The Tampa Bay Rays have officially promoted Matt Quatraro from third base coach to bench coach on Manager Kevin Cash’s major league coaching staff, via team press release.

Next season will be Quatraro’s 24th in professional baseball and 16th in a coaching capacity. Last season, Quatraro returned to the Rays organization after spending the previous four seasons (2014-17) with the Cleveland Indians as major league assistant hitting coach.

Prior to joining the Indians, Quatraro was the Rays minor league hitting coordinator from 2010-13. He also spent four seasons as a minor league manager in the Rays organization, going 196-228 (.462) with Class-A Bowling Green (2009), Class-A Columbus (2008) and Short-A Hudson Valley (2006-07). His coaching career began midway through the 2004 season, as a catching instructor and coach with Hudson Valley.

An eighth-round selection by the Rays in the 1996 June Draft, Quatraro played seven seasons in the Rays system as a catcher, first baseman and outfielder, reaching Triple-A Durham in 2002. He became the first player in organization history to hit for the cycle on July 6, 1997 against Class-A Hickory. Over 415 career minor league games, he hit .286/.343/.416 (415-for-1,451) with 23 home runs and 202 RBI.

Quatraro graduated from Old Dominion University, where he was named the 1996 ODU Male Athlete of the Year and Male Scholar Athlete of the Year.

Rays News

• Quatraro is the 10th bench coach in club history, following Frank Howard (1998-99), Bill Russell (2000), Hal McRae (2001), Billy Hatcher (2001-02), John McLaren (2003-05), Bill Evers (2006-07), Dave Martinez (2008-14), Tom Foley (2015-17) and Charlie Montoyo (2018). Montoyo was recently named manager for the Toronto Blue Jays.
• Neil Solondz writes that Q’s promotion was the right call
• Marc Topkin has quotes from Q on his new gig
• Rays free agents Carlos Gomez and Sergio Romo are “not expected back”

• The Rays took home the Best Farm System MiLBY award, and it’s a detailed write up!
• RCG asks what happened to Jake Faria last year
• Former Rays pitching coach Bill Fischer has passed.

• You, yes you, could be on The Ray Team

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• Grant Brisbee ranked the Top-50 free agents as only he can
• Kershaw extended his opt out deadline to tomorrow. Eric Stephen wrote about the situation here.
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• Darby Shark, doo doo