Rays Owner: "Nothing Can Change" Payroll Slashing

[crewcrazy]

Thought this might be of interest -- Stuart Sternberg, the owner of the Tampa Bay Rays, was quoted today as saying that no matter what happens this October, the Rays will be reducing their payroll from a franchise-record $72 million to below $50 million next season.

 

"No question. Nothing can change that," Sternberg said Tuesday.

"Unfortunately there's nothing that can happen between now and April

that can change that unless Joe Maddon hits the lottery and wants to

donate it or I hit the lottery."

 

(snip)

 

"We put everything in place to have it happen, to put us in a position

so we'd be able to keep adding, keep signing, (doing) more long-term

deals, stuff like that," he said. "It wasn't meant to be."

 

According to Sternberg, the Rays "can't come close" to turning a profit this year, even if they win the World Series, and he's not optimistic season ticket sales will increase as much as they did from 2008 to 2009. Apparently, they needed to double that increase in order to keep payroll at its current level.

 

To me, this is a shame, because unlike the previous ownership of that club, he's made an effort to be competitive and keep as many guys as he can. The fanbase just isn't supporting the team. Two things about this story jump out to me -- we're lucky to be a part of a fanbase that will put 20,000-30,000 butts in the seats no matter what the team's record is, and baseball won't be in Tampa for much longer.

[Thurston Fluff]

I'm sure the Yankees will tell them to quit whining. I think it's time for them to move. I would suggest maybe a move to Manhattan, Brooklyn or maybe Queens. The Marlins could move to another borough to eliminate the need for revenue sharing as well. I'm sure the Yankees won't complain if one or more of the hard luck franchises move to a place that would support them without the Yankee's money.

[DHarris34Phan]

Yankees minor league team is a bigger deal in Tampa.

[trwi7]

If they move, I hope they move out West so we can have 5 teams in each division and just play interleague all year.

[Invader3K]

Yeah, the baseball fans in the Tampa area don't really deserve to have an MLB team. Team is currently 22nd in attendance overall, which is pathetic, given the team's record.

[TooLiveBrew]

All per Cot's Contracts...

 

Opening Day Payroll of $72.85M

 

Notable money coming off the books

Carlos Pena: $10.125M Carl Crawford: $10M Rafael Soriano: $7.25M Chad Qualls: $4.185M Dan Wheeler: $4M ($1M buyout) Total: $34.56M (factors in $1M buyout for Wheeler)

Other guys will get arbitration raises & contract raises...

 

Ben Zobrist: +$4M Andy Sonnanstine: Arby year 1 Evan Longoria: +$1.05M Jeff Niemann: +? (signed MLB deal out of the '05 draft; $1.032M in '10) J.P. Howell: Arby year 2 ($1.8M in '10) Grant Balfour: Arby year 3 ($2.05M in '10) Dioner Navarro: Arby year 3 ($2.1M in '10) James Shields: +$1.75M B.J. Upton: Arby year 2 ($3.0M in '10) Matt Garza: Arby year 2 ($3.35M in '10) Jason Bartlett: Arby year 3 ($4M in '10)

Brad Hawpe has an option for '11 of $10M, but a $500K buyout that I'm assuming the club will exercise. Navarro could be a non-tender candidate with the emergence of John Jaso, which would free up another $2M or so. I'm really not sure what to expect in terms of net arbitration raises, but is it out of the realm of believability that the Rays might only see a total increase of ~$15-20M from this group? If that's true, the Rays cut roughly $15-20M of the $20-25M they need to trim simply by rolling over the season.

 

I omitted any players that weren't seeing their salaries increase by at least $1M (excluding possible arbitration outcomes, of course).

[owbc]

Tampa Bay does not deserve a MLB team because of low attendance? Are you serious?

 

Besides the fact that most people from Tampa Bay are transplants and have allegiances to other teams...and that they play in one of the worst ballparks in MLB--Rays fans know that their team is going to be dismantled--this upcoming fire sale has been known about for years. Rays fans know that even if they sold out all of their games, they would still not be able to afford a payroll of even HALF of what the Yankees have.

 

Maybe Tampa Bay fans are the smart ones and we are the suckers for believing that the Brewers have a chance to compete. The Brewers drew almost 9,000,000 fans in 3 years and are still stuck with a below-average payroll and a mediocre 4th place team.

 

Then you have Cincinnati--that used to be a huge baseball town a generation ago--but after 20 years of losing people seem to have stopped paying attention. The Reds are in a similar situation as the 2008 Brewers--they have a small window that will close quickly and they have zero margin for error in personnel moves if they want to keep winning.

 

Of course there will always be some amazingly well-managed team like the Twins that manages to consistently win in a small market. That gives Bud Selig and the big market owners the chance to show them off as "proof" that the current baseball economic system is working. However, the Twins with a new ballpark, sellouts every night, and star players on the field, still have a lower payroll than the White Sox, who can break even drawing 12,000 less fans per game due to their market size.

