Ken Davidoff's baseball insider

Here is my Midweek Insider, which focuses on the Washington Nationals' interest in hiring Willie Randolph to be their bench coach or third-base coach - and the ramifications that could have on the Mets, who adore Nats manager Manny Acta.

Got places to go and people to see this morning, so I'll make this quick. MIdweek Insider coming later.

But really, I feel like I'm running out of things to say on the Rays, anyway. Here is the column I wrote from ALCS Game 4.

My very troubled mind, which tends to view everything in life through cheesy pop-culture references, summoned "The Fly II" last night. Remember how Martin Brundle, the hybrid insect-human, already looked like a grown-up Eric Stoltz by the time he turned five?

That's how I think of these Rays. We knew they were going to be good, but not this quickly. What a force they have become.

There are times in our great game when a team's weakness is so obvious, there's just no hiding it. The fans see it, the media sees it and the team, too, realizes that this can no longer go on.

So it is with the Bobby Meacham firing. His job was to serve as the third-base coach, and coach the infielders. Meacham, a nice man with an interesting personal history as a Yankee, exhibited terrible instincts in the third-base coaching box. And his most important infield charge, Robinson Cano, had a terrible season.

Slam dunk. Who replaces him? Kat O'Brien and I will hopefully come up with some candidates before the day is out. I think the Yankees should consider bringing Luis Sojo up to coach first base and switch Tony Pena to third base _ assuming Pena, largely shunned by Joe Girardi in 2008, agrees to come back.

Sojo was offered the first-base coaching job for the 2006 season, but in a decision he later regretted, he decided that, rather than take a "demotion" from the third-base side (where he was indeed awful in 2005), he'd manage Class A Tampa and be with his family. Sojo is respected immensely by both Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez and was Girardi's teammate from 1996 through 1999.

This move is a blow to Girardi, have no doubts; Girardi's two coaching hires when he got the job were Meacham and bullpen coach Mike Harkey. It's a signal that he and his staff have to do better in '09.

The Monteleone firing is pretty meaningless. Monteleone, a nice man like Meacham, has been part of the Yankees' traveling group the past seven years based on one primary qualification: He's very close with the Steinbrenner family. I'm certain he'll stay within the Yankees organization, probably working with young pitchers in Tampa.

The baseball amateur draft is probably the most flawed of the major sports'. It's really doubly flawed: Not only does it lack any sort of real cap on signing bonuses, thereby allowing the rich teams to spend big, but it DOES have an unofficial cap in the slotting system, thereby encouraging poor teams (or, in certain cases, cheap teams) to pass on superior talent in order to please Bud Selig.

Aside from the finance and politics, also, it's just difficult to project which amateur baseball players are going to thrive in the major leagues. More difficult, it appears, than in the other sports.

So, to further attempt clarity on this murky topic, the best teams are those which, when bad enough off the field to earn a high draft pick, display the boldness and bucks to ensure they get worse draft picks, down the line (because they finish higher in the standings).

We're talking, of course, about the Rays, who ran circles around the Red Sox at ALCS Game 3 at Fenway Park. Here is my column from the game. The Sawx might be the model franchise, but last night, as I wrote, they looked like a bunch of exhausted parents, trying to keep up with their energetic children.

Let's look at the Rays' key players last night, and how those players arrived courtesy of the amateur draft. And let's contrast those players with whom the Pirates, the model awful franchise of the last 15 years, selected in the same year and round. Thanks to Baseball America for the info.

1. B.J. Upton, who has been tremendous this postseason, crushed a three-run, third-inning homer onto Lansdowne Street. The Rays selected Upton with the second overall pick of the 2002 draft and paid him $4.6 million. The Pirates, the only team that picked before Tampa Bay in that draft, selected pitcher Bryan Bullington and paid him $4 million.

2. Evan Longoria hit a solo homer two batters after Upton in the third inning, extending Tampa Bay's lead to 5-0. The Rays picked Longoria with the third overall pick of the 2006 draft, paying him $3 million. The Pirates, picking right after Tampa Bay, selected pitcher Brad Lincoln and paid him $2.75 million. Lincoln has yet to pitch in the big leagues, or even, as you can see in this link, above Class A.

3. Rocco Badelli iced the game with a thee-run, eighth-inning homer. The Rays selected Badelli sixth overall in the 2000 draft, paying him $2.25 million. The Pirates drafted 19th in 2000 and went with pitcher Sean Burnett, paying him $1.650 million.

4. Matt Garza (that's him pictured) overpowered the Red Sox for the victory. The Rays acquired Garza last November in a trade for Delmon Young, whom Tampa Bay selected with the top pick of the 2003 amateur draft and paid $3.7 million. The Pirates went eighth in that draft and picked Paul Maholm, who has turned into a pretty decent pitcher.

