Rays Arizona Fall League Observations

By RaysRadio

From Sunday-Wednesday, our broadcast department spent a significant amount of time with the Rays participants in the Arizona Fall League. Each MLB team has seven players and a coach represented, with the 210 players divided among six clubs. The AFL includes some of the top prospects in the game for about a five to six-week “season.” Because the pitchers the Rays sent will throw fewer than 20 innings, and the hitters from the organization attending will have fewer than 150 at-bats, I think it’s important not to take too much into the results because it is such a small sample size. Each player the Rays send has specific areas to work on or goals while there.

Casey Gillaspie and Daniel Robertson are both in Arizona because of their skill level, but also because they missed at-bats in the regular season due to injury. Robertson also is playing second base. Each organization can only mandate one player starts at least four times a week. Gillaspie is that player from the Rays organization, so to ensure Robertson gets enough at-bats (and to make him more versatile), he’s seeing action at second base as well as short.

From watching his early work and his play in games, Robertson’s movements were natural and he showed excellent range and solid footwork for a position he has hardly played. Gillaspie showed good hands and footwork around first base too. While he wasn’t getting great results at the plate, Gillaspie mas making consistent hard contact the days I watched and looked solid from both sides of the plate (for those of you who don’t know Gillaspie is a switch-hitter).

With Gillaspie getting most of the reps at first base for Mesa, Jake Bauers is playing the outfield. Bauers just turned 20 before the AFL began, and is the youngest player in the league. During the time we were there, Bauers was not really tested in the outfield. However, watching his at-bats and game action, it was clear why so many people in the Rays organization are excited about him. Bauers has a short compact swing, knows his strike zone, and appears to have a good plan, while making good solid contact.

On the mound, none of the pitchers I saw worked more than an inning, so it’s difficult to make any judgments. Brad Schreiber had some deception to his delivery, and it’s easy to understand why he was reliever of the year in the Rays organization.

None of the seven Rays players participating have to be placed on the 40-man roster until at least next year, so AFL play should hopefully give them a jump on a successful 2016.

During the days we had unique access to all of the Rays players, and much of it will be documented on video at www.raysbaseball.com/prospectspotlight over the next few weeks.

Neil Solondz