'We're incredibly lucky to have him': Cash the right man to lead Rays

MILWAUKEE -- For a time, as the first wave of analytical thinking swept through baseball, there were just certain things that “smart,” forward-thinking managers didn’t do. They didn’t lock players into certain parts of the lineup. They didn’t have a designated closer. They didn’t give away outs by trying to steal bases. And they sure as heck didn’t bunt.

So take a look at the Rays, the best team in the American League all season and in the postseason. Their front office is as smart as any team in baseball, as is their manager. And here they are, about to play in the World Series, with three players locked into the top of the lineup, a closer who tied for the Major League lead in saves, more steals than any team in the AL and more bunting than you’ll find along the upper-deck facing at American Family Field for Game 1 of the World Series on Friday night.

Some commentators will say they’ve gone old school. Others will say they’re reinventing the new school. Rays manager Kevin Cash will say he and his coaches are doing whatever it takes to lead his team to win as many games as possible.

“I think the entire staff prides themselves on being eager to learn, and learn new information. There's a lot of information out there,” Cash said Thursday afternoon on the eve of Game 1. “It seems like it evolves year to year.”

So, too, has Cash.

Cash, 48, is the longest-tenured manager in the Majors, having led his hometown team since 2015. He’s guided the Rays to six playoff berths in the past eight years, and now, he’s returning to the World Series for the second time in the past seven seasons. With time has come experience, and with experience has come understanding.

“Experience for experience's sake -- if you're not learning and adapting -- it's not worth a whole lot. He puts experience to great use,” president of baseball operations Erik Neander said. “It's not fitting a group to our rigid philosophy, but having a philosophy that adjusts and adapts to our personnel.”

Go figure: The same manager who was crushed for taking out Blake Snell too early in Game 6 of the 2020 World Series got ripped in some corners for leaving Drew Rasmussen in to start the seventh inning in Game 1 of the Rays’ eventual ALCS triumph over the Guardians.

So, sure, let Chandler Simpson, Cedric Mullins and Taylor Walls drop some bunts. Write down Yandy Díaz, Jonathan Aranda and Junior Caminero atop the lineup card in permanent ink. Run wild on the bases. Call for Bryan Baker when there’s a save situation in the ninth inning.

“There's pride in doing everything you can to win games. If we had a club that was built with a bunch of boppers, we probably wouldn't be bunting and stealing bases either,” Cash said. “But our club's built differently in comparison to some other clubs. This group here does everything on a nightly basis just to win the game, and that's kind of what has stood out.”

Twelve seasons into his first managerial job, Cash still possesses what Neander called the “fixed attributes” that made him such an appealing candidate to former Rays president Matt Silverman when they were looking for a successor to Joe Maddon: “The rarest blend of strength and humility,” Neander said.

It takes a certain degree of strength to lead, especially when charged with overseeing a clubhouse full of coaches and players with different backgrounds, skill sets and mentalities. You’re the team’s most forward-facing spokesman, the source of energy, the one to make tough decisions, the inspiration when times get tough.

According to his players, Cash is excellent at that aspect of the job. He has maintained a comfortable environment in which players feel free to be themselves and fully understand both their strengths and their roles.

“They just want you to know why you're here and what makes you good,” starter Griffin Jax said. “So when [stuff] hits the fan, you can fall back on that.”

“I think they do a really good job of eliminating that fear of being perfect or the fear of failing, and they put you in good positions to do what you do well at a very high rate,” added Walls. “His staff, and everybody along the staff, is the exact same way.”

But it takes just as much humility to learn, to accept feedback, to listen to different perspectives or ideas and to deflect credit while shouldering blame. The next time Cash attempts to make a story about himself will be the first, and the next time he acts like he’s got it all figured out will be a shock to anyone who knows him.

“He's a winning manager,” second baseman Richie Palacios said, “so he knows exactly what winning teams do.”

So there Cash sat in the American Family Field interview room on Thursday, in front of a room full of reporters, talking about how the Rays have “made bunting cool.” He credited the Rays’ front office staff for pouring itself into the data and presenting a case it might have disagreed with six years ago.

And there he sat, four wins away from the Rays’ first World Series championship.

“His attitude and approach to the job, and the joy he finds from it, I think it is the same now as it was then, and we're incredibly grateful for that,” Neander said. “We're incredibly lucky to have him, and there's no slowing down in a job that can wear people down and can get stale in the same place.

“Those core attributes have persisted, and he’s just as energized to do it now as he was then. And he has continued to get better through the experiences along the way.”