The Rays have openly admitted that they must get off to a better start in 2010. Blame it on the "championship week" celebrations, the tough schedule, or the a-a-a-a-never mind, the 2009 team found themselves in an early hole and were never able to dig themselves out.
With the focus on a good start, Joe Maddon wants to give his regular players more at-bats in the spring in hopes of knocking some of that early season rust off. Plans call for everyday players to get around 60 at-bats with that number jumping to 70 or more in some cases.
During the opening month of the 2009 season, the Rays had a team weighted on-base average of .351. That's pretty decent and was sixth best in the league. However that wOBA did not translate into runs as the team scored just 110 runs; eight best in the league.
Looking at individual cases, many of the teams most important players got off to good starts.
Here is the wOBA breakdown for March/April 2009.
|
Longoria |
0.476 |
|
Zobrist |
0.416 |
|
Bartlett |
0.402 |
|
Pena |
0.400 |
|
Crawford |
0.340 |
|
Burrell |
0.338 |
|
Upton |
0.284 |
|
Navarro |
0.202 |
minimum 50 plate appearances
Outside of B.J. Upton and Dioner Navarro, the lineup did pretty well on a case by case basis. Evan Longoria, Ben Zobrist, Jason Bartlett and Carlos Pena got off to great starts. Even Pat Burrell had a decent first month. We know that Upton did not have much of a spring training last season, and Navi was just being Navi. Hopefully a 100% B.J. Upton, and new backstop, Kelly Shoppach can pick up the slack from last season. Other than that, it's hard to see how most of the hitters can get off to a better start in 2010.