -- The purging is nearly complete. Twenty-somethings rule. Look at the Rays on the field, or listen to the clubhouse talk about video games and dance music, and it's clear the future is now.
Toby Hall, Steve Cox, Brent Abernathy and Aubrey Huff around the infield. Jason Tyner, Randy Winn and Ben Grieve in the outfield. Joe Kennedy, Nick Bierbrodt and Ryan Rupe in the rotation. Travis Phelps, Jesus Colome, Victor Zambrano, Jeff Wallace and Jason Standridge in the bullpen.
The Rays don't lead the majors in many categories, but they have by far the youngest (average age 26.7) and least experienced team. Ten of the 25 players are rookies. Fifteen are 26 or younger. Sixteen started the season with less than two years in the big leagues.
"We're going to try to continue to get younger," general manager Chuck LaMar said. "I just don't know if we can."
Given how poorly some of their veterans played, how badly the team performed overall and how much money they're apparently losing, the Rays decided it only made sense to go young. Call up all the kids. See what they can do.
At times it will be exciting. At times it will be promising.
And at times it will be ugly.
"The minus to it is that it happened probably a year and a half before I wanted it to or before I think it should have," LaMar said. "Our minor-league system is still maturing. I truly thought that when we set up our five-year plan, that at the end of five years our organization would be ready to be infiltrated by young players. We're having to do that at Year 31/2, so it's putting some of our young players in the major leagues before their development in the minors leagues, in my opinion, is truly completed. And we still have some young players that are going to have major impacts on the organization that are still a ways away. So we have a gap that we're going to have to suffer with. ...
"Yes, we're younger and eventually this organization would be where we are. I just truly thought it would be a year and a half from now. And I thought we would have more wins under out belts when that time came."
The root of the problem is that the poorly designed and poorly executed plan to boost attendance by stocking up on veterans last season left the Rays behind in all facets of their development.
"It's clear to everyone that this organization needed to get back to what we first started with, and that's building through scouting and player development and that's building with young players," LaMar said. "That means getting younger, which means getting less experienced, which means taking your lumps, not that we haven't, but lumps with a direction in mind. But we need to reduce payroll and reduce payroll in a significant way."
FOR OPENERS: How dramatic has the change been this season? Only six of the 10 players in the opening day lineup are still in the organization: Cox, Greg Vaughn, Grieve, John Flaherty, Felix Martinez and Bobby Smith (who was sent to the minors). Gerald Williams and Vinny Castilla were released and Fred McGriff and Albie Lopez were traded.
MORE McGRIFF: McGriff and agent Jim Krivacs insisted that it wasn't the money offered by the Cubs that got McGriff to approve the trade, but more the chance to control where he played with options for the next two seasons. "The way this is set up gives him the most flexibility for his family," Krivacs said. ... According to some reports, the Rays only have to send the Cubs the $1-million if McGriff stays in Chicago next season. ... One of the main reasons the Cubs wanted McGriff was to force teams to pitch to Sammy Sosa, who has been intentionally walked 27 times. FOR EVERY ACTION: The attention usually is paid to the players called up, but it's hard to ignore the effects of all the changes on Triple-A Durham. Manager Bill Evers, a consummate pro, would never complain, but he has used 43 players, 25 pitchers.
"We've used a few, and we'll use a few more," Evers said. "We're just trying to keep guys basically within the scope of what they're doing."