| Douglas Benton. 13th February, 2006 - 5:41 pm
 Success has been hard to come by for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in their brief history, as they hit their low point last season with 67-95 record and the removal of manager Lou Pinella. Now, the Devil Rays are looking to go back to square one and reshape a franchise that has struggled to even leave the ground.
With a solid core of young players to build around, the Devil Rays went out and hired Angels bench coach Joe Maddon to help lead this group to respectability. After being Mike Scioscia’s right hand man for the last six seasons, Maddon comes to Tampa Bay as a well-respected baseball mind, who can grow with this team. The Devil Rays have already tried brining in someone who has managerial experience in Pinella and that ended in disastrous fashion.
So now, Maddon will be in charge of developing a roster that is very deep in the outflied with Carl Crawford, Aubrey Huff, and young phenoms in Delmon Young and Joey Gathright. They also have young prospects in the infield with B. J. Upton and Jorge Cantu to go along with stud arms in Scott Kazmir and newly-added Edwin Jackson.
Still, all of this talent didn’t produce much last season, so the challenge for Maddon will be to mold all of this talent into a workable team by the team of opening day. Maddon is a good choice for this job because of his pedigree under Sciosica that has made him managerial-ready and his experience in years to be able to be a leader for this group.
Now, this rebuilding project won’t be complete after this season, but it looks as if the Devil Rays are on the cusp of taking it to the next level and Maddon is a good candidate to take this on this trip. While his hiring might have lacked flash, Maddon was one of the best hires this off-season and it has been long overdue for a man that has helped make the Angles the team they are today. |
