The Tampa Bay Rays announced prior to Wendesday’s game against the Boston Red Sox that general manager Erik Neander has been promoted to president of baseball operations and received a multi-year contract extension.
Neander joined the Rays in January of 2007 as an intern in the baseball operations department, and was hired on full-time in October of that year, eventually rising to general manager and senior vice president of baseball operations in October of 2016.
Since taking over as the club’s top-ranking baseball official, the Rays have won 90 games twice (in 2018 and 2019, and are on the verge of reaching the 90-win plateau again this season), and have made the postseason in each of the previous two seasons.
Steve Carney is the founder and publisher of St. Pete Nine. One of the people most associated with baseball coverage in Tampa Bay, he spent 13 seasons covering the Rays for flagship radio station WDAE, first as producer of Rays Radio broadcasts, then as beat reporter beginning in 2011. He likes new analytics and aged bourbon, and is the owner of one of the ugliest knuckleballs ever witnessed by baseball scouts.
