I’m putting the Devil back in the Devil Rays after last night’s bench-clearing brawl. The Red Sox and Rays have come to fisticuffs numerous times over the years, and now it seems that Tampa Bay is determined to rumble with the other big dogs in the AL East, the New York Yankees. Hey, if you can’t join ‘em, beat ‘em, right?

Controversy erupted when the teams last played each other, when a Rays prospect bowled over a young Yankee catcher at home plate, breaking his wrist. Yankee fans were miffed and Joe Girardi was “disheartened.” Tampa Bay fans responded with indignation, Rays advisor Don Zimmer with dismay. But this time, with Shelley Duncan sparking the fight by attempting to cleat 2B Aknori Iwamura in the crotch, it seems like pretty much all the Yankees blogs agree that Duncan was out of order. (If you’ve read one that defends him, post the link in the comments section.) And Yankees Chick reminds us that Duncan’s “intensity” was premeditated. It’s one thing to break a man’s wrist. It’s quite another to target his family jewels.

DRaysBay has the video and offers Duncan some free advice: “Mr. Duncan, next time you want to tango, make sure the other team doesn’t have a semi-deranged part-time wrestler on the field at the same time, okay?” And Rays Index has the definitive list of links for your post-brawl required reading, including a reenactment with an A.J. Pierzynski bobblehead.

Duncan’s testicle-threatening slide was classless and unnecessary—the Yankees had already plunked highly touted Tampa Bay prospect Evan Longoria with a pitch, thus evening the score between the teams (the pitcher was ejected). Duncan’s attempt to spike Iwamura only re-started the whole mess. Nonetheless, we did get to see our first brawl of the year as a result. And I, for one, always enjoy a good brawl. So does fellow UmpBumper Nick Kapur, as recorded in this recent exchange:

Me: Baseball fights are wonderful. I love watching these highly paid, grown men run out of the dugout just to mill around in angry fashion.

Nick: Baseball fights are great because people have so far to run. Those relievers have to charge all the way in from the bullpens! Baseball fights are actually better live.

Me: Yeah, and the crowd is all, “RAAAAAH! BOOOO! RAAAAH!”

Nick: And it’s funny to see all the players charging toward the mound from all over the park, like a star collapsing in on itself, then gradually cooling into a neutron star.

Me: And when do you ever see the coach get thrown out in other sports? I love to see the manager get tossed. He starts yelling, gets all red in the face. He’s shouting at the ump, who is also usually really old. When do you get to see two old men fight like that if not in baseball?

Nick: Yeah, there is nothing like a fat, old, white baseball manager waddling/running out from the dugout in a rage.

Me: Glorious.

UmpBumpers, what’s your favorite part of a baseball brawl?

It’s official. In an attempt to freshen up and reliven their image - and presumably, make the team even more anonymous than it was already, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays have changed their name to “Tampa Bay Rays“.  Some initial thoughts:

1. So… Yeah… They’re just the Rays now… Sweet.
2. No word yet on whether or not they will pursue Ray Durham, Ray Olmedo, Ray King, and Chris Ray during the off-season.
3. Not only is the name unfathomably dull, their uniform is just as bad.
4. For the life of me, I cannot think of a celebrity more fitting to appear on this dull occassion than the incredibly monotone Kevin Costner. And yes, his character in “Field of Dreams” was named Ray Kinsella. So he’s a Ray.

And now let’s all go do something a bit more interesting. Like, go watch someone try and guess all the flavors in a Whitman’s Sampler. I don’t know.

1. The Devil Rays don’t suck quite has much anymore. They were under .400 two weeks ago. But after going on a tear—and whomping the Yankees—they were just one game behind Baltimore heading into tonight’s game. They have a killer schedule at the end of this month that includes the Angels and the Yankees and Boston again, but if the Orioles continue to slide, Baltimore could be the cellar-dwellers this year. If Tampa makes some savvy offseason moves, they could actually be a legitimate team next year. Who knew?

