More than a dozen players have been working out regularly at the Trop in advance of spring training, on February 23rd in Port Charlotte. On Friday, several of those players and coaches met with the media — you can find a handful of choice interviews with Grant Balfour, John Jaso, Alex Cobb, Chris Archer and Kevin Cash, thanks to Andrew Astleford (Fox Sports FL, Sun Sports):
VIDEO: #Rays‘ Balfour speaks about moving on from 2014. https://t.co/QijLtJKdJR
— Andrew Astleford (@aastleford) February 6, 201
VIDEO: #Rays‘ Jaso speaks about being traded + personal expectations. https://t.co/RdB0sjxG1O
— Andrew Astleford (@aastleford) February 6, 2015
VIDEO: #Rays‘ Cobb speaks about Cash’s identity as manager. https://t.co/G5BO5PeWVA — Andrew Astleford (@aastleford) February 6, 2015
VIDEO: #Rays‘ Archer speaks about Moore’s recovery. https://t.co/UdfSE20w1z — Andrew Astleford (@aastleford) February 6, 2015
VIDEO: #Rays‘ Cash speaks about his anticipation for the spring. https://t.co/RPEbrQv25x
— Andrew Astleford (@aastleford) February 6, 2015
The Times’ Marc Topkin and Will Vragovic also put together a brief, one minute and 39 second, recap of the day:
Finally, Chris Archer joined the Hot Stove on MLB Network, and discussed a good number of topics — from getting prepared for the upcoming season, to the expectations set for the entire team by the PECOTA projections.
Props to Archer who turned around a question asked by Jon Heyman regarding former manager Joe Maddon, and used it as an opportunity to talk about how the Rays are a better team, even if, in his words, “People are counting us out.” Well done Chris, well done.