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Longoria Decision Imminent?

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Marc Lancaster/The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 11, 2008

ST. PETERSBURG - Evan Longoria may know whether he'll be the Rays' Opening Day third baseman before he gets his first Grapefruit League at-bat.

An organizational reluctance to lend too much credence to spring training statistics - whether good or bad - has Tampa Bay's brain-trust pondering an early decision on whether their top prospect is ready to make the leap to the majors. The matter hasn't been settled yet, said executive vice president Andrew Friedman, but the Rays may inform Longoria that he definitely is or isn't going to make the team so he doesn't feel like each spring training game is an audition he has to survive.

"It's something that we're going to talk about actively," Friedman said. "As we stand here today, it's something that personally I think I prefer, but it's going to be an active debate that we're going to go through and talk about and discuss."

There certainly will be some who want to see Longoria take his hacks against big-league pitchers in March before making the call, and Rays manager Joe Maddon put himself in that category Thursday.

"I'm into seeing it play out," Maddon said. "I've often said it and I'll say it again: I'm really not a big proponent of evaluating players during spring training, but when you have so many close calls, sometimes you have to rely upon that."

NEW WRINKLE: The Rays added to their major-league staff Thursday, hiring former big-league infielder Tim Bogar to fill a newly created "quality assurance coach" position.

Bogar, 43, has spent the past four seasons managing in the minors for the Indians and Astros. With the Rays, he will step into a job that blends on-field coaching and scouting. His responsibilities will include administrative tasks like organizing spring training and compiling advance scouting reports with pregame instruction in base-running and bunting, among other things.

Because major-league rules limit teams to six coaches in the dugout during games, Bogar will scout the team from the stands, searching for holes opponents may be looking to exploit.

"As an aspiring manager myself, it's going to give me an opportunity to basically intern and watch what's going on," Bogar said. "But for the most part it's a situation where I just want to be there and try to make Joe's job easy."

NOTEWORTHY: The Rays are expected to announce as early as today that they will seek approval to play their April 22-24 home series against the Blue Jays at Disney's Wide World of Sports. ... Along with Longoria, other players not on the 40-man roster invited to big-league spring training so far are SS Reid Brignac, LHP Jake McGee and RHPs Wade Davis and Chris Mason. ... Bill Evers, the former Rays bench coach whose contract was not renewed last fall, will remain with the organization as a professional scout. ... Tickets for individual spring training games go on sale online beginning at 9 a.m. today. Single-game tickets for regular-season games go on sale Feb. 23.

Marc Lancaster

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