2. Dustin Pedroia: your AL Rookie of the Year. Write it down.

3. So it’s 9/11. And it’s the 7th inning stretch. And a bunch of firefighters are singing “God Bless America,” just days after Boston’s fire department buried two of their own, killed in the line of duty. Everyone is listening in rapt attention. Except for Curt Schilling, that preachy Republican blowhard, who is talking. The guy he was talking to, J.D. Drew, at least had the decency to look like he was trying not to listen. Now, I’m no anti-Schilling type. I have a wee soft spot for the guy (bloody sock, you know). But Jesus, Curt. I know you like to hear your own voice, but can’t it wait until the commercial break? Talk about all hat and no cattle. Shut up and throw.

4. Speaking of commercial breaks, something I love to do during them is browse through catalogs. This game, I discovered a wondrous new item: L.L. Bean shearling flip flops. Shearling flip flops! These are my new must-have for fall.

5. Forget all the speculation about who will be in Boston’s outfield when Manny comes back from this oblique strain (it’ll still be J.D. Drew, no matter what Jacoby Ellsbury does in the interim). Having too many outfielders right now is the least of Boston’s problems. We only have two starting pitchers. Once the finest rotation in the league–perhaps in all of baseball?—Boston’s three and four starters have blown up this month. Daisuke Matsuzaka and Tim Wakefield, in September, have given up an average of 7 earned runs per start. The other pitchers that have started for the Sox in that span (Schilling, Beckett, Lester, and Buchholz) have given up an average of 2.13 earned runs per start. For the playoffs, then, Boston has a rotation of Schilling, Beckett, and a faint buzzing noise. There’s always the Julian Tavarez option, but I’m sure Terry Francona is as hesitant to go that route as I am—Tavarez is a wild card. Clay Buchholz still has just two starts in the majors, and though he did have a dandy relief appearance (three innings, three K’s, two walks, one hit, no runs) during one of Wakefield’s meltdowns, I don’t think you willingly hand the ball to him in Game 3. He may have thrown 50% of his major league games for no-hitters, but there’s such a thing as too much too soon. As for Jon Lester? He’s young, too, but may be their best option. Unfortunately, he’s only recently (like within the past couple of starts) gotten his walk ratio down. You don’t want to walk lineups like the Yankees’ or the Tigers’ in the playoffs. Lester faces off against the D-Rays tonight, and if he can’t slam the door on them, I will officially go into full-fledged Sox-panic mode, with horror’s icy hand gripping my heart. And even a plush pair of L.L. Bean shearling flip flops can’t take the edge off that chill.

Yankees - end the love affair with Miguel Cairo. Oh, and also, a first baseman

It has been a thinly veiled secret for many years that Yankees manager Joe Torre has a prediliction for keeping an aging, light-hitting Latin American utility infielder around upon whom he can lavish excessive praise and undue playing time.

For many many years, this role was filled by Luis Sojo, but now that Sojo has finally retired, it has clearly fallen to Miguel Cairo.

With Yankee first base options Doug Mientkiewicz and Jason Giambi out indefinitely with wrist and foot injuries, Torre played Miguel Cairo at first base a ridiculous five games in a row this past week.

The Yankees need to start playing Josh Phelps at first base full time, at least for now. Even more, they need to go out and acquire a first baseman who can mash - it shouldn’t be too hard. There is always a surfiet of Matt Stairs types floating around in Triple-A.

But most of all, they need to stage an intervention with Joe Torre and make him stop playing a guy with an on-base percentage of .282 and a slugging percentage of .250 at the premier hitting position on the diamond.

Blue Jays - find a way to appease the swamp hag that has put a hex on all their players

The Blue Jays need to bring in professional help to reverse the curse that has befallen all of their players. They need to stop walking under ladders and should start shooting black cats on sight if they try to cross their path. They need to do something - anything! - to get rid of bad luck that has put virtually their entire team on the DL this season.

Other than Vernon Wells, Alex Rios, Aaron Hill, and A.J. Burnett, the Blue Jays’ entire starting lineup, rotation, and most of the bullpen has been on the DL already. As of this writing, Toronto has 6 different pitchers and 3 starting-lineup hitters on the DL.

Even a mistake-prone yakuza could count on his left hand the number of teams that could win ballgames while losing quality players like Troy Glaus, Lyle Overbay, Greg Zaun, Reed Johnson, Roy Halladay, Gustavo Chacin, and B.J. Ryan all at once. He might not have any fingers left on that hand, but he wouldn’t need them, because there is no such team.

