The Rays Tank: That's all, folks

Last night I went to sleep angry, but I have to say that now I no longer have the energy. Maybe it was the late night from the bullpen game that used every available pitcher. Or maybe it was the constant adrenaline of the past two weeks that has me feeling drained. I'm not sad that we're not going to win the world series, I'm sad that the season is over, and I think that's reason enough to call the season a success. It is and always will be about the thrill of the hunt.

A big thank you to everyone who hung around these parts and made it such a fun season. We'll deconstruct what went wrong in gory detail soon enough, and start hypothesizing a roster for next season. A big part of my DRaysBay offseason will involve trying to make myself and the rest of us all into better analysts: reviewing baseball principles that we think we know but take for granted, and making sure that we have the tools here readily available for this to be the smartest, best informed fanbase in the game.

Please do not hesitate to give suggestions, either in the comments or privately (click on my name, there's an email there).

Thanks y'all. See you next year (and also tomorrow, and they day after, etc.).

Links

RJ took a look (yesterday) at why Wil Myers struggled in the series.

Before the game yesterday, Chris Archer stopped by All-Children's Hospital. Good pictures, good guotes from Archer, seems like a good guy.

The FanGraphs contract crowdsourcing series has rolled along for awhile without crowdsourcing about any Rays, but now it's time to hypothesize the worth of David DeJesus. The Rays hold a $6.5 million option with a $1.5 million buyout. Will they pickup the option? If so, what will he get on the open market?

The final THT awards are out, and believe it or not, by win-loss record vs. runs allowed, Jeremy Hellickson was one of the luckiest pitchers in the majors this year. In terms of allowing those runs, though, he was not very lucky. Or maybe he was not very good.

I missed this when it first posted, since I was busy writing about Matt Joyce over and over, but Chris St. John at Beyond the Box score investigated the walk and strikeout rates of future major leaguers while they were in the low minors. It's not long, and it helps answer a simple question about how development works, so give it a read.

This series spurred plenty of discussion over the bunt. First off, Russel Carleton gives a refresher on how to evaluate whether a bunt is right or wrong ($). Joe Posnanski thought, in a well-written way, that Shane Victorino's bunt in game four was wrong. Tom Tango thought that Joe Posnanski was wrong.

Speaking of Tom Tango, Michael Lichtman (MGL), one of the co-authors of The Book, now has his own blog, Baseball Solutions. I like MGL because he cares about being right, and usually goes the extra mile to make sure he is. In one of his first posts, he investigates whether or not it's right to be more aggressive when up by a run than when down.

Leander Schaerlaeckens has a fantastic longform profile of San Francisco's hitting coach, Hensley Meulens.