Rays Notes: David Price,Ultimate Standings, Prospects, Wade Davis, Tim Beckham

The big news for the Rays yesterday was that Price will miss his start today with some soreness in shoulder, although David Price to Miss Start Saturday” href=”https://rayscoloredglasses.com/2012/09/07/breaking-rays-news-david-price-to-miss-start-saturday/” target=”_blank”>as we talked about yesterday, he will be fine for his next start. Chris Archer, who led the Triple-A International League with 139 K’s despite missing time with an oblique injury and because of his 2 big league starts, will take his place and the Rays are confident that he can hold down the fort and give them good outings as he subs in for Price and then Alex Cobb as Cobb approaches his innings limit.

ESPN released their rankings of all 122 teams in the 4 major sports, and the Rays ranked 16th, finishing 1st in the affordability category, 5th in coaching, and 8th for bang for the buck. They were 4th among MLB teams behind the Texas Rangers and two teams you would never have guessed: the Arizona Diamondbacks and Texas Rangers. In any event, nice to see the Rays up there among the best teams in sports, and hopefully a big finish to this year will get them higher up in those rankings next time. The Tampa Bay Lightning finished 7th in the rankings and 2nd in the NHL behind the Phoenix Coyotes. Rays principle owner Stuart Sternberg was also mentioned in the latest issue of ESPN The Magazine in the context of analytics-driven businessmen becoming sports owners and GMs.

MLB.com released their ranking of the Rays’ top 20 prospects, and here was their order.

1. Hak-Ju Lee
2. Taylor Guerrieri
3. Chris Archer
4. Mikie Mahtook
5. Enny Romero
6. Drew Vettleson
7. Blake Snell
8. Alex Torres
9. Alex Colome
10. Felipe Rivero
11. Parker Markel
12. Josh Sale
13. Ryan Brett
14. Derek Dietrich
15. Richie Shaffer
16. Jake Hager
17. Brandon Guyer
18. Justin O’Conner
19. Jeff Ames
20. Tim Beckham

We are going to have our first annual RCG Rays Prospect Rankings this offseason so I won’t talk too much about these rankings, but I will say that Romero and Torres are way too high in my book, Brandon Guyer and Justin O’Conner (who are still two players I really like) should not be in these rankings, and Tyler Goeddel is mysteriously absent. I did like where Vettleson and Snell were spotted in the rankings and that Tim Beckham was down at 20.

Speaking of Beckham, Baseball America’s John Manuel wrote about Beckham’s lost season in 2012, how he is moving on from his mistakes, and what his ultimate potential is. Below is one quote from Beckham but the entire piece is worth the read.

"“I like the feeling of what I’m doing right now. I made some adjustments. I had my hands in a different position than where I have them now. I’ve been trying to perfect that. I’ve got them lower now; they were over my head before, and there was a lot of movement. I talked to some of the older guys on the team who just told me my hands are quick enough and I’m strong enough where I don’t need all that movement. I feel like the more quiet you are (in the batter’s box), the more consistent you are, and that’s where I want to be.”"

And finally, happy birthday to Wade Davis yesterday. I wrote an article about the edge he gives the Rays out of the bullpen yesterday and there were a bunch of nice tweets relating to him as well.

"Wade Davis has pitched in mostly lower-leverage situations this year, but Maddon said he wouldn’t be afraid to use him in critical moments.— Adam Berry (@adamdberry) September 7, 2012"