Sports Club Annual Christmas Party - Speaker: Erik Neander, Tampa Bay Rays

Please join us at the Sports Club of Tampa Bay’s Dec. 17 monthly meeting to hear from Erik Neander, director of baseball operations for the Tampa Bay Rays, who has been at the forefront of the organization’s rise as a consistent force in the American League East.

Neander, who was promoted to a front-office leadership role in October 2014, was named Executive of the Year by The Sporting News in 2019, when he also received the MLB’s Executive of the Year award, after the Rays snapped a five-year postseason drought.

The 2020 Rays reached the World Series, where they were defeated in six games by the Los Angeles Dodgers. In 2021, the Rays captured the AL East title with a 100-victory season, a franchise record, while also making the playoffs in 2022 and 2023, capping a run of making the postseason in five consecutive years (one of four teams to accomplish it during that span of years).

Neander, a graduate of Virginia Tech, began with the Rays as an intern in 2007, then was hired as a full-time employee a few months later. He worked in baseball research and development before shifting to the operations side in 2011.

Each player on the Rays’ current 40-man roster was acquired since Neander was named the club’s top-ranking baseball official, including 26 by trade. Heading into the 2025 season, the Rays’ farm system was ranked No. 6 by Baseball America, the eighth consecutive year for the organization to earn a top-10 designation.

Want to know more about the Rays’ future?

What about plans by the new ownership group?

And what’s new on the stadium front?

Join us on Dec. 17 and you’ll have the opportunity to ask Neander those questions — and much more.