Joe Maddon, the very successful longtime manager of the Tampa Bay Rays, has exercised an out clause in his contract and is essentially a managerial free agent. This is a stunning development in that folks like Buster Olney of ESPN, someone quite plugged in, didn’t even know he had that clause in his contract. So suddenly one of the five best managers in baseball is available at a time when only one other team (aside from Tampa, now) has an active managerial opening: the Twins. The first bit of speculation had Maddon going to the Dodgers to follow Andrew Friedman, but Fox’s Ken Rosenthal said Maddon is not going to L.A.