Tampa Bay Rays news and links: Zobrist cements his legacy

We are now in that middle zone where baseball has ended, but the hot stove of free agency and trade rumors are not quite warmed up yet.

Pretty soon the Winter Meetings will be here, every day a new wild rumor will fill our heads with possibility, and Pitchers and Catchers will report to kick off another year of baseball.

That cannot come soon enough.

Links:

• Fans of the Rays have known for quite sometime how great Ben Zobrist is and how overlooked he was by practically everyone else. At Fangraphs, August Fagerstrom lays out the case why thanks to even more heroics on the grandest of stages, the history books will not underrate Zobrist.
• The Rays twitter had some congratulations to share as well:

• Mike Montgomery only threw 2 pitches in Game 7, but one of those put him into some rarefied air as only the 8th pitcher in MLB history to throw a “Golden Pitch”

• There was a lot of discussion about the managerial moves from both Tito Francona and Joe Maddon. Matthew Trueblood at Baseball Prospectus throws his assessment into the ring of both manager’s moves from the epic Game 7.
• Jeff Sullivan takes a much deserved closer look at the huge moment from Game 7 that happened before Zobrist’s big go-ahead RBI.
• The Los Angeles Angels (of Anaheim) completed a trade with the Tigers for Cameron Maybin.
• Neat little bit of history made this year from Utley (not related to changing slide rules)

• Finally, since I’m a sucker for the romantic side of baseball, there is this pretty cool ad.