How could a team focused on developing leadership in the clubhouse acquire players like Matt Bush or Josh Lueke with such troubled pasts? You can say that those are minor league players whose maturation off the field was going to be as key to their development as their improvement on the field, but we’re not talking just any immature young player but a player with a history of drunken incidents (culminating with him going to jail after a hit-and-run incident) and a player who was accused of rape and pled it down to a lesser charge, still spending 30 days in prison. Even moving beyond Bush and Lueke, why did they sign Manny Ramirez? And even after Ramirez bombed out so spectacularly, the Rays acquired another enigmatic personality this offseason, Yunel Escobar! It’s gotten to the point where you see media outlets say that the Rays don’t care about players’ clubhouse presences when evaluating whether to acquire them. What happened? Why have the Rays reversed course so severely?

The biggest reason that the Rays could not continue to set a premium on character is simply money. The Rays can’t be too picky regarding which players they’re willing to acquire because few talented players fall into their price range and if they focus too much on clubhouse presence, an already thin market for players they have a chance at would only dwindle. In an ideal world, the Rays would sign as many high-character guys as they can, but it’s simply impossible within their budgetary contraints. However, at the same time, the Rays have realized that players with attitude problems are an underexposed inefficiency.

We don’t live in a world where players are evaluated surely on their level of performance and upside to improve. A player’s character is something many teams value as high as anything else, with the Arizona Diamondbacks trading Justin Upton and Trevor Bauer being recent prominent examples. Players with histories of attitude problems carry an additional element of risk to go along with the risks that accompany every baseball player. But if you’re willing to take on that risk, the reward can be an impact major league player at a fraction of what he would be worth based on talent alone. Real or perceived character issues drop players’ values significantly in the eyes of teams and bring talented players down to contract levels that teams like the Rays can afford. And when the Rays see an opportunity to sign an undervalued player, they tend to pounce.

Character can work in both directions. Players who are known as great “clubhouse guys” can manage to stay in baseball long after their primes- how else would Mark DeRosa get a guaranteed contract this offseason? But at the same time, those players are not necessarily as good for a team on the field as they are in clubhouse. The Rays signed several character guys in 2008, but Troy Percival didn’t have much left as a big league player and neither did Cliff Floyd. Carlos Pena may have been another leader in the Rays’ clubhouse, but Rays fans watched him fall apart as well this past season. You don’t play someone millions of dollars to play baseball simply because he’s good guy. They need to perform, and performance has to come first. For many teams, there are exceptions- legendary players entering the twilights of their careers get retained by their teams for just about however long they want to play, and even lesser stars receive a great deal of leeway from their teams even after their performance drops off. But simply put, the Rays can’t afford that. They need to find a way to put a contending ballclub on the field season after season and they don’t have time to be sentimental. It’s sad to see them go back on their ideals and sign players we wouldn’t want our kids to emulate. But the most important thing for the Rays is winning, and lessening the importance of character in their evaluations is something that helps them do exactly that.

Dominican Winter League Postseason: Leones de Escogido 9, Aguilas Cibaenas 0

This game was never really close, but quite a few Rays played big roles. For Escogido, Jorge Cantu slammed a 2-run homer in the 2nd to begin the scoring and Jesus Feliciano was great out of leadoff spot, going 2 for 4 with a walk, a stolen base, and 2 runs scored, while for Cibaenas, Manny Ramirez was their only player who could say he had a nice game, going 2 for 3 with a double. Other current and former Rays to appear in the game were Leslie Anderson for Escogido, who went 0 for 4 but actually drew a walk (yay!), and for Cibaenas, Hector Luna went 0 for 4, Omar Luna grounded out pinch-hitting for Ramirez with the game out of hand, and Bobby Livingston did not pitch well out of the bullpen for Cibaenas, allowing a hit and a walk while going just a third of an inning. One non-Ray that we have to note is Nelson Figueroa, who went 8 innings for the Leones allowing just 4 hits, striking out 7 while walking just 1.

