As amazingly talented as Carl Crawford and Delmon Young are – not to mention Evan Longoria, B.J. Upton, Reid Brignac, and Elijah Dukes – their future emergence will not determine whether Tampa Bay ever makes the playoffs.
A roster featuring several athletic all-stars certainly won’t hurt, but forced to compete against the Yankees, Red Sox, Blue Jays, and Orioles, the Devil Rays will lose any attempts to routinely overpower that caliber of competition.
The Marlins won the 2003 World Series on young pitching – Josh Beckett, A.J. Burnett, Carl Pavano, and Dontrelle Willis – and speed. Only if they follow that model will the Devil Rays ever be able to spray champagne.
They have the speed. What they need more than anything else, however, are the arms.
That is why the players that will dictate Tampa Bay’s chances at winning anything are actually Jeff Niemann, Jacob McGee, Wade Davis, Jeremy Hellickson, and, of course, current staff ace Scott Kazmir.
Only Niemann and Kazmir were first-round draft picks, but all five have since shown first-round caliber talent.
Just six-feet tall and 170 pounds, Kazmir nonetheless will be the pillar on which so many dreams will rest. The 23-year-old has already struck out 378 batters in 364 major league innings and is the first elite pitcher to ever don a Devil Ray uniform.
While still mostly a two-pitch starter, those two ferocious pitches – a sweeping mid-90’s fastball and nasty slider – allowed the lefthander to post a 3.24 ERA and 1.27 WHIP in 2006 before being shutdown after 144.2 innings with shoulder tightness. No shoulder’s future health is more important in all of Tampa Bay.
Given that the Devil Rays acquired – fleeced – Kazmir from the Mets in 2004, the other four names on this list represent the best of the organization’s internally-grown efforts.
It took a truly dreadful decade of futility in drafting and developing quality pitching, but finally Tampa Bay appears to be producing arms that might scare the Yankees and Red Sox.
Of the quartet, Niemann is closest to joining Kazmir in the bigs. Shoulder surgery in October of 2005 derailed the progress of the No. 4 overall selection of the 2004 draft, but the 6-foot-9 righthander recovered nicely in 2006, striking out 84 against 29 walks and 57 hits in 77.1 innings in Double-A.
Niemann relies heavily on a mid-90’s fastball and devastating slider, both coming into the strike zone on a steep downward plane. Given that he’s soon to turn 24 and experienced terrific success in college, the huge righthander seems destined to join Kazmir very soon – by the summer, if not before.
Behind these two elite talents, the Devil Rays have a stock of arms which they have been very cautious with, keeping them in low-A affiliates Southwest Michigan and Hudson Valley. Davis and McGee appear to be best of breed, with Hellickson right behind.
Pitching together since being drafted together in the 3rd and 5th rounds of the 2004 draft, Davis and McGee have dominated the minor league’s lower ranks. Each posted k/9 rates of 10+ in both 2005 and 2006, with McGee striking out an impressive 171 in 134 inning last year.
A 6-foot-3 lefthander, McGee attacks hitters with a low-to-mid-90’s fastball that tops out at 96 before buckling knees with an impressive curve. The 20-year-old’s fantastic 2006 has really pushed him far up the ladder of most prospect lists, signaling his potential to be a quality No. 2 or No. 3 starter.
At 6-foot-5 and 220 pounds, the righthanded Davis is also a prototypical prospect, albeit a slightly less consistent performer to date than his stable mate. Davis closed out the year with a seven-inning no-hitter and began April and May in similarly dominating fashion.
In between, however, the 21-year-old occasionally seemed out of sorts, his usual mid-90’s velocity sometimes dipping along with a periodic struggle to command his above-average slider and curve. His potential to wield three plus-pitches makes him unique in this group.
Drafted in the fourth round of 2005, the 19-year-old Hellickson rounds out the trio. Although an “undersized righthander,” the 6-foot-1 Hellickson spots his low-90’s fastball with a smooth delivery and impressive command. He posted a tremendous line at Hudson Valley in 2006: 77.2 innings, 96 strikeouts, 55 hits, and just 16 walks. Assuming that all these young Devil Rays stay healthy, Hellickson could find himself the best No.5 pitcher in all of baseball one day – he projects as a very solid No.3 or No. 4.
With a bundle of pitching talent on the way that figures to determine the true state of the Devil Rays’ farm system, the next few years will be pivotal for Tampa Bay.
Nick Christie can be reached at nickchristie@gmail.com.