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Rays Tank: St. Patrick's Day Lineup, Cloning Relievers, and Old People

It's still Spring Training, so none of this news counts.

By Bradley Woodrum
Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

Marc Topkin already has the lineups ready for today's St. Patrick's Day game:

Here are the lineups:
Kiermaier cf
Loney 1b
Cabrera ss
Longoria 3b
Jennings lf
Souza Jr. rf
Rivera c
Forsythe dh
Elmore 2b
Cobb p

Phillies lineup:
Revere cf
Galvis ss
Utley dh
Howard 1b
Ruiz c
Herrera lf
Phelps 2b
Danks rf
Franco 3b
Buchanan p

Today's game is available via your imagination. Tune in using the mysteries of your mind power and imagine Kevin Kiermaier robbing a triple, Alex Cobb pitching two clean innings, and Logan Forsythe hitting a home run -- because when you watch the Rays with your imagination, anything is possible!

Of course, if you don't feel creative, you can always watch the game via the Phillies broadcast (MLB.tv required). But whatever.

Topkin also passes along this interesting new information about our newest outfielder:

...RHP Grant Balfour is to throw to hitters for the first time since returning to Australia, with OF Grant Balfour (oblique/lat strain) among them.

Just to be sure, I checked. There is no other Grant Balfour. Possibly in human history. So this is either a typo, or the best Spring Training story yet -- Rays reliever duplicates self in order to compete for two separate jobs.

Here's the other news on earth:

Rays News

  • Over at RotoGraphs, Brad Johnson boldly predicts Brad Boxberger will save at least 35 games this season.
  • Tony Blengino of FanGraphs thinks the Rays-rival Orioles may have a long term problem with J.J. Hardy's offense. The Orioles' shortstop appears to have been lucky in 2014, despite the fact his numbers went down. Not having to face a 25-home-run shortstop is good news for Rays pitchers.
  • Baseball Prospectus released their season preview for the Tampa Bay Rays. It's behind a paywall, so I'll just assume the article is entirely about Jae Weong Seo.

Here's some of the other stupid news in the world:

Projections are Just Projections

Adam Dorhauer of The Hardball Times gives us a good cautionary review of projection systems:

As tempting as it is to treat the projected standings as pinpoint forecasts and infer things about the spread of the final standings from the spread of the individual projections, we can't do that.

He digs into our expectations for division winners as well. It's a worthy read.

Old Man is Still Sad

Pete Rose is trying to get back into baseball or something. There's a new commissioner, you see, and maybe this new guy has a soft spot for ol' Petey.

Baseball Legend Uses Social Media

And finally, the Internet is reaching peak utility:

Here's my favorite so far:

Why? Because Lasorda and the Phillie Fernetic have a history.

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