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Tampa Bay Rays Rumors: Rays Reportedly Pursuing Josh Willingham

The Winter Meetings are currently underway in Dallas and the Tampa Bay Rays figure to make some moves just like every other team that is in attendance. Which moves they will make remains anybody's guess. According to our Tampa Bay Rays blog D Rays Bay, via Ken Rosenthal, the Rays are interested in former Athletic, National and Marlin outfielder Josh Willingham. Here is a little more on why the Rays might have interest in Willingham.

Some of us here have lusted after Willingham for the past couple of seasons, as he is underrated and well above average offensively. He has never posted below a .350 wOBA over a full season, and he walks around 10% of the time with a large amount of power (29 HRs last season, .232 ISO). According to both UZR and DRS, he's slightly below average defensively in the outfield, but the Rays would be signing him to either play first base or DH.

Willingham would make a nice corner outfielder for the Rays, as he is very productive behind the plate. As with all of the deals that will go down this week, it comes down to the matters of coast and opportunity.

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Photographs by cstreet.us, thelastminute, turtlemom nancy , fesek, kthypryn, justinwright, sue_elias, pointnshoot, and scrapstothefuture used in background montage under Creative Commons. Thank you.