Tampa Bay Rays news and links: Sean Rodriguez gets a deal

Besides your own stoves at home heating up for a delicious turkey day celebration, the baseball offseason hot stove has just started up. Forget Black Friday or Cyber Monday, the most exciting shopping “holiday” coming up in less than two weeks is the MLB Winter Meetings.

Hope everyone out there had a very happy and healthy Thanksgiving!

Links:

• It was a happy Thanksgiving for Sean Rodriguez, who signed a 2 year $11.5 million dollar deal with the Braves. Ronnie Socash at Beyond the Box Score explains why that’s a great deal for Atlanta. Rays fans however should already know how good Sean Rodriguez can be in that utility role.
• Baseball America released their list of the Top 100 High School prospects for the 2017 draft.
• Jeff Sullivan writes about the league wide, on-going rise of the pitch framing floor. The Twins signing Jason Castro is an attempt to get with the cool kids and finally join that pitch framing party (better late than never).
• The San Diego Padres unveiled some absolutely bland new uniforms for 2017, to a less than enthusiastic response.

• According to the New York Daily News, Yoenis Cespedes is “not part of the Yankees offseason plans”. I am more than okay with Cespedes not being in the Bronx, and would be okay if he skipped the AL East entirely.
• Alex Remington at the Hardball Times compiled a list and an ode to some players who quietly retired from the game in 2016.