Tank: Ryan Webb likely to be signed today

This Date in Team History!

I found nothing of compelling significance related to the Rays, but, if someone reading this knows of something, please share it in the comments.

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Trivia Time! (Ian)

Yesterday's trivia answers were Jose Molina for worst season by fWAR, and Damion Easley for worst Rays career. The first part was first answered by npolackw.

Today we're going to go with something easy. Here's a pitch movement graph. Who is the pitcher?

Here's a bit of an old BP blurb on him I found funny (because it's not quite right, but it does illustrate some of the changes of thought around Rays pitching).

No one`s ever going to stop and admire one of _______`s pitches, but he stays low in the strike zone, throws a sinker to get ground balls, and mixes in some decent off-speed stuff to keep hitters honest. It`s not always pretty, but it works.

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There are 45 days until Opening Day!

That's the same number of runs scored by Pat Burrell during the 2010 season.

One of those runs scored on this walk-off home run!

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Links! (Ian)

- According to Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times, the Rays are likely to add reliever Ryan Webb on a major league deal today. The deal had to wait until today so that the Rays could move Alex Cobb and Chase Whitley to the 60-day DL and open spots on the 40-man roster.

- H/t to Topkin on this, too. But former-Ray Chris Gimenez nearly got crushed by a flying snow plow while he sat in traffic minding his own business. Weird. Glad he's okay.

- Jasyson Stark of ESPN asked baseball FO types to grade each others offseasons. Corey Dickerson got votes for "best trade" and Steve Pearce got votes for best-value signing, but the Rays also got votes for least-improved team. I imagine those votes came from different execs.

- We've spent a lot of time recently talking about projections and the Rays and the Royals and "What are they good for?" Jeff Zimmerman looked at the error in season win projections in a nice, graphical way.

- More on that: there is parity in the AL.

- A look at what PECOTA thinks are the worst positions in baseball. The Rays are not on it :)