I’ll be the first to admit that when the Rays acquired Denard Span as a part of the Evan Longoria trade this past offseason, I wasn’t enthused about the idea. At 34 years old, with flecks of white in his beard, Span was hardly the model of an ideal ballplayer at first glance. I can’t imagine I was the only one who thought, “This is going to go badly.”
I will now, in retrospect, be the first to admit how very, very wrong I was about Span. There were few players on the 2018 roster with so much heart and hustle, and who demonstrated as much drive and determination in their at-bats.