If you missed it yesterday, the Rays added Desmond Jennings, Jeremy Hellickson and Alex Torres to the 40-man roster. The move left the team with exactly 40 players on the 40-man roster.
The biggest surprise was the absence of Aneury Rodriguez, the pitcher the Rays received from the Rockies for Jason Hammel. While Torres is more valuable than Rodriguez, we are surprised that the Rays are willing to risk losing Rodriguez in the Rule 5 Draft, when they have a seemingly expendable player on the 40-man roster like Elliot Johnson.
Rodriguez struggled in the first-half of the season and finished with a 4.50 ERA (4.69 FIP) in 142 innings with 111 strikeouts and 59 walks at double-A Montgomery. But he was much stronger in the second-half as he seemed to find a rhythm, regularly pitching into the 7th inning and allowing 2 runs or fewer.
DEVIL DOGS WEBTOPIA…
- Marc Topkin has read the new book by Vince Naimoli we discussed a few months ago, and breaks down a few of the more controversial sections. As we write this we can’t recall the name of the book, but we are pretty sure it should be titled, “I am bitter as hell and about 10 people will know it!” [St. Pete Times]
- We dropped this on Twitter a couple of days ago, but in case you are one of the silly people not following us on Twitter, a few more big names from the Rays minor league system have been granted free agency, including Winston Abreu, Calvin Medlock (came over in the Jorge Cantu trade), Carlos Hernandez, Jon Weber and Jason Perry.
- The City of St. Pete has responded to ABC’s recommendation for a new baseball stadium for the Rays. Lines are starting to be drawn in the sand, and as we have said previously, this is going to get ugly before it gets better. [St. Pete Times]
- Bob Nightengale of USA Today said yesterday that the Rays have become the “clear-cut favorite” to land Milton Bradley. It is unclear if he is basing that on inside information or if he is just speculating based on the news reports that are already out there. [Twitter]
- The Rays Party takes a look at Grant Balfour’s fastball. [The Rays Party]
