The year was 2003. Lou Piniella was starting his job as the skipper of the Tampa Bay “Devil” Rays. He took two youngsters in Carl Crawford and Rocco Baldelli and made them starters on his club. The thing about Rocco and Carl is that they never really had the On Base Skills, but never the less, he made them the 1-2 punch in his lineup that year. As the story goes, Rocco got off to a magnificent start and was being compared unfairly to a Joe DiMaggio. Whereas, Carl started decently but saw his batting average go down sharply and the talk was do we send the young kid back to Durham. Instead, Lou made the wise move of dropping him in the order to take the pressure off of him. I guess the rest is history, as Carl worked his bat back into a groove and over the past few years has become one of the most dynamic players in the game. This move worked out for Lou, but it doesn’t always with young players as their psyche usually is quite delicate.
This season Piniella is tasked again with another young outfielder in Felix Pie. This season Lou will make use of Pie the way he did with Crawford and take the pressure off him and dropping him in the batting order. As, last year he started him at lead off and it was a bust.
Now, like i implied, Carl Crawford was rushed through the minor leagues. They were quite fortunate how it worked out. I always thought Pie reminded me of Crawford, as I had saw Crawford play in the minors for the Durham Bulls. I decided to compare their minor league careers, and see if this might give an indication of what we might expect with Pie.
Rookie Ball
Pie 17: .321/.385/.569 2002
Crawford 17 .319/.350/.404 1999
A Ball
Pie 18 .285/.346/.388 2003
Crawford 18 .301/.342/.410 2000
AAA
Pie 2006 21 .283/.341/.451 2006
Crawford 20 .297/.335/.456 2002
Minors Summary
Crawford .295 /.334 /.400
Pie .300/.355/.469
Despite the bad year last season for Pie with Cubs last year, the prediction systems seem to have a favorable outlook for him.
Chone 08
PA,Run,H,Dbl,Tpl,HR,RBI,SB, BB,SO,BA,OBP
536,65,135,27,7,13,65,22, 38,107, 0.272,0.326 Pie
603,97,171,31,9,14,70,45, 34,87,0.303,0.347 Crawford
429,62R,113H, 25,4,14,53,13,31,84K,0.291,0.344 Pie
I am not sure what to think. I Know Pie was a joke last year, but I think with the experience under his belt he might surprise. His glove is what they need out of him, and anything after that is gravy!
[...] by davidbloom Pie is out for about a week with a problem below the belt. I have spoke about the Pie and Piniella situation before, and this procedure probably is not taking place now if there is still a [...]