Plenty of questions to answer

ROGER MOONEY
rmooney@bradenton.com

SARASOTA – There were high-level meetings Friday night and Saturday afternoon and there was another scheduled for Sunday night when manager Joe Maddon and the Rays front office headed to a Tampa restaurant to sort through the questions that need answers.

What to do with rookie third baseman Evan Longoria?

Who is the utility infielder?

Who is the fifth outfielder?

The bullpen? Who stays? Who goes?

Spring training heads into its final week, and the Rays have a number of positions to sort out.

“I guess it could have been decided (earlier), but I’m not upset by any means,” Maddon said. “We’ve had a great spring. We’re playing hard every day. We’re doing some great things at the end of the games, so if it takes a couple of more days I’m OK with that.”

Injuries will provide some answers.

The Rays will learn Monday if Ben Zobrist needs more time for the hairline fracture in his left thumb to heal or if he can resume his work toward being a super utility player. If not, Elliot Johnson likely makes the roster.

If Willy Aybar’s hamstring isn’t quite ready the Rays may be forced to keep Longoria on the major league roster.

Plus, there is always the possibility of a trade or signing players who have been released.

The Rays are rumored to be looking for an outfielder to play right field. Boston center fielder Coco Crisp is apparently on their radar.

Also, Toronto released outfielder Reed Johnson on Sunday.

“I anticipate it will be a busy week,” Rays vice president of baseball Andrew Friedman said. “At this time of year conversations with other teams become a little more pointed, you have a little better sense of what’s available, and in the meantime trying to juggle your internal roster decisions and set our roster on (March) 30th while maintaining as much depth as we can. It’s a fluid situation. The timing aspect of it is critical to navigate as well as we can.”

At the top of the list is Longoria. The prized prospect has done nothing on the field to suggest he can’t handle life in the big leagues, but the Rays may want to start him off at Triple A Durham and allow him to build some momentum before promoting the 22-year-old to the big leagues.

Starting the season in the minors delays Longoria’s clock from ticking toward free agency for another year.

“That’s obviously a big topic of discussion,” Maddon said.

Said Friedman: “We had discussions (Saturday) night on all our pending rosters positions and we’ll have more (Sunday). In the big picture sense, health plays a role in what we’re going to do in shaping our roster and also having guys in a position to be ready for opening day. We have a lot of things to balance and go through and figure out so we’ll continue those discussions tonight.”

Maddon said he would like to keep five outfielders, six infielder and two catchers.
Dioner Navarro and Shawn Riggans are the catchers.

Zobrist, Aybar, Johnson, Andy Cannizaro and Joel Guzman are in the running for the final two spots in the infield.

Eric Hinske, John Rodriguez and Jon Weber are still competing for the final spot in the outfield.

In the race in the bullpen is between Scott Dohmann and Grant Balfour and, to an extent, J.P. Howell for one or possibly two of the final spots.

With three road games following Monday’s home game with the Pirates, it’s likely the Rays will make some moves early in the week.

“The bullpen would probably the one that goes the deepest, the other ones probably not,” Maddon said. “We should know within the next couple of days.”