As many fans of the Rays know, criticisms abound when it comes to the Bay area and baseball. Ranging from "not a baseball town" to "contract the team" it wears on Rays fans. MLB can change that.

Bring the All-Star game to Tampa or more specifically St. Petersburg.

It may sound like a crazy idea but the positives of having the All-Star game brought to Tampa/St.Pete would help change the views on many relevant and tiresome things about the Rays-including a new stadium.

MLB can and should bring the All-Star game to Tropicana Field because it would show a commitment to keep the sport in the area beyond spring training. Commissioner Bud Selig's comments concerning the team have always been "broken record" and repetitive. In an interview with ESPN, Selig mentions that the Rays need a stadium but has not taken much action.

Selig said he spoke with Rays owner Stu Sternberg and will "just monitor the situation" according to the article from April 2012.

Instead of conversations and "monitoring" Selig should put the Rays in the spotlight. It may not be the ideal location to some but it would put pressure on local officials to reach a decision on a new stadium.

Another way having the All-Star game would help the area and team is through the economic opportunities the game brings. According to Anaheim Orange County Visitor and Convention before the Los Angeles Angels hosted their game the estimated economic value of the event was going to bring $85 million in spending to the area.
St. Petersburg could use this economic boon for their area. Local politicians and constituents would be happy and it would put baseball in a positive spotlight on the national level.

MLB doesn't have to worry that the area can't adjust to hosting their event. Both Tampa and St. Petersburg have proven that they can hold their own when it comes to events. Just this past year St. Petersburg hosted a grand prix race and Tampa is always one of the final contestants considered for hosting the Super Bowl. The cities separate and together would be able to handle the new business and many fans of the game can see other things of the areas such as the beaches. The area, fans, citizens and politicians would benefit from it.

Another aspect, albeit minor, is the snowbird effect. Many people from the northern regions come to the area and live here seasonally. There are probably fewer places in the U.S. that would have fans representing most, if not all, 30 teams in baseball than the Bay area. It is common knowledge that Tampa Bay teams and fans deal with the snowbirds from all cities in football, hockey and baseball. Use it to the advantage of an event that has its basis on representation from around the league.

Selig and MLB need to realize that contraction is out of the question with the Rays' recent playoff appearances and Game 162. Although these things are great for the game and for the Rays, MLB fell into these beauties, they didn't make them happen. The team has exceeded expectations and has grown a fanbase, but it does need help from the league. With that in mind, show the cities of Tampa and St. Petersburg that MLB cares and wants to get involved.

Show you care about the game and the Rays and become involved. Bring the All-Star game to the Trop, Bud.

I had this sitting on the back-burner and felt now--with the 2-game series coming up at the Trop--was a good time to bring it up.

I changed my seats this year to seats that are a bit cheaper, and are on the Rays' side. So, earlier this season (during the Twins series) I visited my old seats. I looked at the nameplate on the seat back to see who claimed them, and this is what I saw:

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WOW. What a reaction last night by Brett Lawrie on the called third strike by umpire Bill Miller. Probably certain to give him a lengthy suspension and a fine. Through the years umpires and players/coaches have been at odds with each other at all levels of baseball. Lawrie now joins the club of great blowup and below are a few of the more notable ones (The Wally Backman Ejection Has Great Audio [explicit language]):

This graph looks like Lawrie's bouncing helmet.

Finally, the Lamigo Moneky has vaulted into first place. After sitting in second three different times and never being less than fourth, this Tier 1 veteran has overcome the obstacles to take over the lead. The rest of the top of Tier 1 is basically the same, but we do see Damn I Love a Good BJ climb 11 spots into 8th and Sai is a piece of shit Dobber it's way into the first tier moving up 12 spots this week. He wasn't the biggest mover, though, as that honor goes to I'll Vogt for Scott way down their in Tier 4 now knocking on the door of Tier 1.

Our biggest faller (16 spots) goes to I FIP'd My Pants. Regression set in in the form of an 0-12 record this week. Great job! Honorable Mention goes to Litha Rays. Since starting out in 3rd place after one week it has been a progressive fall off the mountain as the 15 spots dropped this week moved this team into 27th. For those keeping score at home, I moved up five spots to 25th continuing my crusade and am still currently beating the team that says they are better than my team.

