Tampa Bay Rays news and links: Cooking with Diego Castillo

Happy Thanksgiving, y’all! For my part I’m Thankful to be home with family in Tampa Bay, and assuming nothing’s gone badly wrong, by the time this publishes I’ll be thankful that my surgically-repaired knee is well enough to outrun my wife in the Tampa Bay Times Turkey Trot. Not that we’re competitive or anything.

Rays pitching prospect Diego Castillo can throw 100 mph, and apparently he can also cook.

Here’s his recipe.

Here’s what some players around the league, including Evan Longoria, make.

Links

• Bill Chastain wrote a nice article about Mike Mahtook’s father, who died of heart disease at 32. Mahtook has dedicated himself to raising awareness and prevention of the disease.
• I dig this. Jeff Remington wrote an article appreciating players who retired this year with little fanfare. Among them former-Rays Grant Balfour and Jamey Wright.
• Interesting article from Jeff Sullivan: The Pitch framing floor is rising. Translation: Pitch framing is not a good way to expect to win as a small market team, because everyone’s hip to it.
• Big trade between the Mariners and the Diamondbacks.
• Dave Cameron analyzes it.
• Ben Badler wrote about the problems with the structure of the international market.

Trivia

Let me circle back to the answer to my trivia from Tuesday, which I never gave. The question was whose changeups had given the most value in a Rays uniform. Brian Andersbot came in first with most of the answers to the top ten, but no one was able to fill in the last three. They’re in bold.

1) Shields – 72.2 runs above average

2) Cobb – 38.4

3) Hellickson – 34.8

4) Price – 25.6

5) Rodney – 25.1

6) Erasmo Ramirez – 11.1

7) Howell – 9.2

8) Moore – 8.9

9) Cesar Ramirez – 7.5

10) Blake Snell (!) – 7.1

So now let’s do the same things with sliders. Which Rays have given the most value with their slider? Obviously, Chris Archer is already number one, and like with Shields, it’s not close.

But who are the other ten?

Hint: Two were mostly starters, two were split between relief and starter roles, and the rest spent most of their time as relievers.