Links

• The baseball world lost two players over the weekend as both Andy Marte and Yordano Ventura died in separate car accidents.
• Royals Review has plenty more coverage on Ventura
• The Atlanta Braves signed veteran catcher Kurt Suzuki
• Casey Gillaspie was ranked at the 5th top 1B prospect in all of baseball by MLB Pipeline
• Tropicana Field became one of the many arenas across the country to ban smokeless tobacco
• Topkin discusses several free agents the Rays may try to add
• Nick Cafardo thinks the Rays will trade another starting pitcher, most likely Jake Odorizzi

January 23rd in Rays History

In 2014, the Rays finalized a deal in which they signed veteran reliever, Grant Balfour to a two year deal. Balfour previously had a deal with the Baltimore Orioles that fell through due to injury concerns stemmed from his physical. Balfour would go on to struggle for the Rays and lose the closing job halfway through the 2014 season and would ultimately be released early on the following year.