The Rays Tank: Happ in stable condition, bullpen too.

The latest news available is that J.A. Happ is in stable condition, and still undergoing tests. Happ's incident will bring up a new flurry of questions about head protection for pitchers. It seems as if there is still no workable cap that would be protective enough. One wonders what it would take to get pitchers and baseball to accept hard helmets.

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After the past few days, I was ready to throw in the towel for this bullpen, start arguing for an increased role for Brandon Gomes (I'm still ready for that), and looking for promising pitchers in Durham and around the minors who might get a call. Luckily, Jason Collette is there to pull us all back to reality. The bullpen will be fine.

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Dave Cameron tells us that Asian pitchers may be a market inefficiency at the moment. It's an interesting thought. If true, someone should be taking a really hard look at what all of these successful but underrated Asian pitchers are actually doing. It might just be that they're underrated because of distance and lack of scouting, or there may be some nugget about process that could be applied to all pitchers.

A really good article from Noah Woodward about extreme shifts to the third base side.