Rays News and Notes: Matt Moore Ready for Competition

Bill Chastain of MLB.com has a great article out now on Matt Moore‘s competition for a spot in the rotation. Moore, even with his great showing in the playoffs last season, is not guaranteed a spot in the rotation and will have to fight Jeff Niemann, Wade Davis, and Alex Cobb. Moore will have his work cut out for him, as all three are great pitchers.

If I had to guess, Moore will get the fourth spot in the rotation and come behind James Shields, David Price, and Jeremy Hellickson. He will still have to have a great spring, but he certainly has the ability to do this with ease.

Rays News and Notes

• Speaking of Matt Moore, he picked up another high prospect ranking. Baseball America published their top 100 list, ranking Moore at second, behind Bryce Harper. Three other Rays made the list, with Hak-Ju Lee at 44, Chris Archer at 89, and Taylor Guerrieri at 90.
• Jeff Briscoe of Yahoo! has some of the highlights from Joe Maddon and Andrew Friedman’s joint press conference yesterday. It is always fun to see what they say, and Briscoe includes what Maddon says about some of the position battles.
• Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times has some minor notes from the first full workout of spring training.
• The Times also has some pictures from day one of spring workouts.