The Rays Tank: Rays lose, but rosters expand tomorrow

The Rays lost last night, and fell to three and a half games behind Boston in the division, and a half game behind Oakland for the first wild card slot. They will have two more games in the series against Oakland, today vs. Sonny Gray at 9:05 PM and tomorrow against A.J. Griffin at 4:05 PM, as they look regain their playoff momentum.

Still, we're about to hit a fun time of the year, as rosters expand tomorrow. Tommy Rancel at The Process Report gives a primer on paperwork loopholes, and on what needs to happen for the September callups to be eligible for potential playoff rosters.

Also on TPR, Jason Collete seeks to explain the problems of one of the players enmeshed in those roster loopholes, the Charlotte Stone Crabs' ace, Jeremy Hellickson. He includes moving heat maps, which are pretty sweet.

Around the AL East

The Orioles have traded Xavier Avery to the Mariners for Michael Morse. It's a similar deal to the Rays signing of Delmon Young, only without the giving up of a player bit. They're both going to play pretty strictly as the DH against left handed hitters.

Other Links

There were a few pretty great things put out there recently. First off, Steve Staude at FanGraphs made a playoff chances simulator that's completely downloadable and customizeable. If you don't like CoolStandings, Pecota, ZiPS, or Steamer, put in your own inputs, and it does the rest of the work for you.

Joe Posnanski explains how to calculate park factors. It's very simple, and it allows you to look at park factors for most any statistic you please.

Stuart Wallace uses RE24 to analyze the Cy Young race. I don't especially like RE24, but this is a thoughtful application, that simply presents a more accurate answer to something that people already like to talk about (consistency).

More from DRaysBay:

• The Rays lineup with Delmon Young and David DeJesus
• Great Pumpkin Rising?
• What's wrong with Jeremy Hellickson?
• Chris Archer, a Two Pitch Pitcher