The Jays need to figure out what that hag wants out of them. Fast.

Devil Rays - 2 or 3 replacement-level starting pitchers

Although they have flown under the radar because, well, they’re the Devil Rays after all, Tampa Bay’s lineup is actually loaded with dangerous young hitters who can mash with the best of ‘em. In fact, Tampa Bay is 7th in the league in team OPS behind only the Tigers, Indians, Red Sox, Yankees, Mariners, and Angels. Read that list again - those are some pretty awesome hitting teams!

But where the D-Rays have truly been undone is in their starting rotation, or more specifically, in their odd willingness to stick with starting pitchers who obviously had no business starting major league games.

Amazingly, despite having a starting rotation ERA that ranked at the very bottom of all of baseball, the Rays stuck with the same five guys for two months without even one of them missing a start! Jamie Shields and Scott Kazmir have been good to great at the front end, but the abominable trio of Jae Seo, Casey Fossum, and Edwin Jackson were somehow allowed to start 31 games and toss 158 innings while posting a combined ERA of 7.75 between them.

At long last, just this past week, the D-Rays front office finally decided it had seen enough, shipping Fossum to the bullpen, cutting Seo, and bringing up their two best pitching prospects from Durham. It remains to be seen whether J.P. Howell and Andy Sonnanstine can do much better, and Jackson is still getting run out there every fifth day, but you have to think that anything at all would be better than what the Rays were going with the first two months of the season.

If the Rays had had even replacement-level starters instead of Seo, Fossum, and Jackson - guys who could go 5 or 6 with an ERA around 5.00 instead of around 8.00 - you’d have to believe that with their lineup, the D-Rays easily could have won 5 to 10 more games than they have.

Orioles - some kind of long term plan

The Orioles really need to develop some kind of organizational philosophy and start working toward some sort of long-term goal. Signing whatever scrap-heap “experienced veterans” there are to be had each offseason while ignoring scouting, statistical analyis, and player development is no kind of plan at all.

Guys like Miguel Tejada, Nick Markakis, Brian Roberts, Ramon Hernandez, Eric Bedard, and pitching coach Leo Mazzone represent a talented core around which a championship squad could theoretically be built if money was wisely invested in player development and useful role players.

But surrounding the few good players year after year with expensive, overrated big-name retreads like Jay Payton, Aubrey Huff, Kevin Millar, Kris Benson, Corey Patterson, Steve Trachsel, and Javy Lopez is no way to win anything.

Of course, owner Peter Angelos’s veto of a ridiculously good trade offer the Angels made last summer for Tejada illustrated, no sort of long term planning will be possible until somebody stands up to Angelos and tells him to let his baseball people do their jobs.

Just like the Yankees blossomed once Steinbrenner finally let his front office make decisions (although it did take a felony conviction and a 3-year ban from the game), the Orioles, with their payroll and fanbase, have a chance to be great again if Angelos backs off, but until such time, they are going to keep looking and playing just as awfully as those late 80s Yankees squads.

Boston - a more versatile fourth outfielder

What do you get for the girl who has everything? What could the team with the best record in baseball possibly need?

A fourth outfielder who can play centerfield and bring speed to the basepaths is what.

As long as the Red Sox are going to be one of these crazy AL teams that only carries 3 bench players (I’m not counting Doug Mirabelli, who is pretty useless for anything besides catching knuckleballs), they need to make sure those 3 players can fill all the needs they would have coming off the bench.

Alex Cora is a useful, slick-fielding middle infielder who can deliver the occasional pinch hit. Eric Hinske can play the corners and has some pop. So far so good.

Which brings us to Wily Mo Pena. Pena is a good player who deserves a starting job and could probably outhit half the everyday leftfielders in baseball if given a chance. But he is no kind of bench player. Strikeout-prone, defensively challenged, and slow of foot, he can’t really perform any of the roles that you would want out of a fourth outfielder, such as coming in as a defensive replacement, being counted on to have a good at bat as a pinch-hitter, or coming in as a pinch runner.

More than anything, the Red Sox need a bench player who can play centerfield, run the bases, and make contact as a pinch hitter. Not only because they need those things off the bench from time to time and don’t have them, but because their worst everyday player - the guy you would most want to spell in the lineup from time to time - is Coco Crisp.