So with the same four drafts that the Rays used to select two core players, a key trade chip and a core-player-turned-inspirational-role-player, the Bucs got one usable piece in Maholm. The Pirates will draft fourth in 2008. The Rays will draft 30th. Here is the entire order (scroll down), in case you're curious.

It will get harder now for the Rays; if they want the same, high-impact talent, they're going to have to likely deal with Scott Boras clients who get bypassed because of high demands. But Tampa Bay should do just that, for it has proven the value of identifying and signing amateur talent with big potential. Think of how much Upton, Longoria and Garza, in particular, would be worth on the open market right now. Tampa Bay did very well on those initial outlays.

Read this story by ESPN's Howard Bryant to find out.

I enjoy learning more about people who defy convention, and about the resistance they face from the establishment.

Just getting started here at Fenway. Nothing very exciting happened before the game. Enjoy.

Thanks to this site for the photo.

Greetings from the Acela, headed north. As I type this sentence, I'm in the Bronx. But since there's no baseball here (or in Queens), I've got to keep going, all the way to Boston, for today's ALCS Game 3.

Should be a fun few days at Fenway Park, and I'm delighted that we now have competitive series in both leagues.

And of course, we're all wondering the same thing, after last night's tense NLCS Game 3:

Where was this vengeful, eye-for-an-eye Joe Torre during the prior 12 years?

That's what John Harper and Joel Sherman both asked, and had I been in Chavez Ravine last night, I hope I would've been awake enough to ponder the same question.

The answer is, I don't know. It was perhaps the weirdest component of Torre's managerial reign that he didn't insist that his pitchers back up his players, primarily against the Red Sox, who hit the Yankees batters far more than the other way around.

There were Yankees pitchers, most notably Roger Clemens and David Wells, who did retaliate, and Torre always expressed appreciation (as much as he could, publicly, without getting himself in trouble) afterwards. But the Red Sox abuse did seem to be at its worst from 2004 through 2006, the years when the Yankees employed neither Clemens nor Wells.

It's no coincidence that the primary face of the Yankees' starting rotation from that time was Mike Mussina, who steadfastly refused to engage in retaliatory tactics. Mussina loved working for Torre, but I think even if Torre had ordered Mussina to brush someone back, the Moose would've refused.

Did any of this matter? You can argue not really, since the Yankees did beat out the Red Sox for the AL East from 1998 through '06. On the other hand, a turning point of the 2004 ALCS - and, therefore, a turning point in Torre's reign - occurred when Pedro Martinez knocked HIdeki Matsui on his rear end in Game 5 and no one responded.

If nothing else, the dynamic contributed to the perception that the Yankees needed a more "fiery" manager.

The Yankees sure seemed to lack October toughness too often from 2002 through 2007. And in Friday night's NLCS Game 2, young Dodgers starter Chad Billingsley did nothing after Brett Myers threw behind Manny Ramirez in the first inning. I spent a minute or two with Billingsley afterwards, and when a reporter asked him about retaliating, he responded, "I tried to get a few pitches inside," but his location was just that bad. Not impressive.

(Update: Now I'm in Stamford. Has anyone ever live-blogged a train ride?)

Anyhoo, everyone knew the Dodgers had to respond - the Dodgers discussed it extensively, as David Lennon documented in his game story - and that was before Russell Martin got hit by Jamie Moyer in the first inning and buzzed by Clay Condery in the second. Good job by Hiroki Kuroda, taking care of business, albeit a little on the high side, as Shane Victorino pointed out so memorably.

I chose this photo of Mariano Duncan because I have a particular fondness for skirmishes that involve coaches and managers. That just seems to raise the stakes. I loved seeing Phillies coach Davey Lopes, the longtime Dodger, exchange shouts with Dodgers coach Larry Bowa, the longtime Phillie. I loved this 2005 incident involving Frank Robinson and Mike Scioscia. I even loved it when our blog's lightning rod, John Stearns, got fired up during the Clemens bat-throwing incident in 2000.

I didn't love Don Zimmer's attack of Pedro in 2003, however. I thought that was stupid, and I'm still stumped over how Zimmer avoided a suspension.

(Update: Norwalk)

Here is my Sunday Insider, which focuses on A.J. Burnett's past, present and future.

Here is the Seventh-Inning Stretch.

What a great game this was. Alas, I fell asleep in the eighth inning and woke up during the post-game show. These Rays are not going down quietly.

You know what cracked me up about this story? Hank Steinbrenner refers to "some piss-ant employee," referring to anyone on the Yankees' payroll besides himself or his brother Hal.

But Hank is such a fraud - albiet a highly entertaining one - that the people who work for the Yankees, particularly the ones lower on the totem pole whom you might think of "piss-ant," don't hate Hank. They just laugh at him. Because Hank isn't even focused or energetic enough to take the time to get to know/bully such people.

Have a great day.