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The DRaysBay 2016 off-season plan suggestion box!

Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

Our friends over at Lookout Landing had a brilliant idea this week, and it started with a simple ask: what the heck should the team do this off-season?

What transpired was the ultimate exercise in crowd sourcing. Here's the premise:

Look, creating an Offseason Plan is hard. There are trillions of possibilities, endless iterations, so much that it's difficult to know where to start...

That's why we're asking you to give us some ideas. Or, specifically, one single idea. Just a move that you think the [team] should make. It doesn't have to be the biggest move, or the smartest move. You could sign a free agent, compose a hypothetical trade, release someone for no reason - it's up to you. That's what makes these plans so great and terrible: the limitlessness.

But only make one move. If you make more than one, we'll end up swimming in moves and it'll be no better than starting from scratch. We'll take your answers, compile them, compare them, use them as a starting-off point for our own discussion, perhaps ridicule them privately. It'll be great. Thanks in advance, and look forward to our full-fledged Offseason Plan coming to your internet soon.

Please be as specific as possible. When making a trade, talk about who's getting traded to both teams. When signing contracts, give us dollars and years. Thanks.

The above was all a trick, or rather, a twitch. The moves came pouring in over at Lookout Landing, and produced some stellar results, which were then put into a random number generator. What transpired was whatever moves it would take to build a re-vamped 40-man roster.

I think it would be fun to try the same thing here, but with important caveats! So here are my ground rules:

1. If you enter a trade into the Suggestion Box google form below, it has to pass the sniff test. You're not trading Matt Moore for Bryce Harper, please suggest a legitimate trade.

2. You're not allowed to sign any player for more than $13.5M AAV, which is equal to the AAV of Longoria's contract over the next five years.

3. You can only submit one move (and will need to login to use the Suggestion Box).

With those rules in place, submit your one move and one move only, and let's see if we can improve the Tampa Bay Rays!

To make this a bit easier, I narrowed the roster to 40-men for the starting point, dropping OF Joey Butler, IF Jake Elmore, and C Luke Maile.

The timing of arbitration in the table is based on my best guess perusing the list, and could be subject to change beyond this exercise.

Pitchers B/T 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023
Matt Andriese R-R - - A1 A2 A3
Chris Archer R-R 2.92 4.92 6.42 7.67 9.0 11.0
Jeff Beliveau L-L - A1 A2 A3 A4
Andrew Bellatti R-R - - - A1 A2 A3
Brad Boxberger R-R - A1 A2 A3
Xavier Cedeno L-L - A1 A2 A3
Alex Cobb - DL R-R A2 A3
Alex Colome R-R - - A1 A2 A3
Grayson Garvin - DL L-L - - - - A1 A2 A3
Steve Geltz R-R - - A1 A2 A3
Brandon Gomes R-R A1 A2 A3
Nathan Karns R-R - - A1 A2 A3
Jake McGee L-L A3 A4
Matt Moore L-L 5.0 7.0 9.0 10.0
Jake Odorizzi R-R - A1 A2 A3
Erasmo Ramirez R-R A1 A2 A3 A4
C.J. Riefenhauser L-L - - - A1 A2 A3
Enny Romero L-L - - - A1 A2 A3
Burch Smith - DL R-R - - - A1 A2 A3
Drew Smyly L-L A2 A3 A4
Kirby Yates L-R - A1 A2 A3
Catchers B/T 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023
J.P. Arencibia R-R A2 A3
Curt Casali R-R - - A1 A2 A3
Justin O'Conner R-R - - - - A1 A2 A3
Rene Rivera R-R A2 A3
Infielders B/T 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023
Tim Beckham R-R - - A1 A2 A3
Ryan Brett R-R - - - A1 A2 A3
Logan Forsythe R-R A2 A3
Nick Franklin S-R - A1 A2 A3
James Loney L-L 8
Evan Longoria R-R 11.5 13.0 13.5 14.5 15.0 18.5 19.5 13.0
Richie Shaffer R-R - - - A1 A2 A3
Outfielders B/T 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023
Brandon Guyer R-R A1 A2 A3
Desmond Jennings R-R A2 A3
Kevin Kiermaier L-R - - A1 A2 A3
Mikie Mahtook R-R - - - A1 A2 A3
Daniel Nava S-L A2 A3
Steven Souza Jr. R-R - - A1 A2 A3

And lastly, here's a current list of free agents for you to peruse.

Looking forward to your submissions!