 

The Brewers could easily fall back into the same cycle of budget cuts and declining attendance. The difference is that small market teams like the Brewers depend on their fair weather fans to break even. The struggling big market teams like the Mets and the White Sox will never need to drastically cut payroll. The Rays will become just another victim of baseball's financial system, while big market teams can look forward to adding the Rays' former players.

[thebruce44]

I hope the Brewers can take advantage of this and take on some payroll to get pitching from them. I know we don't want to trade prospects away, but maybe we can give them someone crappy, take on a bad contract, and have them throw in a pitcher to make it worth our while.

[bullox]

Of course there will always be some amazingly well-managed team like the Twins that manages to consistently win in a small market.

Offtopic, but Minneapolis/St. Paul is not a small market.

[owbc]

Offtopic, but Minneapolis/St. Paul is not a small market.

Minneapolis/St. Paul is the 21st largest market in MLB. I consider the bottom 1/3 to be the small market teams.

[BrewCrewForever]

Their attendance is low, but they have some of the highest TV ratings in MLB. I still think if they got a new stadium more people would go.

 

So they will drop their payroll below $50 mill. I bet they still compete because they are stacked with good young talent.

[chrisisoutrunning]

I doubt they move solely because they don't really have anywhere to go. From what I can find, the only metropolitan area in North America with more people that doesn't already have a team (or two) is Montreal. I think it's safe to assume no one is going back there. Portland is close behind Tampa/St. Pete in size, so I guess that's an option, but they already have the Portland Beavers AAA club. Below is a list of markets that already have a professional sports team other than one from MLB. (I've left the Brewers in just for comparison. I realize the numbers are arbitrary because someone is deciding on the boundary, but they are relavent to the discussion I feel.)

 

3,426,350 Montreal, QC

2,968,806 Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN

2,395,997 Tampa, FL

2,265,223 Portland, OR

 

1,986,965 Vancouver, BC

1,796,857 Sacramento, CA

1,689,572 Milwaukee Brewers

1,644,561 Orlando, FL

1,607,486 Indianapolis, IN

1,592,383 San Antonio, TX

1,540,157 Columbus, OH

1,499,293 Charlotte, NC

1,337,726 New Orleans, LA

1,333,914 Salt Lake City, UT

1,231,311 Nashville, TN

1,187,941 Raleigh, NC

1,170,111 Buffalo, NY

1,135.614 Memphis, TN

1,100,491 Jacksonville, FL

1,063,664 Ottawa, ON

[TooLiveBrew]

Portland is close behind Tampa/St. Pete in size, so I guess that's an option, but they already have the Portland Beavers AAA club.

 

Not anymore. Their owner acquired an expansion MLS club, and couldn't get a deal done with the city to build a baseball-only facility (MLS insisted they retrofit PGE Park to be a soccer & football only facility). One big reason why the Beavers died (for now) is that almost no one gave a crap about them -- their attendance stunk. I'm not convinced Portland is a good option for a MLB franchise. Most local fans cheer for the Mariners, and the Seahawks in the NFL.

 

I'd go with almost any other city on that list just as much as I'd go with Portland. Charlotte makes some sense to me -- far enough away from an existing franchise & they support two other major pro sports teams... three if you count the NHL's Hurricanes.

[trwi7]

They don't support the Bobcats. The Hornets already moved from Charlotte and the Bobcats attendance still sucks. They don't really support the Hurricanes either. They were in the bottom third of attendance in the NHL the year they won the Stanley Cup and a year later, when you expect a big boost in attendance, they were still in the bottom half.

 

I think Vancouver would be a fairly interesting candidate. Baseball is fairly big over there since they can play it most if not all of the year and some good talent has come from British Columbia: Jason Bay, Justin Morneau, Michael Saunders, Ryan Dempster, Jeff Francis, Rich Harden and of course Brett Lawrie are all from British Columbia.

 

Not sure how Seattle would feel about having a team in their own backyard though.

[uwisfan]

I think you're missing the point about South Florida. That area has a ton of transplants from all over the country and dont really think locally or support local teams. Good area to have tons of minor league clubs.

 

Portland could be a nice option because Oregon has no team. Seattle is 3 hours away, so I dont see that as a problem. You have to look at states and not just metros for the most part I think:

- Portland, OR

- Sacramento, CA

- San Antonio, TX

- Charlotte, NC / Raleigh.. could be interesting considering lack of baseball in carolinas and Virginia.

- New Orleans

- Salt Lake City

- Memphis/Nashville/Louisville could use a team somewhere in there

 

 

Indiana probably wont support 2 baseball teams. Cinci draws poorly, why would you do Columbus?

