Tampa Bay Rays: A Look Back at the 1997 Expansion Draft

Dimitri Young

The 16th pick of the draft resulted in the Rays walking away with Dimitri Young. The former fourth-overall pick of the 1991 draft was would go one to become a scary slugger who would hit .292 with an OPS of .826 over a 13-year career. Young was a professional hitter who, on November 18, 1997, was swept away from the Reds in the expansion draft, then traded back to them as a player to be named later from a deal earlier in the day.

Roller Coaster of a Day… a Week.

Young wasn’t even packing the boxes yet, he was looking for boxes to prepare for his move to St. Petersburg, Florida before he found out that he was traded back to the team he was just on a few hours prior. The crazy thing for Dimitri was that he was just traded from the Cardinals to the Reds only seven days prior to all of these shenanigans! Another missed opportunity for the Rays here, but a cool story.

Fred McGriff

After the draft was over the trades began. While the Rays did not trade for the ‘Crime Dog’ they did purchase his services from the Atlanta Braves. Fred McGriff finished his 19-year major-league carer in the big leagues with a .509 slugging percentage. In his first season with the Rays, he was good. He hit .284 with a .371 on-base percentage while hitting 19 homers and driving in 81 runs. The following season the ‘Crime Dog’ took a bite out of the American League by smashing 32 dingers with 104 RBI while hitting .310.

Major League Baseball never made the list of protected players public but Peter Gammons uncovered a few tidbits in this article from 2001. With hindsight being 20/20, here’s a look at some interesting names that could have been Tampa Bay Devil Rays in 1998.

John Rocker was left unprotected in the expansion draft by the Atlanta Braves. He would go on to make his debut for the Braves that season and impressed with a 2.13 ERA in 38.0 innings. Rocker would become the Braves closer for the next three seasons. There was some controversy, you may recall.

Torii Hunter was unprotected in the first round by Minnesota, but luckily for the Twins, they lost Brent Brede instead of Hunter. Torii would go on to win nine Gold Gloves and make five All-Star appearances.

Derek Lowe had only pitched 16.0 major-league innings for the Red Sox prior to this draft. He was left unprotected in the first round but lost Jeff Suppan in the first round to Arizona instead of Lowe. Both were good players, but Lowe ended up making two All-Star appearances and finished third in Cy Young voting in 2002 going 21-8 with a 2.58 ERA for the Sox. Lowe would help the Red Sox win their first World Series in 86 years in 2004. He went 3-0 that postseason and gave up just four earned runs in 19.0 innings.

Other notable players left unprotected includes Bret Boone, Richie Sexson, Freddy Garcia, Jose Vidro, Todd Zeile, and Eric Karros. There are a lot of players that would end up playing key roles in the revitalization of the Red Sox franchise such as the aforementioned Derek Lowe, Trot Nixon, and Jason Varitek. Again, hindsight is 20/20, but it’s interesting to see some of the names that both teams ended up missing out on.