Tampa Bay Rays news and links: The new face of Rays sliders?

For the Rays Radio profile of the day, Neil Solondz sat down with journeyman pitcher Chaz Roe. I think it’s especially interesting to hear a guy like Roe, who’s seen multiple teams across the league, talk about the way the Rays and new pitching coach Kyle Snyder do things differently. For instance on Snyder:

He doesn’t push things on you, he doesn’t try to change you,” said Roe of his relationship with Snyder, now the pitching coach with Tampa Bay. “He let’s you be yourself.

He also talked about the “weighted ball” that the Rays use in warmups, and talked about Sergio Romo, who seems to have taken on a bit of the Joel Peralta “second pitching coach in the bullpen” role. Overall a real good interview, worth a listen.

Also, people are talking about Roe’s Slider:

Roe is one player competing for spots in the bullpen, and so is Yonny Chirinos, who was interviewed after yesterday’s game. Here’s the postgame audio from Rays Radio, along with audio from Wilson Ramos and Kevin Cash.

Rays Links

• Bill Chastain wrote about how Carlos Gomez is fitting into the locker room (well), and about when Carlos Gomez wants the season to start (now).
• JT wrote that while it would have been nice for the Rays to offer Neil Walker the same contract he just accepted from the Yankees, even if they did, it makes sense for him to have chosen New York instead.
• Marc Topkin wrote 14 things we think we know about the Rays roster.
• Pepsi.
• Kevin Kiermaier doesn’t like Missouri. Good pick, KK.

Other Links

• Every time someone checks to see if clutch hitting is an identifiable, repeatable skill, they find more or less the same thing: it’s not, or at least it’s not to an extent that is readily identifiable in the general noise of baseball statistics. That doesn’t mean it’s wrong to keep looking. El Dorado would have been pretty great too if someone had found it.
• There’s so much more data available with Statcast now than there used to be. So why isn’t the pitching metric that uses it all that much better than a pitching metric that ignores all of the at bats that end with a ball in play?
• Extra-innings of minor league games will now start with a runner on second base.