Chris Archer sets tone for Rays by admonishing two young hurlers
Tampa Bay Rays ace Chris Archer is looking forward to what will be his fourth big league season and he seems to be pretty comfortable taking more of a leadership role this year.
Archer scolded two young Rays pitchers for showing up a little bit later than Archer would have liked on the opening day of Tampa Bay’s spring training Sunday. Archer told Jacob Faria and Blake Snell that they needed to get to clubhouse earlier than 8:30 for a 9 a.m. meeting.
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That’s right, the two young guys were on time by half hour, according to a report in the Tampa Bay Times, and, no, this wasn’t a bit of rookie hazing. Archer apparently learned a similar lesson when he was younger from former Rays James Shields and David Price.
“You guys are the last two pitchers here,” Archer said to the two minor leaguers with reporters standing at his locker. “You guys have zero service time. You got no right to be coming in after me, really. I get here super early. I wouldn’t expect you to be here at 6:30, but 8:30?’’
[Pablo Sandoval’s weight is already the talk of spring training]
Former big leaguer Al Leiter took to Twitter to commend Archer for setting a tone and establishing expectations and a culture in the Rays clubhouse right from the beginning.
Archer is 27 and coming off his first All-Star season. He pitched 200 innings for the first time in 2015, throwing 212 innings with a 3.23 ERA and 252 strikeouts. He’s obviously becoming one of the best pitchers in baseball and his words carry plenty of weight with younger players in the organization.
Faria, a 22-year-old right-hander drafted by the Rays in the 10th round in 2011 and Snell, 23, a first-round pick that same year, seemed to receive the message well. The Times followed up Monday reporting that the two were in the clubhouse by 7 a.m.
“We were here bright and early,” Faria said told the Times. “Didn’t want to risk it.”
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Kyle Ringo is a contributing writer to Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @KyleRingo
