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Joe Maddon: I Want To Continue To Be With Tampa Bay Rays

ByEd Carroll|
Sep 17, 2014; St. Petersburg, FL, USA; Tampa Bay Rays manager Joe Maddon (70) reacts during the eighth inning against the New York Yankees at Tropicana Field. New York Yankees defeated the Tampa Bay Rays 3-2. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports
Sep 17, 2014; St. Petersburg, FL, USA; Tampa Bay Rays manager Joe Maddon (70) reacts during the eighth inning against the New York Yankees at Tropicana Field. New York Yankees defeated the Tampa Bay Rays 3-2. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

Andrew Friedman left the Tampa Bay Rays to join the Los Angeles Dodgers this week, but Rays manager Joe Maddon doesn’t have any plans to follow Friedman to the West Coast, and wants to remain with Tampa Bay.

Don’t expect to see Tampa Bay Rays manager Joe Maddon join his former colleague Andrew Friedman with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Despite Friedman, the former Rays GM, leaving the organization to become the director of baseball operations for the Dodgers, Maddon wants to remain a Ray.

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Friedman plans to retain Dodgers manager Don Mattingly for the 2015 season, but this could essentially be an extended job audition for him. Unlike Friedman, who worked for the Rays without a contract, Maddon is under contract through next season for Tampa Bay. Maddon was a former Los Angeles Angels coach before Friedman hired him to helm the Rays, and he still has a home in Long Beach, so it’s certainly possible Maddon could be a candidate for the Dodgers job in 2016 if Mattingly disappoints.

Maddon has been the only manager Friedman has ever worked with, as Friedman hired him following the 2005 season, shortly after Friedman himself took the reigns of the then-Devil Rays. Maddon spent 31 years in the Angels system in various capacities before he joined the Rays, and has since become ingrained in Florida.

Regardless of if Maddon ends up joining Friedman in LA, it appears there’s still a close friendship between the two:

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