This is part of a series of posts in which we call out all 30 teams for their wily offseason moves and tragic offseason blunders.

The Devil Rays made many changes this offseason. First off, they changed their name (to take effect in 2008) — soon they’ll be Just Plain Rays, thankyouverymuch. (No word on whether pressure from the Christian right contingent in Florida had anything to do with it. Nevertheless, I think we can all agree that “Tampa Bay Rays” is vastly superior.)

The [pause] Rays also added yoga to their Spring Training regimen. And they redid the turf in the Trop, making it a bit slower. It’s the same as those football turfs that have a surface like blades of grass, though the Rays are the first baseball team to use it. And now, without further ado, the roster moves:

The big acquisition for the [silence] Rays is a new Japanese third baseman, Akinori Iwamura. You will be forgiven for not hearing about this sooner, because Aki, as he is known, went to the [ahem] Rays and not to, say, the Yankees or the Red Sox, and he’s not the best or second-best pitcher in the home country. Nevertheless, he is a .300 hitter who is expected to hit 20 HR and knock in about 60 or more RBI. He’s also made a bit of news for himself by having his own stylish BP bat, shown above, with “no pain, no gain” stenciled on it in Japanese. Seems like someone’s trying to make up for lost publicity…and seems like it’s working, too:

He also wore a pair of Oakley sunglasses with mp3 earbuds. The name “Aki” and his No. 1 were stitched across the chest of his Nike warmup shirt. Even his black socks had No. 1 on them. He took grounders with a black glove with green stringing and, as he promised, a piece of alligator skin in the webbing.

But aside from the name, the yoga, the turf, and the Aki, it’s la plus ca change la plus c’est la meme chose for the [sound of wind blowing] Rays, who are still young, cheap, and likely to finish at the bottom of the AL East. Last year, they scored the fewest runs of any MLB team, and their pitching and defense were similarly wretched. Not exactly a recipe for success.

The one area where the [tumbleweed blowing by] Rays actually look like a decent, professional ballclub is the outfield. Carl Crawford, their leftfielder, has been steadily improving at the plate every year, to the point where he hit .305 last season and knocked in 77 runs, also contributing a respectable 18 homers. Oh, and his range factor was the best of any leftfielder in the AL. Not too shabby, Carl. As for the centerfielder, Rocco Baldelli is another steadily imrpoving .300 hitter who’s pretty solid on defense and can occasionally hit for power. (Also, he has to have one of the best names of any active player. “Now batting…the centerfielder…Rocco Ballllldelli!” That’s hot.) Delmon Young, the rightfielder, only got in 30 games last year (his first in the majors) but managed to hit .317 with 9 doubles, 3 homers, and a total of 40 hits. Not too shabby. You can see why [yippee tai yai yo, git along little dogies] Rays’ fans are excited to see more of him. All four of them, that is. And outfielder/DH Jonny Gomes showed up to camp looking and feeling better than he has in years; so good, in fact, that some of his teammates didn’t recognize him. This may complicate things for young Delmon, since Gomes was going to be stuck DHing and at first if his shoulder was still icky.

The infield, aside from Aki, is rather boring. The only offseason action of note was utility man Ty Wigginton delivering his own baby, as his wife suddenly went into labor in the master bedroom closet. Word on the street is that this season, Wiggy may get some more time at first, while B.J. Upton will become a sort of super-utility man, a la Chone Figgins of the Angels. Ben Zobrist, who took over from Joey Gathright at short last season, has no offense to speak of, and neither does catcher Dioner Navarro. And second baseman Jorge Cantu, unlike the outfielders on the team, has been steadily getting worse–though he came up in 2004 hitting .300, he has since slid down to the .250 range. Team defense may—may—improve this year with the slower turf.

