With the completion of the regular season, the 2007 raw draft order has been set. The Tampa Bay Devil Rays are on the clock, finishing the 2006 season with the worst regular season record. They will pick first overall for the third time in their brief existence in Major League Baseball, which begs the question, will the Devil Rays ever be good?

The talent certainly is in order, at least offensively. Carl Crawford (despite trade rumors that he may be available), Rocco Baldelli, Delmon Young, B.J. Upton and Jonny Gomes form a formidable young core of players that could put up some impressive offensive totals should they all continue to progress as expected. Prospects Reid Brignac and Evan Longoria should help fill in a few more pieces on the diamond and in the starting lineup within the next few years, and Elijah Dukes could as well should he ever be able to get his head on straight.

Outside of young staff ace Scott Kazmir, the organization clearly needs more pitching, although there are some talented arms in the system on their way up, including Jamie Shields, Jason Hammel, Jeff Niemann, Mitch Talbot, Andy Sonnastine, Juan Salas, Jacob McGee, Wade Davis and Matt Walker. The need for pitching will probably lead the D-Rays to target pitching with the first overall pick in next year’s draft, a good year to do so with a couple of stud pitchers projected to go towards the top of the draft from the college ranks in David Price and Andrew Brackman, not to mention one of the best collections of prep arms the draft has ever seen.

Of course it doesn’t help matters that the Devil Rays play in arguably the toughest division to compete in with the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox regularly sitting atop the American League East. However, that doesn’t automatically mean that the Devil Rays should continue to be one of the worst teams in all of baseball. They have never won more than 70 games, and they never have had fewer than 91 losses. Their average record since they started playing in 1998 is 64-97 (a .398 winning percentage) despite repeatedly picking in the top three to five picks in the draft, which in theory should give them the best chance to select the best amateur players available.

And it’s not as though they haven’t. Their first-round picks include many of the names already listed above. Josh Hamilton is one notable player that obviously did not live up to expectations, largely due to off-the-field issues that he still appears to be battling. The lone notable whiff among their first-round picks is Dewon Brazelton.

The Devil Rays do have a long list of notable players that they were unable to sign as early draft picks, a list that includes last year’s near-consensus top talent available for the draft: Andrew Miller. Given the money they have invested by having so many early first-round picks, you can’t fault them too much for being unable to sign so many high-profile picks that at the time should have gone higher in the draft than where they did.

Basically, the Devil Rays haven’t been shy about spending the money that accompanies high profile, high draft picks. A year ago I questioned whether the Royals would be willing to spend the money that goes along with the dubious honor of picking first overall, and while they didn’t take Andrew Miller, a player who as noted above was typically regarded as the top player available, they did make an astute pick in Luke Hochevar, who many believed was the top pitcher available after he didn’t sign with the Dodgers as an unsigned pick from the 2004 draft.

With so much talent already on the big-league roster and a lot more on it’s way up, the Devil Rays are going to have to stay diligent and patient to make sure their talent base is going to arrive and start producing at relatively the same time for the team to have a chance in their division. It’s going to take a few more years for their pitching to catch up with their hitters, and they need less instances of Josh Hamilton and Elijah Dukes and more instances of Carl Crawford and Rocco Baldelli thrown in with a few shrewd acquisitions such as Scott Kazmir to be successful. The margin for error is small, but the Detroit Tigers proved that it doesn’t take long for a once-perceived horrible team to be a World Series contender.

Back to the Royals

As noted just above, I questioned whether or not the Royals would be willing to spend the money necessary to sign the first overall pick, at least a player worth of such a pick. They did just that, and they also did a very good job increasing their draft budget to sign talented players in the early rounds, including spending near-first round money on fourth round draft pick and former Aflac All-American Derrick Robinson.

New General Manager Dayton Moore will certainly bring the Braves’ player development philosophy with him to Kansas City, which is a reason for hope for fans of the Royals. Upon Moore’s arrival he already had organizational sluggers such as Alex Gordon, Billy Butler and Chris Lubanski, and with a talented AA playoff rotation consisting of Luke Hochevar, Zach Greinke, Tyler Lumsden and Bill Buckner, there is reason for hope for the pitching staff as well. Like the Devil Rays, the Royals have a ways to go, but the talent level is increasing and getting extremely close to contributing at the big-league level.

Other draft notes

The Atlanta Braves will find themselves in unfamiliar territory next June with the 14^th overall selection. That is the highest the Braves have drafted since they had the second overall selection in 1991 (Mike Kelly). The Braves rose 10 spots in the draft order from 2006 to 2007.

The Indians had the most dramatic fall (or climb) in the draft order, going from the 25^th overall pick in 2006 to the 13^th overall pick next year.

The Pittsburgh Pirates will draft fourth overall for the second consecutive year. The Pirates are yet another team like the Devil Rays and Royals that need to find a way to develop enough talent to avoid being a fixture among the top three to five picks every year.

The team that jumped the most in the draft order are the Detroit Tigers, not surprisingly. They are slotted to pick 27^th overall next June, moving up 21 spots after picking sixth overall in 2006. The Tigers, like the D-Rays, haven’t been shy about spending money on early draft picks in recent years, and even went above and beyond the suggested slot value the past two years to sign Cameron Maybin and Andrew Miller respectively. Such moves should only help the Tigers chances on continuing their newfound success.

Playoff notes

I hope you weren’t relying on my postseason predictions to make any bets in Las Vegas, and fortunately by the lack of angry emails I’m guessing you weren’t.

I do want to make a point about the Detroit Tigers, a team not many projected to continue to advance in the playoffs due to their lack of “playoff experience,” a popular cliché by sportstalk personalities when it comes to playoff season in baseball and any other sport for that matter. I fell prey to that cliché for the second consecutive year, as I didn’t give the Detroit Tigers much of a chance this year after not giving the Chicago White Sox much of a chance to advance during last year’s playoffs.

Throw “playoff experience” out the window and congratulations to the Detroit Tigers for advancing to the World Series.

One team that needs to figure out how to advance in the playoffs are the Oakland Athletics. At least they were able to advance to the American League Championship series, something they were unable to do from 2000 through 2003. While Oakland boasts one of the better pitching staffs in all of baseball, they proved in the playoffs that they still struggle to get the big hit when they need it, something the team will need to continue to address as they look for ways to advance.

By now, the A’s certainly aren’t short on playoff experience.