Did you hear something? I think it was the other shoe dropping.
On Saturday, outfielder Elijah Dukes got into a little brouhaha during a Dominican Republic game; on Monday the Tampa Bay Devil Rays traded Dukes to the Washington Nationals for minor-league left-hander Glenn Gibson.
The Nats are in a good position to take on high-risk, high-reward players. If Dukes doesn’t get his act together, it only cost them a pitcher who is a long way from the big leagues. If Dukes does figure it out, Washington could have quite the player on its hands.
Other Voices

Capitol Punishment
Mr. Irrelevant
Rays Anatomy

The St. Petersburg Times reports that Tampa Bay Devil Rays outfielder Elijah Dukes was tossed out of a game in the Dominican Republic for an incident with an umpire.
Dukes reacted angrily after being called out on strikes in the ninth inning and was ejected after going chest-to-chest with the umpire, and had to be restrained by several teammates at different times.
Given Dukes’ history, this isn’t exactly surprising. Still, you hate to see stuff like this happen…

Apologies for the delay in posting this; I was on vacation and heard about it but I had no Internet access. Left-hander Joe Kennedy died November 23 near Tampa at age 28. Kennedy, a native of San Diego, had been an eighth-round pick of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in 1998. In addition to the Rays, Kennedy also pitched for Colorado, Oakland, and Arizona during his seven-year career.
My condolences to Kennedy’s friends and family.

ESPN reports that the Tampa Bay Devil Rays have traded outfielder Delmon Young, infielder Brendan Harris, and minor-league reliever Eduardo Morlan to the Minnesota Twins for right-hander Matt Garza, shortstop Jason Bartlett, and minor-league outfielder Jason Pridie.
Headed to Minnesota

This is a tough time of the year to write about baseball, so I love when people say things that don’t make a lot of sense. The great thing is, you can almost always count on someone to come through in the clutch.
Enter Tampa Bay Devil Rays manager Joe Maddon, talking about the fact that his outfielder, Delmon Young, didn’t win the AL Rookie of the Year:
It’s really disturbing. I can see him not winning the award, but leaving him off eight ballots is just a sign of personal prejudice.
In this case, “personal prejudice” is code for “understanding the criteria …read more

There are a lot of fun stories this year in baseball: Josh Hamilton, Jack Cust, Rick Ankiel. How about YALHH (yet another left-handed hitter), Carlos Pena?
Pena, in case you missed it, ranks second in the American League with 33 homers through September 1. This is a guy who hit 23 home runs all last year at Triple-A (plus one with the Red Sox). Hot prospect? Well, yeah, like in 2000 and 2001. Pena had his shot with the Tigers, did okay before fading away, and now has come back with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.
Somewhere along the line, Pena turned …read more