The Tampa Bay Rays will be tasked with replacing someone who has been involved in the organization for nearly two decades.
Tampa Bay Rays first-base coach Michael Johns is departing the organization to join the Washington Nationals as bench coach, the team announced on Monday.
Johns will follow Blake Butera, the former Rays prospect, minor-league manager and head of minor-league operations who became the new manager of the Nationals. Butera, 33, is the youngest manager since Frank Quilici of the Minnesota Twins (33) in 1972.
Johns, 50, has been a longtime member of the Rays organization, a tenure spanning 18 seasons that included nine as a minor-league manager and featured a run to the 2023 International League Championship Series with Triple-A Durham.
“I’m really excited,” Johns told Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times on Monday. “Obviously, Blake and I go way back. He’s one of my best friends on and off the field, and I just think the world of him and am really happy for his opportunity.”
“We know we have a lot of work to do. We’re excited for that work. We’re putting together a good staff. We got a bunch of really good young players and can’t think of a better guy I’d rather go through this with.”
Johns also managed:
- the Charlotte Stone Crabs — the now defunct Class A affiliate of the Rays — from 2015-2017.;
- the Bowling Green Hot Rods of the Midwest League;
- the Hudson Valley Renegades of the New York-Penn League;
- and the Princeton Rays of the Appalachian League.
In nine seasons, Johns compiled a 488-484 record and five winning seasons managing at different levels in the organization.
Johns said it is difficult to leave the Rays.
“It took a long time to kind of deliberate with my wife, just thinking about all the memories and things that we’ve kind of built and accomplished here,” he told the Times. “I’m really proud of it,” Johns said. “I’ve always thought, man, when someone left (the Rays), it didn’t matter for what job, I just kept thinking those people are crazy. And then here I am leaving also.”
“But at the end of the day, it’s one of those opportunities that it’s once in a lifetime. So really tough, but really excited and humbled, and all the things. I’m really excited for where the Rays are, and I’m really going to miss this group. It never felt like work. It always just felt like you’re going to the field with your family.”