Travis Lee Going To Make A Run At First Base

[Senators2005]

Notes: Lee prepared to battle it out
02/24/2007 7:32 PM ET
By Bill Ladson / MLB.com

VIERA, Fla. -- With Nick Johnson out for the start of the season because of a broken right leg, Travis Lee will battle Larry Broadway and Dmitri Young for the starting job at first base.
Lee is considered by many to be one of the best defensive first basemen in baseball, so he most likely will have to show that he can hit enough to start. The 31-year-old played for the Devil Rays in 2006, and he hit .224 with 11 home runs and 31 RBIs. After a slow start, Lee hit .264 after the All-Star break, but he was given his unconditional release on Sept. 11. He had lost his job to Kevin Witt in early September.

"Last year was tough," Lee said. "I started out slow, and [Ty] Wigginton started playing and I sat for a while. I was trying to get at-bats here and there -- from the All-Star break to September [that] I played every day I felt good. The swing was coming around. I was hitting home runs. I just needed to be consistent, get at-bats and see what I can do."

Lee doesn't consider himself just a first baseman. He can play the outfield. In fact, he has played 56 games in right field, 10 in left and two in center. However, he hasn't played in any of the outfield positions since 2000, when he was with the Phillies.

"I feel comfortable out there -- it's baseball," Lee said. "You see the ball; you try to catch it and make [putouts]."

[Senators2005]

At first, Lee enjoys second shot
Travis Lee's defensive prowess could earn him a starting job at first base
BY TODD JACOBSON
LINK: http://www.fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2007/022007/02232007/262204

VIERA, Fla.--

Travis Lee didn't expect to play much during the final three weeks of last season, what with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays out of contention and auditioning youngsters for various jobs.

But he never expected the news he got when he was called into manager Joe Maddon's office. With less than a month left in the season, Lee had been released.

"I was in shock," Lee said. "That was the last thing on my mind. I didn't know anything. No one was telling me anything. They said, 'We're going to let you go.' I said, 'All right, see ya.'"

The Devil Rays wanted to give Kevin Witt a look at first base. So Lee, a career .256 hitter, returned to his home near Las Vegas, and this spring has landed smack in the middle of another competition.

Lee's again the veteran looking for another job in the majors, and rookie Larry Broadway is the untested youngster looking for a shot as the Nationals audition candidates to fill in at first base while Nick Johnson recovers from a broken right femur.

Lee, 31, was the second overall pick in the 1996 draft, but the power scouts projected for the 6-foot-3 first baseman never developed. He's never hit more than 22 homers in a season, and never hit better than .275.

But among active first basemen that have played 750 games, his .997 career fielding percentage is the best. That might be what helps him win a job.

"People can say whatever they want," Lee said. "If I'm not hitting 20 or 30 homers, obviously they're going to put that tag on me. I've just got to go out there and hit the ball and play the defense I can play."

Team president Stan Kasten was careful not to look too far into the future when he addressed the Nationals in a closed-door meeting yesterday morning.

"I stressed '07 and I stressed the overall building plan that doesn't have a year on it," Kasten said. "We want to be a championship team as well as a championship organization."

Kasten was in town briefly to meet with the team and front office officials, and though he would not outline his expectations for this season, he said he was pleased with the work the rebuilding franchise has done.

"We expect to see progress, and I mean that sincerely," Kasten said. "We expect progress. We really do think the course we're on is the fastest way for us to get to where we want to go."

Washington's partnership with the Tabasco Olmecas of the Mexican Summer League should help the Nationals broaden their reach in Central America, but Kasten said the team still hopes to make inroads internationally, especially in Asia.

An agreement similar to the Nationals' pact with Tabasco--in which the teams share scouting information--with a Japanese team didn't materialize this winter. But Kasten said the Nationals were still looking into ways to enhance their presence in the Pacific Rim.

A game at RFK Stadium this summer involving USA Baseball and the Chinese national team fell through because of a scheduling conflict, Kasten said.

"That would be the kind of thing that we would get the embassies involved with and just putting our stamp out there as people who are really concerned with baseball wherever it is," Kasten said.

The Nationals will play a pair of intrasquad games Tuesday and Wednesday before officially beginning their Grapefruit League schedule against the Los Angeles Dodgers Friday.

Nationals manager Manny Acta hasn't specified a starter for that game, but right-hander John Patterson is expected to start the Nationals' March 3 game against the Baltimore Orioles. That puts him on track to start opening day April 2 against the Florida Marlins.

Shortstop Cristian Guzman said he's healthy enough to resume hitting and throwing activities today. Guzman, who missed all of last year after having surgery to repair a torn labrum in his right shoulder, was held out of workouts for the last three days.

Reliever Jesus Colome sat out of workouts yesterday with an abscess on his right buttock.

[tomterp]

The problem for Lee is that we really need some offense out of first.  Acta has said the same thing, so Lee has an uphill battle to make the team.  However, if Broadway fails to ignite, and with Young probably needing to work his way back into major league condition, Lee could slip in as the lesser of the problems.