Ready For New Year
Tampa bay,Fla – Heightened expectations don’t scare the Tampa Bay Rays. Neither do the big-spending New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox.
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The AL champions convened Sunday for the start of spring training, intent on getting back to the World Series. Manager Joe Maddon said it starts with attitude.
“I talked a lot about what we’ve talked about in the past, which is trust and accountability,” said Maddon, who a year ago sold his young team on the “98” motto that became the club’s mantra during their improbable run.
“Today, I wanted to talk more about humility and gratitude. I really believe if we remain humble and are grateful for what has happened to this point, I think that’s going to equal self-discipline, which is going to give us our best chance to continue what we’re doing.”
for nine innings equals one of eight postseason berths.
Along the way, the Rays not only proved they were capable of competing with the Yankees and Red Sox, but became just the second team in major league history to make the playoffs after having the worst record in baseball the previous year.
Tampa Bay is coming off its first postseason berth and a World Series loss to Philadelphia. Maddon sees no reason why the Rays can’t be even better this season if they don’t forget what it took to become champions.
“The analogy I used is the slippery slope everybody talks about is lined with ingratitude and a lack of humility. I think that’s where people fail, especially after they’ve been successful. I don’t want us to fall into that trap,” Maddon said.
“We’re good. We’re very talented. We play baseball well. It’s how we think that’s going to control our destiny. I wanted to make sure that they understood that.”
The fourth-year manager also talked about expectations and pressure, urging players to use them as motivation instead of viewing them a potential hindrance to keep pace with the Yankees and Red Sox, who both retooled this winter in hopes of dethroning the Rays.
ist they can’t get caught up in what the Yankees or anyone are doing.
“Honestly, and I’ve said this before, I’m really not concerned about that. It’s all about what the Rays do. We have to come into camp and prepare ourselves to play the game on a nightly basis as well as we possibly can,” Maddon said.
All-Star pitcher Scott Kazmir boldly predicted on the first day of spring training a year ago that the Rays, despite never having finished with a winning record, had the capability of playing into October.
He views what the Yankees have done to try to keep pace with Tampa Bay, which still has one of the lowest payrolls in baseball, as a compliment.
“The funny part is we can still match up with them. … We know we can beat them day in, day out if we play the way we know how to play,” Kazmir said. “It’s just a good feeling to know you have the respect around the league.”
Tampa Bay didn’t exactly stand pat in the offseason, adding slugger Pat Burrell, outfielders Matt Joyce and Gabe Kapler and bolstering the bullpen with the additions of Joe Nelson, Lance Cormier and Brian Shouse.
e fifth spot.
“I think the easy thing to do would be return the exact same team that won the American League and came up just short in the World Series. But that’s something we didn’t want to do,” executive vice president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said.
Friedman is confident the Rays are better than they were when the World Series ended. And, just as hungry.
“I think a lot of guys feel like we have unfinished business from last year,” he said.
“I think also the fact that some of the pundits around the country are picking us to finish third re-stokes that fire that these guys had last year – that us against the world mentality we had for the better part of last year. From our standpoint, it’s really motivating these guys to prove everyone wrong again.”
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Posted: 2/16/09 1:05PM ET