Mexican Pacific League Playoffs Game 7: Aguilas de Mexicali vs. Algodoneros de Guasave (we’ll leave you in suspense regarding the score for the moment)

They had blown it. The Aguilas had built up a 3-1 series lead only to lose their next two games, and suddenly they were facing elimination. Then Mark Hamilton slammed a homer for Guasave and Mexicali fans realized that their team’s collapse might really be happening. But the Aguilas were too talented to let everything end like that. They rallied for 6 runs in the 2nd inning and 4 more in the 5th on their way to a statement 12-4 win to get them to the Mexican Pacific League Championship Series. Walter Silva gave the Aguilas 7.2 strong innings, Ricky Alvarez, Jorge Guzman, and Roman Pena and slammed home runs, and in terms of the ex-Rays, Wes Bankston went 1 for 3 with 2 walks and 2 runs scored, walking to start the 2nd inning rally, while Weber went 1 for 4 with a walk, an RBI, and a run scored.

Dominican Winter League Postseason: Estrellas de Oriente 7, Aguilas Cibaenas 3

Extremely tough game as they blew a 3-0 lead after 5 innings by allowing 3 runs in the 6th and 4 in the 7th. Lorenzo Barcelo struck out 7 across 5.1 innings for Cibaenas but came apart in that 6th inning. Among the ex-Rays, Manny Ramirez went 1 for 4 with a double, a walk, and a run scored while Hector Luna went 0 for 4 with a walk.

Toros del Este 5, Leones de Escogido 4

Julio Lugo and Willy Aybar were hitting so well that the Leones moved them up to second and fifth in their lineup respectively. That did not go so well. Lugo went just 0 for 5 with a Golden Sombrero while Aybar went 0 for 3 with a walk. They provided no help as Escogido nearly came back from a 5-0 deficit. The Houston Astros’ Fernando Abad was excellent for Este, going 5 innings allowing just an unearned run on 4 hits, striking out 7 while walking 1.

Sanchez came up huge for Lara only to see his performance go for nought in the game. (Credit: Flickr user tjperr)

Venezuelan Winter League Playoffs: Navegantes de Magallanes 4, Cardelanes de Lara 3

The Cardelanes were able to come back to tie the game after trailing 3-1, thanks in no small part to Romulo Sanchez, who was dominant in the 4th and 5th innings, going 1.2 innings allowing just 1 hit, striking out 3 and recording his other two outs via groundouts. Even after a miserable season at Triple-A Durham for the Rays in 2012 (6.31 ERA), more pitching like that is going to get Sanchez another invite to a big league camp somewhere. However, you get the feeling that Magallanes is going to win it all in the VWL. The Texas Rangers and San Francisco Giants played each other in the 2010 World Series, but key players from each team, Elvis Andrus and Pablo Sandoval, are teammates for the Navegantes and hitting out of their minds. In this game, Sandoval hit a go-ahead home run in the 8th inning while Andrus went 3 for 4 with a run scored. Jean Machi nailed down the save for Magallanes, working around a walk in the 9th with 2 groundballs and a pop-out to end the game. Erold Andrus, whose playing time over the past month for the Navegantes has been almost unbelievably sparse, went 0 for 4. Good luck to him rediscovering his stroke because as we saw earlier in the VWL season, he has the ability to be another key contributor in the Magallanes lineup to pair with Sandoval and the other Andrus.

Leones del Caracas 4, Aguilas del Zulia 1

The Leones del Caracas have to be asking themselves why they didn’t give Daniel Mayora earlier. Mayora, who didn’t receive regular playing time until his ex-Durham teammate Henry Wrigley went home for the winter, went 1 for 2 with an RBI and a run scored for Caracas and is hitting a solid .286 for the Leones so far in the VWL playoffs. One other little-known ex-Ray that we have never mentioned before got into the game for Zulia as Deivis Mavarez went a third of an inning for the Aguilas, allowing a hit. Mavarez, 26, was a little right-hander in the Rays system from 2007 to 2011 after getting released from the Astros organization and showed some promise, reaching as high as High-A in his first season in the US in 2009, but he saw his career top out there as he managed just a 61-51 strikeout to walk ratio in 81.2 High-A innings.