The Rays experimented with an unusual pitching strategy this season, as Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times writes. The club limited their young pitchers to just five or six innings per start and despite a lack of star-studded depth, the Rays’ 3.63 ERA for starters was the sixth best in the league. On the downside, the bullpen was overtaxed and had a 3.93 ERA – good for 11th worst in the bigs. President of Baseball Operations Matt Silverman says the plan needs some tweaking, and that could call for the rostering of more multi-inning relievers. Of course, the club will return four veterans next season in Chris Archer, Drew Smyly, Jake Odorizzi, and Matt Moore, so they may not employ the same strategy in 2016.
Here’s more from the AL and NL East..
- Billy Eppler is off to California to serve as the Angels’ new GM, but Yankees scouts Tim Naehring and Jay Darnell won’t be following him, GM Brian Cashman says. “That’s not true,’’ Cashman said, according to George A. King III of the New York Post. “They are under contract.’’ As for Eppler’s replacement, King lists former Yankees outfielder/director of pro scouting Kevin Reese and manager of professional scouting Steve Martone as a couple of strong possible in-house candidates.
- Teams with managerial openings are not considering Braves first base coach Terry Pendleton or bullpen coach Eddie Perez at this time, David O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution tweets. O’Brien personally feels that both Pendleton and Perez would make strong managerial candidates.
- Earlier today we learned that the Mets will promote middle infield prospect Matt Reynolds to the playoff roster. A 40-man move must be made in order to facilitate that move and Adam Rubin of ESPN.com (on Twitter) speculates that a pending free agent such as Eric O’Flaherty could get bounced.
Brad Johnson contributed to this post.
The Rays will continue to yank scrubs before a third time through the order as they did in 2015. It just looks like that will be necessary less given their rotation is getting healthy. Add Snell to the quartet of Archer, Smyly, Odorizzi, Moore, and there seems to be no scrubs in the mix. Not to mention Cobb when he returns in September.
Is anyone really surprised that Terry P hasn’t been asked for a job? He got fired as the hitting coach, because he sucked. He’s a base coach, that’s it.