By Gary Brooks
SportsLine Baseball Editor

Canseco is making up for lost time and Devil Rays are winning

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So, do you think Tampa Bay general manager Chuck LaMar is having much of a debate in his head about whether to pick up the Devil Rays' option for the next two seasons on Jose Canseco?

Canseco, despite his 46 home runs and 29 stolen bases for the Toronto Blue Jays last season, did not create a mad free-agent frenzy over the off-season. LaMar won Canseco's signature with the amazing bargain-shopping offer of one-year, $2-million along with a two-year club option.

Jose Canseco is on pace for 60 homers.(AP)

A quarter of the way into the season that's a steal and not so surprisingly, the Devil Rays are nowhere near the American League East cellar they found themselves in last season, their inaugural major league adventure.

Canseco has been much of the reason for the success, hitting 15 home runs and driving in 34 runs. Perhaps the most startling number in Canseco's line of All-Star statistics is his .295 batting average. His career average is .266.

When healthy, Canseco has never failed to amaze since he broke in with the Oakland Athletics late in 1985. As Oakland put together close to a dynasty, winning the American League pennant in 1988, '89 and '90, Canseco was an annual nominee for best player in the game and his combination of speed and power brought thoughts that he would be the guy to challenge home run records like Roger Maris' 61 and Hank Aaron's 755.

His struggles through Texas, Boston, Oakland again and Toronto last season have been well documented. He fell into a pit full of injuries, legal problems, marital woes, and mediocrity that at times left him mocked as an example of how not to take advantage of your prime.

Canseco went from a sure Hall of Famer after his 40-40 1988 and 44-homer, 122-RBI 1991, to a player who didn't drive in 100 runs again until last season, when he knocked in 107.

Now, Canseco, who in 1988 became one of only nine players ever to be voted unanimously as the AL MVP, is back on the Hall of Fame track … those immortal numbers look increasingly within his reach.

At 34, he's certainly a candidate, in today's bash-happy game, to make a run at a top five spot on the career home run list. He's got 411, and Harmon Killebrew's 573 seems reachable for a guy who has hit a round tripper every 15 at-bats in his career.

That would take another 2,430 at-bats -- the equivalent of less than five healthy seasons.

``It's all a matter of being healthy with me," Canseco said after hitting his 400th home run. "If you look at the home runs per at-bat, they've always been there. I just need to stay in the lineup. I don't think there's any limitation to what I can do.''

That's exactly what Canseco didn't realize when others around baseball were realizing that he could be the best in the game a decade ago.

"When I started in major league baseball, I was only 21 years old," Canseco said. "I don't think a 21-year-old kid thinks about records or 500 or 600 home runs. That was just so far down the line, I didn't think about it. But as I got older and started to put up numbers at the major league level and be consistent, and as I approached the 400-homer plateau, I realized it was a possibility."

Seeing former Bash Brother Mark McGwire capture the world's attention last season with his 70-homer binge also got Canseco's attention.

"It was incredible, watching Mark McGwire hit 70 home runs. I played with him early on in 1987 when he came into the league as a rookie. He hit 49 home runs that year, so you kind of knew he had the ability, with enough at-bats, to reach that plateau. But as he became a more mature player and a stronger player, he didn't get enough at-bats, because of injuries, to approach the 60-70 home run plateau."

The two sluggers followed similar paths through the early part of the decade having lost their shots at Aaron's career home run mark to injuries. Canseco's consistent home run threat fell to disabled list stints to heal problems with his back, hip flexor, ribs, shoulder, wrist and right elbow that had to be reconstructed after his infamous pitching debut in Boston in 1993.

Canseco has been healthy for an entire season only five times, and has received MVP votes in each.

He got serious about health last season, missing just 12 games because of back spasms.

"Starting last year, I do ice after every game, no matter whether I feel good or not," he said. "This off-season, I did a little more intense weightlifting and hired a trainer."

Staying out of the outfield as a full-time designated hitter may be the reason his average is up along with his run production this season.

"The big advantage is that after each at-bat you can go to the video room and watch what the pitcher is trying to do, what he's throwing you," Canseco said, knowing it's also an advantage for him to limit the number of chances he has to hurt himself by playing in the field -- where a fly ball once bounced off his head and over the fence for a home run.