The offseason has only just begun, and already it’s been a very tumultuous one for the Tampa Bay Rays.
Indeed, new president of baseball operations Matt Silverman—who took over the job in October after Andrew Friedman, his longtime predecessor, left for the Los Angeles Dodgers—has his work cut out for him.
Not only is Silverman new to his own job, but he also has to choose the man to succeed former skipper Joe Maddon, who did plenty of succeeding himself by posting a .529 winning percentage and winning two AL East titles and one AL pennant in his nine seasons before opting out of the final year of his contract and signing a five-year deal with the Chicago Cubs.
On Thursday, the team revealed the eight preliminary candidates to replace Maddon.
That’s a rather large number of baseball minds to bring in and interview for a managerial search, but the Rays can handle this however they desire.
And it sounds like there will be more to come, according to Silverman, who said, “This is a preliminary list of candidates, and we expect it will grow as we continue through this process.”
As for these eight to start, well, the list is—how do we put this?—eclectic. There’s really a little of everything to consider, which is why we’ll count down all of them, in order of least to most likely to actually land the gig.