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Rays Tank: Ted Williams Hall honors seven

By Adam Sanford and Daniel Russell
Chris Archer wearing a pretty cool NASA shirt that's cut off by the way I had to crop this picture
Chris Archer wearing a pretty cool NASA shirt that's cut off by the way I had to crop this picture
Jonathan Dyer-USA TODAY Sports

The Ted Williams Museum's annual induction ceremony and dinner was this weekend, with Chris Archer playing host. The ceremony took place in the outfield at Tropicana Field.

Alan Trammell, Billy Wagner, Roy Halladay, Dante Bichette, Rays pitching coach Dave Eiland, and current player Alex Rodriguez were inducted. Also honored was the recently traded Jake McGee.

Elsewhere, Rays third base coach Charlie Montoyo was elected to the International League Hall of Fame and managing the Rays Triple-A Durham Bulls for eight seasons before his promotion to the big league club last under Kevin Cash.

This Date in Team History!

A trio of former Rays have birthdays. Jim Parque (1975), Adam Piatt (1976), and Burke Badenhop (1983) were all born on this date.

Parque and Piatt both had sub-par careers with meager success. Badenhop however has found a role as a ground-ball-inducing reliever. After a decent 2012 season with Tampa Bay he was a traded, and has been with three different organizations over the past three years.

Trivia Time

The answer to yesterday's question was Casey Fossum, answered by tigerpu

Wrong answers included Hideo Nomo, Edwin Jackson, Dewon Brazelton, *Damian Easley, Matt Moore, Jae Seo, and Mark Hendrickson

Scouts say he can handle any pitch when he’s at full-bore concentration because the wrist-action in his swing might be the quickest and strongest in the game. That, plus his full body strength, give him enormous power to all fields. When he has problems, it usually is a matter of overswinging, which causes him to chase poor pitches. He was developing into a decent right fielder, but is blocked at that position, so he will have to adjust to left, where one of the strongest outfield arms in the game will be wasted. He runs well but is not a base stealer.

Hint; twice he was his system's number one prospect as well as the Baseball America minor league player of the year.

***

There are 55 days until Opening Day!

That's the same number of runs knocked in by Evan Longoria during the 2012 season.

Three of those came on three swings of the bat during one game.

Links

- Marc Topkin expounded on the Rays interest in finding another reliever to make up for the trade of Jake McGee (Tyler Clippard is available) and lists Ryan Webb, Tommy Hunter, and former Rays pitcher Burke Badenhop as "legit possibilities" on the open market, as well as the Indians, Nationals, Rangers, and Angels as trade partners.

- We covered the Angels as trade partners on Friday.

- You can find details on the Rays Fan Fast here. Rays Fan Fest is scheduled for Feb. 27 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. ET at Tropicana Field.

- mlb.com rolled out a fantasy baseball profile site.

- Kevin Kiermaier tackled some giant steaks to raise money for charity at a local Clearwater Smokey Bones on Thursday, and now we have video!

- Hardball Times: Visualizing sliders (Chris Archer ranks second to Yu Darvish for best slider in any season in PFX era) | Topps baseball cards are 65 years old.

- Numbers for new Rays: Corey Dickerson 10, Brad Miller 13, Logan Morrison 7, Steve Pearce 28.

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