The Rays Tank: Mayor elect Kriseman Speaks

St. Petersburg’s Mayor elect, Rick Kriseman, called into 98.7 The Fan last night to discuss the Rays’ stadium issues.

Kriseman stated that some issues that need to be dealt with are public transportation both to and from the game. He mentioned that other cities successfully use a light rail system and that buses need to be available both to AND from the games, instead of just to the Trop like they currently are. The Mayor elect talked about the Howard Frankland Bridge and how there is a lot of traffic that goes from St. Pete into Tampa for Lightning and Buccaneers games, but not a lot of traffic from Tampa to St. Pete for the Rays. Kriseman wants to make it a more "two-way bridge" and plans on working jointly with Hillsborough County to see how they can achieve that.

Mayor Kriseman also talked about overcoming pessimism and mentioned that over the last four years, the relationship between the Rays and St. Pete really broke down, but it is a priority of his to rebuild the relationship and he has already had an initial meeting with Stu Sternberg.

No discussions have been made yet with the Rays owners about a possible timeline for a new stadium, but Kriseman did say he was looking forward to those talks. He also mentioned that Tampa will not get involved unless the Rays and St. Pete combined cannot resolve the attendance issues.

Links:

-The Rays are one of four teams who have been in contact with Corey Hart, who missed the entire 2013 season due to knee injuries.

-Bill Chastain of MLB.com examines Alex Torres and how he became a major part of the Rays bullpen.

-Today is the last day for the Rays to add players to the 40-man roster or risk losing them in the Rule 5 Draft. Neil Solondz of Rays Radio highlights the Rays major players to take a look at.

-Dave Cameron of FanGraphs examines the decline of speedy outfielders.

-From Cut4, Lorde discusses how a Kansas City baseball player inspired her hit "Royals", and a lot of Carlos Martinez selfies in honor of ‘selfie’ being named the word of the year.

-The Rays probably will not pull another Roberto Hernandez move again this year, but here’s a look at the veteran free-agent starters that are available this offseason.

-Late night signings: David Murphy to the Indians and Josh Johnson to the Padres.