Tampa Bay Rays News and Links: The World Series Begins!

Links:

• Marc Topkin has his early list of Rays offseason moves.
• Bill Chastain writes about the same, answering fan questions on what the Rays will do this offseason. This is the time between real baseball ends, and actual baseball moves happen, so expect this same type of article about a hundred different ways from everybody covering every team.
• The Dodgers are about to play in the World Series behind a flawless postseason bullpen. Craig Edwards at Fangraphs breaks down how the Dodgers built that pen. The good news for Rays fans: this is absolutely something the Rays can/try to do.

The club has avoided the Brandon Leagues and Brian Wilsons of their past in favor of letting low-cost free-agents and trade acquisitions supplement their stars. This model worked in both the regular season and the playoffs and allowed the team to invest their vast resources in other areas of need.

• Mike Sonne at The Hardball Times looks at how ace starting pitching affects bullpen workload.
• Devan Fink at Beyond the Box Score writes about how this World Series, with two very analytically inclined teams, is a win for sabermetrics in baseball.
• A lot is made of how monsterly big a market team the LA Dodgers are, but really, they are built exactly like a team GM’d by Andrew Friedman.

• Speaking of one of those homegrown talents the Dodgers have:

• Finally, as we get ready for what looks like it could be a tremendously fun World Series, Neil Paine at 538 breaks down how these are actually (probably) the best two teams in baseball (which is a match-up that often does not happen).