This is Michael Lortz’ fifth and final piece as part of his June residency at FanGraphs. Lortz covers the Tampa Bay baseball market for the appropriately named Tampa Bay Baseball Market and has previously published work in the Community pages, as well. You can find him on Twitter, as well. Read the work of all our residents here.

During my month here at FanGraphs, I’ve given an overview of the Rays’ attendance problems, detailed their need to attract millennials, compared them to other small-market teams, and discussed how their marketing strategy differs from local minor-league competition. Today, I want to end my time as June resident by talking about how baseball attendance in Tampa Bay will fare in the second half of 2017.

On June 24th, the Rays played their 41st game at Tropicana Field this year. Their average attendance at that point was 14,930. Of course, this is the lowest average attendance of any team in the Major Leagues, but it is also the Rays’ third-lowest midseason average attendance since 2007. Only in 2007 (when they were still the Devil Rays) and 2015 (the first post-Maddon year) was average attendance lower at the halfway point.

The following graph depicts Rays’ average attendance at Game 41 since 2007.

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Fringe Five Scoreboards: 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013.

The Fringe Five is a weekly regular-season exercise, introduced a few years ago by the present author, wherein that same author utilizes regressed stats, scouting reports, and also his own fallible intuition to identify and/or continue monitoring the most compelling fringe prospects in all of baseball.

Central to the exercise, of course, is a definition of the word fringe, a term which possesses different connotations for different sorts of readers. For the purposes of the column this year, a fringe prospect (and therefore one eligible for inclusion among the Five) is any rookie-eligible player at High-A or above who (a) was omitted from the preseason prospect lists produced by Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus, MLB.com, John Sickels*, and (most importantly) lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen and also who (b) is currently absent from a major-league roster. Players appearing on any updated list — such as the revised top 100 released last week by Baseball America — will also be excluded from eligibility.

*All 200 names!

In the final analysis, the basic idea is this: to recognize those prospects who are perhaps receiving less notoriety than their talents or performance might otherwise warrant.

Jose Miguel Fernandez, 2B, Los Angeles NL (Profile)
Like every player included among this edition of the Five (with the exception of Zack Granite, who has nowhere to go besides the majors), Fernandez received a promotion this week — in this case, from Double- to Triple-A. It was only temporary (he returned to Tulsa yesterday), but not irrelevant. While it’s almost too obvious even to render into print, these promotions serve as votes of confidence from the organizations to which the players belong. That’s relevant to the author’s decision-making insofar as clubs naturally possess much better information about their prospects than a weblogger sitting at a coffee shop in Maine.

Questions persist about Fernandez’s second-base defense. No questions appear to remain about his offensive profile, however. He possesses the lowest strikeout rate in the Texas League among qualified batters and a better-than-average isolated-power figure.

Here he is taking some pleasure in his work earlier this week:

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This year, we’ve seen the debut of two 24-year-old lefties who have taken their own paths to the big leagues. Jordan Montgomery in New York and Sean Newcomb in Atlanta both look like they’re dealing, but they’ve had to work to get here. Listed at 6-foot-6 and 6-foot-5, respectively, it’s worth wondering if their height has slowed down the development of their command, if it’s taken them longer to get their impressive levers in the right places. There’s some evidence that might be the case. But these two pitchers remind us that there are very few absolutes when it comes to mechanics, and that even tall pitchers are as different from each other as they are from the general population.

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We’d all like to think that we’d act as MLB umpire John Tumpane did this past Wednesday at around 3 p.m. while crossing the Roberto Clemente Bridge in Pittsburgh.

Tumpane was returning from an atypically late lunch and jog across the gold-painted steel suspension bridge. If you don’t know the bridge by name, you’re probably familiar with it anyway: it serves as the iconic backdrop beyond PNC Park. One of three sister bridges, it connects downtown with the North Shore of the city. At its apex, it sits 79 feet above the Allegheny River, which it spans. As the 34-year-old Tumpane crossed the structure on Wednesday afternoon, the Chicago native watched as a woman climbed over one of its railings, preparing to jump.

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Pace. The word occupying the most of Rob Manfred’s mind is pace. Or maybe it’s action. They could be tied. Manfred wants more action; he wants a quicker pace. In short, he wants more things to happen. Games continue to grow longer and longer, and that means dead time. Strikeouts continue to rise, and that means fewer balls in play. Home runs continue to rise, and that means…I don’t know, reducing the thrill of the average home run. If I had to distill everything down, I’d say that baseball is most concerned with staying interesting. It doesn’t want to be the boring sport, and it doesn’t want to become the more boring sport.

Personally, I’m not bored by baseball. I know you’re not, either, because this place is selective for superfans. Even if you wouldn’t ordinarily think of yourself as being a baseball superfan, you almost certainly qualify. Think about the website you’re reading right now. We all still find pleasure in the game, and I’m not finding any less than I ever have. If anything, my own level of interest deepens by the day.

But, wouldn’t you know it, but you could say baseball really is more boring than it’s been in a while. Not so much in a way that you’d notice. It’s subtle, as many trends are. But I have numbers to make a case. While I don’t know what to make of them, I’d still like to share them, while I have your attention.

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Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about (and/or follow up on) Miguel Montero’s Cubs demise, philosophical Pirates quotes, Carter Capps, unusual ballpark constructions, jams and rallies, and target-based hitting competitions, then answer listener emails about extra-inning wins by wide margins, Jake Arrieta’s career vs. Brad Radke’s career, David Ortiz’s value, rampant base-stealing in single games, Theo Epstein’s workload, catcher interference, and the latest lexicon questions, including inside-the-park homering, working walks, comebacks, breaking the game wide open, and insurance runs.

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Aesthetically, the emergent style of play in “our game” isn’t very pleasing, I would submit. The three true outcomes have run amok; the Russell Branyan-ization of baseball is almost complete. That said, there have been some satisfying side effects of this trend, Aaron Judge and Cody Bellinger among them.

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On Tuesday, the Yankees called up infielder Tyler Wade in the wake of Starlin Castro’s injury. They dipped into their farm system again on Wednesday, calling up Miguel Andujar (3.6 KATOH, 2.6 KATOH+) to replace the injured Matt Holliday. And wouldn’t you know it, they did it again today. This time it’s Dustin Fowler getting the in place of Tyler Austin.

Fowler is easily the best prospect who was called up this week. He’s demonstrated a rare combination of power and speed in the minors, mashing 12 homers this year to go along with 13 steals. He’s also kicked in eight triples after lacing 15 last season. Fowler doesn’t strike out all that often, either. He’s whiffed 20% of the time this season, which puts him right around league average.

On defense, Fowler has primarily played center field, though he’s gotten regular reps at both outfield corners. He possesses plus speed, which is typically more than enough to man center field, but the metrics aren’t fond of him out there. Clay Davenport’s numbers have him as a -14 defender over roughly a full season of games in center between this year and last. Regardless, he should be more than fine in an outfield corner, which is where New York will likely use him for the time being.

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