Tampa Bay Rays News and Links: Rule 5, more like Snooze 5, amirite?!?

Rays lost one player to this year’s Rule 5 draft, and it was a former piece of the Longoria trade, RHP Stephen Woods to the Royals. Baseball America has the full Rule 5 Draft results. In the minor league rounds the Rays also lost Low-A OF Pedro Diaz. The Rays passed on a selection in the major league section of the draft, but did select LHP Faustino Carrera from the Cubs organization in the Triple-A phase.

Potential Rule 5 selections of LHP Resly Linares or OF Moises Gomez were not selected, and remain in the Rays system. Overall, a pretty painless Rule 5 draft for the Rays and their stacked system.

This leads me to a bit of a rant, so bear with me. Every year we go through this. Panic. Agitation, Worry. Doubting. Who are the Rays going to protect? Who should they leave uncovered?! Did the FO mess up?! Are the Rays going to be pillaged?!?

Every year there is stress and debate and so many words over who the Rays might lose, who they left unprotected that was foolish. And every single year it just doesn’t matter.

Yes, one time Andrew Friedman made a mistake. An unforced error. He left Josh Hamilton unprotected. That was a special case, extremely worthy of an asterisk. Take that wild outlier out of it, and what we have as Rays fans is a history of worry and sound and fury signifying nothing.

Remember how upset we were about losing Tyler Goeddel? How about Oscar Hernandez? Joey Rickard is only a painful loss when he’s hitting bomb after bomb against the Rays and only the Rays.

Rays fans aren’t the only ones who get worked up over the Rule 5 draft. I see it all over Twitter about people freaking out over who their team left unprotected, or who their team lost in the Rule 5. Heck, I enjoy the Rule 5 draft, and I totally support others for enjoying it. It’s a neat thing each year. But please, this is my PSA for next year: stop worrying about the Rule 5 draft. Don’t worry about not trading guys at the deadline because they might be selected. Relax about the potential of losing out on fringe talent.

The cost of being one of the very best and deepest organizations in baseball is that you are going to have good talent that just doesn’t quite fit. But that’s okay. The Rays will protect the truly special talents. They will trade the ones they can get something for and a decent enough deal comes around. The ones who are left unprotected? Well, it’s a risk, but a very low stakes one. One worth taking, because the downside is pretty darn minimal historically speaking.

So enjoy the Rule 5 Draft next year, but please in the lead up to it, remember the words of advice from an interstellar travel book: DON’T PANIC.

Rays News

• Analyzing Each 2019 MLB Rule 5 Draft Pick’s Chances To Stick - J.J. Cooper, Baseball America: JJ doesn’t like Woods chances of sticking for the full season with the Royals. Perhaps it will be back to back years with the Royals kicking the tires on a Rays pitcher and deciding to return.

• What’s next: Rays’ Winter Meetings recap - Juan Toribio, MLB.com: The Rays leave the Winter Meetings with some leads and progress towards deals, but none made during their stay in San Diego.

• Rays head home from meetings hoping deals are close to fruition - Marc Topkin, Tampa Bay Times: Irons firmly in fire, not yet struck.

• Charlie Morton named to All-MLB Second Team - The Ray Tank

• Rob Manfred says Rays-Montreal plan still possible, not pleased with latest delay - Marc Topkin, Tampa Bay Times

• For playoff-ready A’s, Twins and Rays, is it time to flex - and forget about flexibility? - Gabe Lacques, USA TODAY

• Neat trends stat: Rays cracked the top 10 of Google’s year end pro sports score search list (just behind the NBA Champion Toronto Raptors):