Kevin Cash

Kevin Forrest Cash (born December 6, 1977) is an American professional baseball manager and former player who is the manager of the Tampa Bay Rays of Major League Baseball (MLB). Previously, Cash played catcher in MLB for the Toronto Blue Jays, Tampa Bay Devil Rays, Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees, and Houston Astros. As a player, Cash was listed at and ; he batted and threw right-handed. He was the bullpen coach for the Cleveland Indians before being hired as the Rays' manager in December 2014. Cash was the American League Manager of the Year in 2020 and 2021, the first AL manager to win the award consecutively. Cash will enter the 2024 Season as the longest-tenured manager in Major League Baseball. Early life Cash played for Northside Little League in Tampa, Florida, as a second baseman on the team that reached the 1989 Little League World Series. He later played college baseball for the Florida State Seminoles baseball team under head coach Mike Martin. While at Florida State, Cash started 148 games as an infielder. He batted .299 with a career on-base plus slugging (OPS) of .923. He also appeared in two College World Series (1998, 1999) for Florida State, including a second-place finish in 1999, when he was voted second-team All American at third base by the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA). In the summer of 1999, he played for the Falmouth Commodores of the Cape Cod Baseball League. Cash asked to play catcher for Falmouth, and went on to earn league All-Star and team MVP honors. In August 1999, he signed with the Toronto Blue Jays as an undrafted free agent. Playing career Cash begin his professional playing career in 2000 with the Hagerstown Suns, a Class A farm team of the Blue Jays. He reached the Triple-A level in 2002.