Maddon wants to keep Tampa Bay Rays on top

That is, aside from you are counting spring training, where Joe Maddon is excited to get to work after agreeing to a 3-year deal extension that would keep him in Tampa Bay’s dugout thru 2015. Online Sports Betting

The Rays officially recounted the agreement with the 58-year-old chief during a meeting at Tropicana Field.

Maddon has led the team to the playoffs 3 of the past 4 seasons and feels they’ve got a excellent opportunity of getting back again this year. Sports Betting

Maddon said while he’s flattered by supposition that he would have been attractive to other groups if the Rays hadn’t locked him up long-term that he had no need to leave Tampa Bay, which has a talented young register capable of saying for championships for many years to come.

Maddon is 495-477 in 6 seasons with the Rays, who struggled thru 10 years of futility prior to eventually posting the 1st winning record in organization’ history in 2008, when they not just denied the odds by finishing ahead of the NY Yankees and Boston Red Sox for the American League East title but made their 1st World Series show.

Tampa Bay won debatably baseball’s toughest division again in 2010, and then beat a 9-game deficiency in Sep to edge Boston for the American League wild-card spot on the final night of last season.

Maddon has excelled regardless of fielding a team whose payroll is one of the lowest in baseball. A year ago, the Rays lost 6 big players to free agency and traded 2 others, yet won 91 games to finish second in the American League East, which historically has been controlled by the big-spending Yankees and Red Sox.

“We’ve really grown a lot over the past 1 or 2 years,” recounted Maddon, who lost 101 games in 2006 — his 1st with Tampa Bay — and 96 the following season.

The Rays have averaged 92 wins the previous 4 seasons. And with one of baseball’s youngest and deepest pitching rotations and what could actually be an improved offensive attack led by Evan Longoria, B.J. Upton, Ben Zobrist, Carlos Pena and Luke Scott, Maddon expounded the club has everything it takes to come back to the postseason.

“We’ve come up short the last 2 years in the playoffs, but we probably did get there,” Maddon claimed, alluding losses to Texas in the divisional round in 2010 and 2011.

“We’ve got to extend that a bit as we go forward. … It’s around winning. It is regarding getting to the last game of the season and winning it next time we get a chance to be there.”

Rays executive vice president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman lauded Maddon’s capability to hook up with players, build young talent and always “put the organization 1st” in making decisions.

“I think one of his best strengths is something that isn’t talked about just about enough,” Friedman recounted. “All Joe does is under the form to make this club better in both the near term and the long run.

Maddon was entering the last season of a 3-year extension he signed in May 2009. Prior to his arrival after spending more than thirty years in the Angels organization, the Rays went 518-775 under the team’s 3 prior chiefs.