Could Tampa Bay Rays Have Interest In Ron Gardenhire?
By Josh Hill
The Tampa Bay Rays need to find a replacement for the departed Joe Maddon, and former Minnesota Twins skipper Ron Gardenhire could be an option.
When the Tampa Bay Rays lost manager Joe Maddon to the Chicago Cubs, there was a lot of hurt and a lot of pain to be had. But things move quickly in baseball and the Rays need to get past their sadness over losing Maddon and replace him with someone who is capable of making sure the team doesn’t skip too many beats.
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There haven’t been many names circulated around baseball with interest in the Rays job but there are two that have surfaced that make a lot of sense.
According to Nick Cafardo from the Boston Globe, the Rays seem to be hot for bench coach Dave Martinez but could look the direction of Ron Gardenhire, who was fired by the Minnesota Twins this offseason.
"The feeling is that if Maddon’s bench coach, Dave Martinez, was going to get the job, he would have gotten it by now.The Rays loved analytics when Friedman was in charge, and he and Maddon were in lockstep. Will the Rays continue to pursue that type of manager or will they go for a more traditional field general, such as Ron Gardenhire, who was dismissed by the Twins after 13 seasons"
That’s not to say the Rays are even considering the former Twins manager, but he’s clearly not a bad option. Gardenhire would be a change of pace guy from Maddon, as he is similar in that they love their team and their guys but different in that Gardenhire is more reserved. Madden was rather flamboyant in his actions while Gardenhire harbored the same passion but did so in a more laid back way.
Martinez and Gardenhire are great options for the Rays and it reminds us that there is a vacancy in Tampa Bay that needs to be filled.