Tampa Bay Rays News and Links: No Rays in the Home Run Derby

Links:

• The Rays are facing off with some familiar faces on the defending World Series champion Chicago Cubs. Marc Topkin has plenty of quotes from Joe Maddon on the former Rays he managed that still remain.
• Also over at the Tampa Bay Times’ The Heater, which is always good for some...let’s call it “entertainment”, they briefly check in on how some former Rays are doing this year.
• Bill Chastain at MLB.com has another edition of his mailbag where he, among other questions, compares Mallex Smith with Quinton McCracken and Jacob Faria to James Shields.
• Craig Edwards at Fangraphs wonders if “the Second Base Revolution” is over already?
• Over at Fangraphs, Paul Swydan compares leaderboards to the All Star rosters, and is pleasantly surprised by the lack of glaring omissions (except of course in the case of Logan Morrison, so you should totally correct that)
• On the subject of All Star rosters, are this years starting lineups a sign that the modern digital ballots replacing paper ballots has an effect on who got selected?
• MLB Umpire Angel Hernandez is suing the league alleging racial discrimination.
• The Home Run Derby participants are set, but no Corey Dickerson and LoMo to put on a bomb parade.

• Finally, check out Orlando Arcia scoring from 1st on a bunt with no errors, thanks to some real interesting shenanigans from the Baltimore Orioles infield defense.