The Pat Burrell Era Ends In Tampa Bay

How bad do you have to be performing to be cut by a team that counts every penny more closely than Ebenezer Scrooge did before the three ghosts visited? Well, Pat Burrell was playing very bad.

The Rays had no more use for Burrell

The Tampa Bay Rays designated DH Pat Burrell for assignment on Saturday and will have 10 days to either trade, release, or waive him. The Rays will be on the hook for the remainder of Burrell’s contract, which has roughly $8 million left on it.

The Rays don’t have much financial flexibility when it comes to player’s contracts, so they must have been just completely fed up with Burrell. He had a hitting line of .202/.292/.333 with two home runs and 28 K’s in 96 AB’s.

I for one, am really surprised this didn’t work out for the Rays and Burrell. When the Rays signed Burrell to a two-year, $18 million contract in January of 2009, I thought this was a fantastic move for the Rays.

The Rays desperately needed another right-handed bat in the lineup to compliment Evan Longoria and Burrell was coming off a 33 home run season in Philadelphia. It seemed like a perfect match.

However, Burrell just never got on track in Tampa.

Burrell hit .221/.315/.367 with just 14 home runs last year for the Rays. To make matters worse, Burrell was dreadful against lefties. He hit just .202 with a .588 OPS against lefties last year, which made Burrell even more useless than he already was.

If you can believe it, Burrell was actually worse against lefties in 2010. Burrell was hitting just .083 against lefties in 12 AB’s before he was DFA’d.

If you are a one-dimensional player and don’t perform within that dimension, then there is no point of having you on the roster. And that is exactly what happened with Burrell.

Overall, Burrell looked old and slow in a Rays’ uniform. He had a hard time catching up to the fastball, which caused him to cheat and swing wildly at pitches out of the zone. In his one-plus year in Tampa, Burrell had swung at more pitches out of the strike zone than at any point in his career.

At the age of 33, I doubt Burrell gets a chance with another club. What does he offer that Jermaine Dye doesn’t? I can’t imagine Burrell getting a job before Dye does.

As a result of Burrell being shipped out of town, the Rays have called up Hank Blalock from Triple-A. The former Texas Ranger and two-time All Star was hitting .349 with four home runs in 109 AB’s in Triple-A Durham.

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