The Rays Tank: Trevor Bauer Promoted, To Start Tonight

Since Chris Archer has now been optioned to Triple-A and Matt Moore has graduated from prospect status -- and is showing signs of downright human fallibility, dammit -- my prospect man-crush has moved on to another. I feel like I'm being so unfaithful, giving my love to another so quickly after the shine has fallen from Moore, but I'm not proud: I'm a prospect junkie and there's always a shiny new toy lurking around the corner.

Trevor Bauer was ranked the #9 prospect in baseball coming into this season by Baseball America, and he's quickly become a sabernerd favorite. Not only does he admit to knowing sabermetrics stats and concepts, but he has a very active Twitter account and he takes slow-mo videos of his mechanics and pitch movement. He's posted insane strikeout rates in the minors -- around 30% at each level -- and after waiting for the Super Two deadline to pass, the Arizona Diamondbacks have finally called him up.

The Rays will be facing the Tigers tonight, but if that just ends up depressing you (like most Rays games do these days), Bauer will be making his major-league debut tonight against the Atlanta Braves. Bauer is likely one of the most hotly anticipated pitching prospects of the year, so if you're in to that sort of thing, don't miss out.

• Dave Cameron published "Stat-Nerd" All-Star Game rosters for both the AL and NL yesterday. His AL roster has three Rays representatives: Ben Zobrist, David Price, and Fernando Rodney, with Matt Joyce juuuust missing out. Yup, that's right: Ben Zobrist.
• As much as I follow baseball obsessively, every year there are always a few players that breakout and I don't catch on until September or the offseason. This season's early candidates are James McDonald and Everth Cabrera. I'm sure I'll forget that they're doing well in a matter of hours, and come the offseason, I'll be left going "...Her?" during fantasy auctions.
• Mike Trout made an insane, over-the-wall catch during last night's game. Check it out.
• In case you forgot due to all the hype around Mike Trout and Bryce Harper, but Starlin Castro is also incredibly young and he's hitting his way into the record books.