Comments on: No matter what Rays do in playoffs, payroll to be reduced in '11

By: Ick McWang

Ick McWang — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 19:02:23 +0000

New York has waaaay more people, and if you do the math only draw 0.3% of their population.

By: APBA Guy

APBA Guy — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 15:04:28 +0000

If they are averaging 23,000 that means 13,000 are getting to the stadium without finding a parking spot. Quite a tribute, I’d say, since that stadium is worse, by far, than the Mausoleum, and the Mausoleum has nearly unlimited parking plus BART (subway) access. Shows what a contending team can do.

By: Nats Apologist

Nats Apologist — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 11:23:11 +0000

One correction – Benoit doesn’t count in the $42 million commitment for next year.

By: Nats Apologist

Nats Apologist — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 11:18:45 +0000

Raysindex covered this today. They really shouldn’t be much different. They figured out the lineup of existing players (less non-tenders, free agent losses, etc.) with a salary of $42 million and 2 open roster spots. It certainly helps when Price, Niemann, and Davis account for about $2 million of the team salary. They still have 1 starter too many. Trading Shields or Garza to free up a spot for Hellickson frees $5 million in salary.
Is this lineup bad?
CF-Upton
LF- Jennings
RF – Joyce
1B – Free Agent/Trade or Leslie Anderson
2B – Rodriguez
SS – Zobrist
3B – Longoria
C – Jaso/shoppach
DH/Bench – free agent/Aybar/Brignac
Bullpen – McGee, Benoit, Howell, Wheeler, Sonnanstine, Cormier
Rotation – Price, Garza, Hellickson, Niemann, Davis, Shields
Add $18 million in available salary for the 1B/DH and maybe a closer spot to get to $60 million. I’d take that…

By: YANKEES1996

YANKEES1996 — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 10:55:53 +0000

Stinks for all Rays fans which doesn’t seem to be that many, move the team to a better more loyal location?

By: geoknows

geoknows — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 10:12:51 +0000

Maybe I’m just dense, and I know I’m not economically savvy enough to understand the Rays books even if I saw them, but how is it that some of the teams below them in attendance who have similar (if not higher in some instances) payrolls are able to turn a profit when they can’t?

By: andrewlw

andrewlw — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 09:40:59 +0000

You would think for each round they advance in the playoffs they could add at least a couple million dollars to the payroll. Even if they aren’t selling out postseason games with the ticket prices being much higher they should gross a lot plus everything else that makes money by being in the postseason.
I know they have that brutal lease at tropicana field, but if they are going to continue to not make a profit (lose money?) even when they field one of the best teams in baseball how can this team EVER make money? If they’re never going to make money why not break the lease and move? Unless Sternberg really loves Tampa and The Rays and doesn’t care about making money and just wants to keep above water. I don’t really know anything about him but I doubt this is the case.

By: Trevor B

Trevor B — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 09:36:01 +0000

Carl Crawford, Carlos Pena and Rafael Soriano won’t be around next year. I assume they’ll hold onto Benoit and he’ll be closer. Pena is no good anymore. Crawford is replacable and he’ll be on the Yankees, sadly.

By: DiamondDuq

DiamondDuq — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 08:46:06 +0000

It’s not a bad formula for the Rays. It’s worked for the Marlins twice and now they’re getting a new stadium. Perhaps if the Rays are able to scale back their payroll, make another run (with or without increasing payroll again), and put together a quality plan, like realizing they’ll draw more attendance by catering to fans of visiting teams by building a hotel/resort in addition to a new stadium and offering packages to stay and watch an entire series than to wait for the youths in the area to grow up and hopefully embrace the Rays rather than their parents/grandparents favorite team they’ll be able to have prolonged success. There’s no way they should have a home series against the Yankees in September while battling them to win the AL East and draw less than 30,000 fans! They were only at 80% of capacity for the series finale!!!

By: BC

BC — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 08:45:11 +0000

Burrell is gone. Pena is hitting like .202 and gets hurt a lot, no big loss there. Crawford is as good as gone. Qualls is useless and will be gone. They’ll scale back their payroll quite a bit without really doing anything, and then be able to sign a couple decent players, and probably still come in at like 55 to 60 million.
If I’m not mistaken, Longoria is signed for quite a while.

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 08:43:10 +0000

Maybe it’s me but I don’t see what the issue is here. If you look at the salaries and players for next year it might not matter that the payroll is under 60M.

