The date was June 6th, 2006 and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, as they were then called, were about to make a franchise altering decision. The third pick of the draft surely wasn’t taken lightly by anyone in the Devil Rays camp. In the years prior, the Devil Rays had begun the process of building one of the best farm systems in baseball by selecting Demon Young in 2003, Jeff Niemann, Jacob McGee, and Wade Davis in 2004, and Jeremy Hellickson in 2005 among others.
But, in 2006 the Devil Rays had the chance to alter the path of their franchise for years to come.