Tampa Bay Rays news and links: Jose De Leon Feels at Home

Links:

• Mathew Trueblood of Baseball Prospectus analyzes the recent Rays-Dodgers trade, and provides a nice breakdown of what Jose De Leon is gonna be bringing home to the Trop.
• Earlier in the month, Baseball Prospectus took a look at how the Rays are trying to capitalize on the market inefficiency of corner outfield archetypes, and now Zach Crizer at Beyond the Box Score takes another look at how Joe Maddon and the Cubs could use “opposing archetypes to maximum effect”.
• MLB.com’s Mike Petriello lists out the highest whiff rates by pitches of 2016. The Rays represent well, including Farquhar for Change-up (2nd 52.9%), Romero (1st 45.1%) and Colome (2nd 43.3%) for Cutter, and Blake Snell earning 4th highest whiff rate for his Slider (56.2%).
• Baseball America has the proposed bonus slot amounts for the upcoming draft, with the Rays coming in with a pool of $11,930,300.
• Bill Chastain on MLB.com answers some Rays fan questions.
• Marc Topkin’s latest column focuses all on what we can expect from our shiny new prospect: Jose De Leon.
• Topkin is also floating the rumor that the Rays might have interest in a former white whale of some on this board: Billy Butler

• The Richie Shaffer offseason tour continues, this time to the Cleveland Indians.

• Jose De Leon looking fly at the Trop.

• Finally, if you are in the mood for a nice baseball player/stats quiz, check out Jeff Sullivan’s “Baseball is Amazing and Stupid” quiz on Fangraphs.