Tampa Bay Rays - Durham Bulls - Tampa Bay Rays - Durham Bulls: Rehab Assignments

The purpose of the Durham Bulls Baseball Club, other than being the economic engine that drives the entire Triangle region, is to serve the needs of the Tampa Bay Rays. In a perfect world we’d like to see a mutually beneficial relationship. I thought I’d take a look at the comings and goings between the Bulls and the Rays this year and see if any judgments could be made on who helped whom.

Most of the numbers are from the Bulls website, but a few come from the game notes that Bulls broadcaster Neil Solondz put together for the AAA championship game, and a few from Baseball-Reference.com.

First we have to deal with the rehabilitation assignments. We had 3 pitchers and 2 position players spend some time with the Bulls as they were recovering from an injury. The up side of a rehab assignment is significant. We get to see a bona fide major leaguer at the DBAP and, if he has a good night, he helps us in a game. The down side is that our manager’s hands are pretty much tied on just how much he can use the player and in what situations.

The pitchers:

Chad Bradford (mid June, 4 appearances), Jason Isringhausen (late April, 6 appearances), and Scott Kazmir (late June, 1 appearance) visited the Bulls this year. As a group, they did OK by the Bulls: 17 ⅔ innings pitched, ERA of 4.08, 2 wins, 0 losses.

Position players:

We only had two position players come through on rehab assignments, and both of them in August. Second baseman Akinori Iwamura and outfielder Fernando Perez played in 11 and 13 games and were very helpful as we were making our run for the Governors’ Cup. Each had ten hits and two RBIs. Both of them had an unusually high number of walks (Iwamura 9, Perez 10). Perez stole an exceptional 8 bases while only being caught once. And they both managed to get all the way around the bases a lot, Iwamura scored 9 runs and Perez scored 10.

So I’ve got to conclude that sending the rehabbers through Durham helped us this year.

In future posts I’ll take a look at the pitchers and position players who went back and forth in 2009.