Tampa Bay Rays news and links: Adames hits for the cycle

Former Rays Danny Farquhar had a successful surgery, and is “progressing well” after suffering a brain anneurism. Marc Topkin gave the update, and rounded up the reactions from Farquhar’s former teammates on the Rays.

If you think fondly of Farquhar, and want to send him a note, the White Sox gave an address:

On the minor league baseball side, the Rays top prospect hit for the cycle, just one day after hitting a grand slam.

What will dominate the conversation, though, is that former-Rays Alex Cobb and Logan Morrison talked about how the Rays team they were a part of was dismantled.

Morrison, especially, was candid:

“I see the part of it where players look at it as like, ‘All right, do well so I can get traded, so I can get out of here.’ It’s not like they want to win here, unfortunately. That’s the environment it’s created. … I don’t think it’s a secret,’ ‘’ said Morrison, who signed a one year deal with Minnesota for $6.5 million, that could grow into $16.5 million over two.

That may well represent what many players feel when they look at the Rays. I think Cobb showed that he understood the situation better though, as far as the way baseball’s uneven market shapes team behavior:

“It’s always sad to see whenever an organization breaks down the core of a team, especially one a fan base got to enjoy and to watch for a long time,’’ Cobb said. “You never want to see it. They found it was the right time to experiment with some things (such as the short-staffed rotation, reconfigured bullpen, defensive alignments). And we know the financial constraints they’re up against.

I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again. Huge Alex Cobb fan. When he’s done pitching—and I hope that’s not for a long time—I would love to see him back in the organization as a pitching coach. Never have I seen a pitcher know how to use his stuff as well as Cobb does, and rarely (Joel Peralta comes to mind) have I seen a player so generous with that knowledge.

Other Rays Links

• The Process Report’s MLB rankings after three weeks.
• In Bill Chastain’s Q&A is the tidbit that Yonny Chirinos may be headed back to the bullpen when Nathan Eovaldi returns.

Other Links

• Sobesy: “If there’s one thing peanuts are not good for, it’s people on the go.”
• Bulls on Parade. No, not those Bulls associated with Tampa Bay. The other Bulls associated with Tampa Bay.
• Beyond the Box Score is looking for a new site manager. If you think, that’s you, please apply. BtBS has a long and storied history of talented writers and editors. Also, like, if you think that’s you and you want some advice, please hit me up. I don’t want to do it myself, but I have some ideas about how it should be done, and I will gladly wear your ear out for free. :)
• Matthew Trueblood on Albert Pujols’s age, and whether or not it matters.
• Really good work by Eli Ben-Porat on using the stringer-created minor league strike zone.
• I honestly can’t believe this is a conversation we’re having. Pay wall, but Sahadev Sharma, over at The Athletic, wrote an article criticizing StatCast catch probability. You can see this article in two ways. If you thought that StatCast catch probability is some magical techno-nerd mumbo jumbo that is 100% deterministic and therefore the pinnacle of truth that is going to replace all other ways of looking at defense, then Sharma made some very good points, and may rock your world. If you believed that it was a tool, and that like all data sets should only be used in the aggregate, and that the real question is what size aggregate do you need for it, and that really knowing the catch probability on a single play isn’t worth very much other than an “ooh” or an “ahh” anyway, then you’re right, obviously, and you don’t quite know what Sharma’s article is about, or why it has that defensive tone. Come on people. Accept and engage with the probabilistic world. We baseball fans of the post-Moneyball era should be better than this.