As for their pitching this year, the [crickets, crickets] Rays’ rotation is hardly jaw-dropping. However, they have a bit of a bottleneck for their fifth slot, and recently acquired South Korean pitcher Jae Kuk Ryu from the Cubs for two minor leaguers. (Yes, the guy who once killed a bird with a baseball.) They will at least have a decent shot at winning one game of every five thanks to the rocket arm of staff ace Scott Kazmir. The rest of the rotation? Basically a bunch of guys you’ve either never heard of, or you say to yourself, “Oh yeah, we had that guy a couple years ago. He wasn’t….terrible.” And the bullpen? What bullpen? Honestly, the [house creaking] Rays would be better off converting it to a ballpit or a strip club or a roller rink—anything that would get them some attendance. One stat I found said that the Rays were ahead in 121 games last year, but managed to squander the lead and lose 60 times. Ouch.

Poor, poor benighted [howl of lone wolf baying at moon] Rays. They are truly the 3rd-world country of the American League—improvement is always just around the corner, never actually arriving.

Losses: Travis Harper, Travis Lee, Tyler Walker, Brian Meadows, Damon Hollis

Acquisitions: Akinora Iwamura, Al Reyes, Stephan Andrade, Tony Peguero, Dustan Mohr, Hee-Sop Choi, Jorge Velandia, Bredan Harris, Gary Glover, Jason Grabowski (don’t “Grabowski” and “Glover” sound like good fielders’ names?), Yamid Haad, Scott Dohmann., Jae Kuk Ryu.

Projected Rotation, Lineup, and Closer:

CF Baldelli (.302, OBP .339)
RF Young (.317)
3B Iwamura (projected .300, 20 HR, 60 RBI)
LF Crawford (.305, .348 OBP, 18 HR 77 RBI)
1B Wigginton (.275, .330 OBP, 24 HR, 79 RBI)
DH Gomes (.216, .325 OBP, 20 HR, 59 RBI)
2B Cantu (.249, 62 RBI)
C Navarro (.254)
SS Zobrist (.224)

Scott Kazmir (RHP, 3.27, 10-8 last year with a WHIP of 1.27) to be followed by any combination of the following spare parts: Jae Seo, Casey Fossum, Tim Corcoran, Jamie Shields, Brian Stokes, Jason Hammel, Jeff Nieman. A closer is the least of their worries, alas.

Grade: C+

- Hot Offseason Action Index -

1. The Devil Rays will have new uniforms in 2008, including a new color scheme. The organization toyed with the idea of renaming the team, but have instead opted to perform an exorcism, casting out the “devil” and making them the Tampa Bay Rays.

2. The Devil Rays think part of B.J. Upton’s offensive struggles are the result of concern over his defensive problems. So to lessen his worry, they plan to give him more to do.

The St. Pete Times is reporting that in addition to Upton playing shortstop and third, the Rays will have him work at second and in the outfield this spring to explore the possibility of turning him into a super-utility-type such as the Angels’ Chone Figgins.

From the St. Pete Times:

“I would like to take the pressure off his defense somewhat. Everything has been about his defense,” manager Joe Maddon said. “During the last couple of years, it’s been all about being the shortstop of the future, and then you throw him over to third base and it’s about becoming the third baseman of the future.

Okay, Joe. That’s one way to go. Or, you could just give the guy a position and let him stay there long enough to learn it. Whatever. Either one works.

3. The Rays will do yoga in spring training. They’ll have morning classes three times a week.

4. A half-dozen Japanese papers and a TV crew plan to cover new Devil Rays 3B Akinori Iwamura on a regular basis, at least through May. A Japanese travel agent has told the Rays he is bringing a group in April from Iwamura’s hometown. While Iwamura said Uwajima is known for tangerines and yellowtails, its “principal claim of fame” - and this is straight from the Rays media guide - is the Taga-jinja Shrine, a “giant phallus carved out of log.” The 12-foot carving is part of an ancient fertility shrine and adjacent to a sex museum. — St. Pete Times.

A new Harris Poll reveals that, for the fourth season in a row, the Yankees are America’s favorite team, with the Mets coming in second. The Braves are third, and the Cubs fourth. Rounding out the top five are the Red Sox.

Who is America’s least favorite team? The Toronto Blue Jays—not much of a surprise, considering that the pollsters excluded our neighbors to the north from their sample. It hardly seems fair to mock MLB’s only Canadian team for coming in dead last in a poll of Americans.

In which case, we will mock the next-least-liked team: the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

Is anyone going to be heartbroken by that? Maybe this guy: