Tampa Bay Rays news and links: The 2012 Rays were actually pretty good

Animals everywhere are loving the Rays Players & Pooches calendar.

I’ve just bought a couple for the Red Sox fans in my life.

Links

• Ryan Pollack, over at The Hardball Times, went looking for the team most similar to the world champion 2016 Chicago Cubs, a team lauded as one of the better team’s baseball has seen in quite a while. He found the 2012 Tampa Bay Rays.
• Two days ago, the Rays announced their minor league staffs. Here’s Topkin with bios of the new hires.
• Steve Kinsella wrote about the Rays’ holiday free-agent shopping list.
• Bill Chastain writes, “Could the Rays Sway Jose Bautista in the free-agency game?” I’m going to save you the trouble of clicking through on this one. Chastain says “maybe.” The answer is “no.”
• Jonny Gomes wants to come back. Maybe that’s more the Rays free-agent speed. Having read Kinsella’s shopping list, I wonder, can Gomes play center field?
• At Baseball America, a very interesting interview (concerning political lobbying, labor suits, hand-wringing over team name changes, etc.) with Pat O’Conner, president of Minor League baseball

Trivia

Yesterday’s trivia answer was Kelly Johnson, first correct by Andersbot.

I made today’s trivia about those world-beating 2012 Rays. You may recall that they had a few problems with their infield. Rather a lot of infielders played. Who were all the infielders? Sporcle quiz here.