TAMPA, Fla. — December 5, 2014 Tampa's own Kevin Cash became the fifth Rays manager in team history and just the sixth Tampa-born manager in the majors.

• RELATED: Kevin Cash's baseball journey that led him back home to Tampa

Cash remembers when he got the job. "When I first got hired, I looked at it, I probably didn’t put much emphasis on it. There’s 30 of these jobs in major league baseball so that alone is pretty special."

Then 37-year-old Cash was baseball's youngest active manager and looking back now he realizes what kind of a challenge this position requires.

"The learning curve has been massive," Cash explained. "You don’t stop learning and I have so many that I admire throughout baseball, whether it’s players, coaches or managers that we constantly talk in the off-season and even during season and when you stop learning, it’s probably time to do something else."

In his fourth season, the Rays skipper turned Major League Baseball upside down by using closers to start ball games, led by Sergio Romo, who served as the modern era's first "designated opener."

“We understand the parameters in which we work with the financials," said Cash. "We understand what our division pays out to some other clubs in our division, we’re not going to do that. We’re gonna find ways to win without spending that type of money and that’s the challenge but that’s the fun of it."

Cash, at such a young age, has even started a coaching tree of his own, with coaches Charlie Montoyo and Rocco Baldelli moving on to managerial roles with the Blue Jays and the Twins.

"Very talented people, I look at it, they helped me more then I helped them and having their guidance and those relationships and that friendship on a daily basis is going to be missed.

"Not that I’ve got it figured out," added Cash. "But I’ve got four going into my fifth year of doing this while Rocco and Charlie, I remember what it felt like that first year, that first spring training, that first player conversation, the first opening day, and anything I can do to irritate them a little bit, I’ll try to do.”

Last year, the Rays won 90 games under Kevin Cash, I asked him if there was any reason why the Rays can't be in contention every year.

"No, not at all, we're going to be extremely motivated, very driven coming into spring training," Cash said. "I think last year you look at the way the club finished, the last two months, we played really good baseball, against some good teams.

"I’ll never forget when we lost last year at the end of the year to the A’s on Friday night. I think we lost a 2-1 ballgame and that kind of sealed our fate, that we were outside looking in of getting into the playoffs and into the post-season but that clubhouse was shutdown, quiet and upset."

It's a feeling Cash and his players will never forget, and one that adds fuel and expectations to this season as they begin reporting to Port Charlotte this week.

“We know the Bay area is hungry for a winning team and a team that’s making a postseason run," said Cash. "We got close we didn’t get as close as we like, we think we’re kind of built to do that and these players are ready. A lot of these players we talked about it last year at this time, they have won at A-ball and Double-A and Triple-A, it’s time for us to win at the big league level."