Tampa Bay Rays news and links: Logan Morrison—clubhouse leader

Tony Blengino is using StatCast to come up with park factors, and so far in 2017, Tropicana Field is weird. Usually a pitchers’ park, it’s acted as a hitters’ park through the first third of the season.

I don’t want to read a ton into this yet. The new turf is one factor, and Blengino notes that as the temperature rises, the park factors in cold, northern parks will turn more offense-friendly. That will by comparison depress the Trop. And it could be a small-sample outlier. But I think it’s something to keep an eye on.

Links

• Bill Chastain wrote about Logan Morrison’s leadership.

While Morrison dealt with his struggles, he remained the consummate pro. He never grew surly with the media for writing about his struggles, or the fans, who were less than appreciative of his results.

"It's not the media's fault, it's not the fans' fault, it's my own fault," Morrison said. "So why would I take it out on the media or anybody else?"

• Continuing the Logan Morrison analysis train from yesterday, Jason Collette wrote about Morrison’s launch angles.
• Mark Topkin wrote about how the Rays have gone on their winning streak.
• Brandon Lowe, Brett Sullivan, and Jake Cronenworth were named to the FSL All-Star game.

• Evan Longoria thinks Corey Dickerson should be in the MLB All-Star game, and so do all of us here, I presume.

• And finally, there was a lot of words I didn’t know in the National Spelling Bee finals last night, but there was one that was very much worth learning: Boyg.