Crawford makes 10M this year and Pena makes 10M this year. So payrolls down to 50M. Those guys can be replaced by Desmond Jennings (400K) and Dan Johnson (under 3M for arbitration if he’s eligible otherwise 400K like Jennings). Keep in Mind Pena’s been awful, and that Jennings could theoretically play any OF position.

They lose Soriano (7M), Benoit and Qualls (4M) but add Jacob McGee, and Howell should be healthy. Obviously the loss of Soriano and Benoit is rough, but given the pitching depth on this team they should find a decent reliever to set up and close.

Bartlett is going through arb, so they can non-tender him and use Brignac at SS (to save money to spend on a RP), or let Bartlett play out the year. Non-tendering Bartlett probably saves 4-5M, and lets them use Brignac/Rodriguez fulltime up the middle. Small sample size, but Brignac/Rodriguez have been excellent defenders at SS/2B respectively.

Navarro can get non-tendered saving 2M. I doubt Garza gets much more than 5-6 M, so the money saved on Navarro goes to him. Upton doesn’t have great stats either, so I doubt he gets much of a raise either.

While it sounds bad to hear that the payroll isn’t going to be higher than 60M, they may not need more than that given how the team is built for next year. Hellickson, McGee, Howell will be able to replace guys in the rotation or the BP, and the guys leaving the lineup (LF/DH/1B) get replaced by Jennings, Joyce, and Johnson. They’re still a very scary team for next year, even with a payroll drop.

By: Ditto65

Ditto65 — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 08:24:50 +0000

So, less than 1% of Tampa/St. Pete (population – 2.7 million) support their team? Pitiful.

By: SouthofHeaven

SouthofHeaven — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 08:16:03 +0000

I hate to say it, but that is pretty much the problem. Old people from New York & Philly make up a ton of Tampa’s population, and they’d just as soon lose an arm as stop rooting for their old home teams. The Yankees always seem to get a very warm reception in Tampa, which is kind of a shame, given their burgeoning rivalry.

By: SouthofHeaven

SouthofHeaven — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 08:12:29 +0000

What a damn shame, and I say that as a die-hard Yankees fan. The Rays blossoming into a quality team is just what the AL East needed to breathe some life into the Yankees/Red Sox duopoly. Come on Tampa Bay, you actually have a quality sports team, get behind them already!!!!

By: imabigdog

imabigdog — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 08:07:13 +0000

Sounds like the owner of the Rays when to the owner of the Marlins to ask how to run a team.
“Well… what you do is:
1. But together some great young talent
2. Pay them dick.
3. Ride them for a great season
4. Cut them loose when they want to get paid”.
Both those team should move out of FL. FL is a state where people from other states move to. That is why Spring training games are there. People from PA, NY can see their teams play for a month.

By: wvugrad00

wvugrad00 — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 07:19:56 +0000

I was just down in the Tampa area last week, and ran into maybe two Ray’s fans who would give me crap about being a yankees fan. I would love the Rays to stay compeditive, but people just do not show up to their home games, but nor would they want to given the dump they play in.
It is a double edged sword, the team deserves a new stadium, but at the same time there is no guarentee anyone shows up to the games.

By: Mr. Furious

Mr. Furious — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 06:48:59 +0000

The whole thing is especially unfortunate considering all the whining and moaning that went on in Tampa/St. Pete in the ’80s and ’90s insisting that they “deserved” a Major League team while attempting to lure teams (the Giants and Mariners, I think?) there.
Good for Sternberg for continuing to operate his franchise with a focus on winning, rather than lining his pockets like Loria and Glass.

By: quint

quint — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 04:00:54 +0000

Personally, I think the Rays operation exactly how I think small market teams should.
They put money into scouting, the draft and player development, and they appear from the 70million payroll this year to save up money over the years (such as revenue sharing) to spend when they are competitive, and we saw that this year with Crawfords option and bringing in Soriano.
The front office and ownership have used their resources wisely, but they cannot continue to spend at these levels and they have to scale back and hopefully save up some money over the next few years to spend in 3-4 years with they have to pay big dollars for Price, Longoria, Zobrist at the likes.
And it doesn’t have to be that bad for the Rays as Crawford, Pena, Soriano and Burrell account for almost 40million, Qualls another 4million.
Even with a 50million dollar payroll, the Rays will field a really good team.