Tampa Bay Rays news and links: Brendan McKay the top first base prospect

Steve Kinsella has been doing an excellent series on the Rays’ slow-rolling rebuild over the greater part of a the past decade, and he’s now up to 2015, when Matt Silverman took over baseball operations. This section includes the trades of Rays mainstays like Ben Zobrist, Matt Joyce, Jeremy Hellickson, Jake McGee, Joel Peralta, and the newly-arrived Wil Myers.

The series is a must read.

• MLB.com had already listed Brendan McKay as the number five left-handed pitching prospect, but now they’ve called him the best first base prospect in baseball.
• Bill Chastain reviewed the Rays infield questions.
• The Rangers signed former-Ray Curt Casali to a minor league deal.
• The Brewers signed former-Ray Ernesto Frieri to a minor league deal.

Other Links

• Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred wants to introduce new pace of play rules, including 20-second pitch clocks, but the players union has rejected the measures. Probably Manfred will implement them anyway, writes Ken Rosenthal ($$, but good).
• When a player changes their launch angle, is that change likely to stick year-to-year? Eno Sarris investigates.
• Quantifying the hit tool—does (fouls+whiffs)/swings do the job?