Since his name change, Warde has gone 0-69 to drop to 23rd place. How's that working out for you? Tier 2 is beginning to heat up despite the runaway success of it's top two teams. How are the rest of these tiers shaping up?

via i273.photobucket.com

You can check out the rest of the workbook HERE though I have not updated the Roto Standings tab.

via backcourtbetty.com

Your rants and vents here while we await the post-game wrap up. What a disappointing road trip....maybe the Rays have run out of toes to shoot off their own feet.

Niemann kicks ass, Joyce still owns the month of May....good times

What up? We've now completed the first four weeks of the season and I'm continuing my own personal journey to the top moving up another two spots to just sneak into tier 3 at 30th. I accomplished this by besting former league leader DaveH and his CANTBE TAMED crew. Our new overall leader is Deadeye who has moved up one spot each week to assume this position. We see a lot of familiar faces up top, though Strapping Young Lads have made a ton of progress over the last three weeks and our biggest mover up the ladder was Sai Sreedhar and his Overaged Specimen climbing 11 spots to move into 10th. Will it last?

Our biggest dropper was Damn I Love a Good BJ falling 8 spots to 19th, though Warde and Diaper tried to give him a run for his money with each falling back into tier 3. Care to relate your own sob story or talk about how much it sucks that Werth got hurt? Then comment away. Lastly, Put Up Your Dukes's team continues to look like shit. Make sure you remind him that they suck when you get a chance.

via i273.photobucket.com

On Sunday, Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times had a blurb that caught my attention claiming that Tropicana Field has turned into a dead zone in centerfield turning would-be home runs into outs:

The other reason is the number of balls going out of it. The Rays seem convinced that for some reason, well-struck balls are not carrying to centerfield as they should, drives last week by Matt Joyce and Luke Scott the latest examples after the team noticed it last season. Ideas have been tossed out, and some looked into, such as the temperature (lower with fewer people?), humidity and air-conditioning currents.

There is some merit to the claim: From 2005-10, 10.7 percent of the homers hit at the Trop by all teams went to centerfield (112 of 1,046) and 30.4 percent from left-center to right-center (318). In 2011-12, entering Saturday, 3.8 percent (7 of 187) had gone to center and 20.9 percent (39) to left-center and right-center. (The only one to center this year was the Scott ball Seattle's Michael Saunders knocked over the fence.) "I think it's real," hitting coach Derek Shelton said. "I guess the wind's blowing in all the time."

Looking back from 2008 through the present, Rays hitters have only hit 21 balls out to straightaway centerfield at the Trop led by Carlos Pena's seven blasts.

Was there any relationship between the number of home runs to centerfield and the number of blue seats that were showing up to any given game? The attendance from 2008-2012 can be broken into the following quartiles:

Prior to Luke Scott's glove assisted home run, Carlos Pena's June 2010 blast against the Blue Jays was the only Rays home run to centerfield with fewer than 15,597 fans in attendance which is representative of 25% of the Rays games from 2008-present. It's not as ominous as it sounds, because the 2nd quartile had the highest incidence with nine home runs. And if you look at the median of 28,57 fans, there actually was one more home run with fewer fans than more fans.

To get a larger sample I looked at all home runs hit by the Rays to any field from 2008-present and got the following results.

It's a surprisingly similar result with Q2 being the highest home run total, Q1 the lowest and Q1+Q2 = Q3+Q4. If you are of the belief that somewhere between 15,597 and 20,929 fans in attendance optimizes the Rays potential for home runs, I've got a shortstop that hits high velocity fastballs better than low velocity that I'd like to sell you. Its fashionable to blame the blue seats for a lot of things, the sapping of power should not be one of them. Now who wants to volunteer to do the air current analysis?

Well, that was fun. The real recap will be up in a few. I have absolutely no idea what this picture is or why it's showing instead of the Fangraphs WPA chart I was trying to embed or insert, but I'm not going to take the time to try and figure it out.

Edit: I lied. I did take the time to get the chart to show up. Congrats to those who saw the weird picture of nondescript people in a nondescript square.