The Nationals and Rays are facing off this weekend, and these two teams suddenly have very deep ties. In a lot of ways, the Rays are the model organization that the Nats are trying to become, though hopefully with a bit more spending. Between Blake Butera, Curtis Mead, Michael Johns and Ani Kilambi, there are plenty of people in this organization with Rays roots.
Of course, the most important Nats figure with Rays ties is manager Blake Butera. The 33 year old was drafted by the Rays in the now non-existent 35th round back in 2015. After playing a couple minor league seasons, Butera became a minor league manager in the Rays system at just 25 years old.
It was this franchise that gave Butera a shot both as a player, a coach and a player development guru. He was shaped by the Rays and the city of Tampa. Now he will return home to play this team in a series that is impactful for both teams’ playoff chases. While Butera has turned the Nats around, the Rays are making yet another run in the AL East despite having by far the lowest payroll.
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Butera helped develop a lot of these new Rays stars. Junior Caminero and Jonathan Aranda are just a couple of the Rays stars in the minors while Butera was working on player development. Now, those two are mashers in the middle of the Rays lineup.
One other player Butera played a big role in developing while in Tampa is just finding big league success now. However, that success is in DC with Butera. Of course, I am talking about Curtis Mead, who is having a breakthrough season at 25 years old. Just the other day, the former top Rays prospect hit a huge go ahead homer to help the Nats win the game.
Mead has an .818 OPS on the season, and has been a huge piece of this Nats league leading lineup. Now, he is going back to Tampa where he started his big league career. I doubt Rays fans are too fond of him though. The Rays acquisition of Mead turned out to be a rare miss by that front office. They traded Cy Young candidate Cristopher Sanchez for Mead in a 1 for 1 swap.
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For a while, that trade looked to be favoring Tampa, but Sanchez began to break out, while Mead stalled out. It turned out that Mead needed a change of scenery and a chance to be coached by his old minor league manager to tap into his potential. The Nats gave Mead a consistent role, and he is running with it.
Both Mead and Butera were shaped by their times in Tampa. For Butera, it led to a managerial gig in DC. However, Mead learned how to cope with failure in Tampa and it has made him a more grizzled pro here in DC. For both though, the Tampa Bay Rays are a big part of their story.
Another Rays connection on this staff is Michael Johns, who is Butera’s bench coach and right hand man. Johns was actually the first base coach for the Rays the last couple of years. When Butera took the job with the Nats, he took Johns, and made the 50 year old his bench coach. In a staff full of young coaches, Johns is a more experienced and older voice.
The Rays are known as arguably the smartest organization in baseball. That means a lot of their front office and coaching talent gets poached. Between Chaim Bloom, Andrew Friedman and Peter Bendix, there are a ton of front offices with Rays ties. Paul Toboni never spent time with the Rays, but his second in command, Ani Kilambi did.
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Kilambi spent a lot of time with Butera in the Rays organization. He was one of many young, analytically minded people with the Rays. Like many Rays front office officials, he was poached. Kilambi became the Phillies assistant GM, before being promoted again to become the Nats GM.
For so many people in this organization, this trip to Tampa will be a home coming. In some ways, this is a master vs apprentice matchup, which the Rays are used to. There are so many organizations trying to model themselves after the Rays, but it feels like the Nats are doing a good job putting their own unique twist on things.
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