Tampa Bay Rays news and links: Ex-Ray Lobaton set for bigger role on playoff bound Nats

The Tampa Bay Times has an article on Joe Maddon’s second year in Chicago. While his exit from the Rays was fairly frustrating for fans, his tenure here was one of the most successful in Tampa/St Pete sports history.

Maddon’s role in building a new culture and a new era for Tampa Bay baseball will always be something worth remembering fondly. This year’s managing shenanigans has only made me long for the days of Merlot Joe’s much more fun shenanigans.

Links:

• Yahoo!Sports has their end of season recap of the ups and downs of the Rays season. Nothing groundbreaking or revolutionary about their analysis: pretty much everything went wrong, the Cuba trip was a highlight, and they think there is “no foundation”.
• The newest episode of the Beyond the Box Score podcast, In Play, Pod(cast), is all about the current state of the AL East.
• Jeff Long at Baseball Prospectus dives into some data about Spin Rate.
• Ian’s Tank did a great job recapping the moving and truly amazing tribute and game in Miami last night. Jeff Sullivan’s write up at Fangraphs is another good read on the beautiful game, while the rest of the Fangraphs staff share their memories of Jose Fernandez.
• Washington Nationals Catcher, and pending Free Agent, Wilson Ramos tore his ACL ending his season. This is a huge loss for the playoff bound Nats, who will now have to turn to the former Rays ice cream enthusiast Jose Lobaton.