Baseball and political projections guru Nate Silver has a subscriber only piece on the Rays, here's a taste:
- Addition by Subtraction: In contrast to last year, the Rays have just six players who have compiled a negative VORP in any amount of playing time, and all but Jason Bartlett have played sparingly. The combined negative VORP accumulated by those Rays has been just 12.8 this year, as opposed to their 157.9 figure from a year ago.
Quite telling, one of the other large topics covered in the article was the defensive upgrades, including Jason Bartlett.