[Polish Falcons]

The Rays can pretty much fall below $50M by letting Carl Crawford ($10M), Carlos Pena ($10M), and Rafael Soriano ($7M) walk, which I'm sure they will do. Therefore I don't expect some huge fire sale with loads of great trades. The one pitcher who I think will be most available for trade is Garza. He is the highest earner on their staff at just $3.3M this year, and is going into his 2nd year of arby in 2011. They don't have to trade him because he's fairly inexpensive still, but at the same time they need to make room for Jeremy Hellickson so trading Garza makes the most sense to me. It would be fun to hang ZZZZs at Miller Park for strikeouts. I would be cautious trading with the Rays however because obviously they are very smart. Garza or Shields aren't making enough money for the Rays to feel like they need to simply do a salary dump. They will be looking for value..........

[Invader3K]

Tampa Bay does not deserve a MLB team because of low attendance? Are you serious?

 

Besides the fact that most people from Tampa Bay are transplants and have allegiances to other teams...and that they play in one of the worst ballparks in MLB--Rays fans know that their team is going to be dismantled--this upcoming fire sale has been known about for years. Rays fans know that even if they sold out all of their games, they would still not be able to afford a payroll of even HALF of what the Yankees have.

 

Maybe Tampa Bay fans are the smart ones and we are the suckers for believing that the Brewers have a chance to compete. The Brewers drew almost 9,000,000 fans in 3 years and are still stuck with a below-average payroll and a mediocre 4th place team.

...

The Brewers could easily fall back into the same cycle of budget cuts and declining attendance. The difference is that small market teams like the Brewers depend on their fair weather fans to break even. The struggling big market teams like the Mets and the White Sox will never need to drastically cut payroll. The Rays will become just another victim of baseball's financial system, while big market teams can look forward to adding the Rays' former players.

Maybe the fact that most of the fans are "transplants" means that the area would be better served by minor league teams than an MLB team. They've tried to get a new stadium built in the past, and it's failed. Where was the groundswell of local fan support for such an initiative? I understand the stadium is bad and apparently not in a great area, but you have a first place team with high quality talent, in contention for the past several seasons. I understand the TV ratings are good, but I have to imagine that only does so much for the club in terms of revenue. Oh yeah, they were in the World Series not too long ago, and it seems like the fans are still generally apathetic.

As far as your comments on the Brewers, I'm not sure what you're looking for. I don't think saying, "below average payroll", is really that accurate. Last I checked, they were right around the middle of the pack in terms of payroll. If anything, the biggest problem with the Brewers is that they've been grossly inefficient with their dollars (look at all the wasted money this season). Yet we haven't heard Attanasio making comments about cutting payroll drastically or anything along those lines. Baseball seems to work in Milwaukee when the ownership and management are somewhat competent. The Rays clearly have great management, but it doesn't seem like the Tampa Bay market is very tenable.

 

[endaround]

The Rays make money. They just don't make huge amounts. The owner is lying through his teeth. Yeah if he cuts payroll they'll make more. It the Marlins way!

 

And Minneapolis/St.Paul isn't a small market. Making a ordinal ranking is a bad way to look at things, especially when you have 2 teams in New York, LA, Chicago and San Francisco. The Minneapolis/ St. Paul metro area is 16th in the nation at 3.2m in line with Seattle, San Diego, and St Louis (at 2.8m). Tampa is weird because while its at 2.7m that doesn't include the Orlando metro area of 2m. The small amrkets in baseball are Milwaukee (who is almost a class by itself), Kansas city, Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh (though Pittsburgh isn't really that small).

[CheezWizHed]

The Rays make money. They just don't make huge amounts. The owner is lying through his teeth.

 

Proof?

[Funketown]

The Rays make money. They just don't make huge amounts. The owner is lying through his teeth.

 

Proof?

From the leaked documents, and linked to one of many articles:

 

"The documents show that the Rays earned $11 million in profit in 2007 and $4 million in 2008"

 

http://floridaindependent...-fight-for-a-new-stadium

[jeffy]

Minneapolis/St.Paul isn't a small market.

 

The Minneapolis/ St. Paul metro area is 16th in the nation at 3.2m in line with Seattle, San Diego, and St Louis (at 2.8m).

 

The small amrkets in baseball are Milwaukee (who is almost a class by itself), Kansas city, Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh (though Pittsburgh isn't really that small).

 

I don't know if it is or is not a "small market", but at least you have provided some evidence beyond Joe Morgan's "they signed Mauer for $184 million...".http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

 

I think the Twins also benefit from being a long distance from any other team. The nearest teams to them are Milwaukee, St. Louis, KC, Colorado, and Seattle. Meanwhile Milwaukee has Chicago 90 miles away, with two teams that each have been around continuously for over 100 years.

[TooLiveBrew]

The Rays can pretty much fall below $50M by letting Carl Crawford ($10M), Carlos Pena ($10M), and Rafael Soriano ($7M) walk, which I'm sure they will do

Like I posted, with other players getting raises, it's not quite this simple, even with cutting loose the additional ~$7M from Wheeler & Qualls. They'll get close to $50M, but not under without moving more additional salary/ies. My guesstimate is that they'll still need to cut $5-10M to get to where the owner claims they need to be.

[endaround]

Minneapolis/St.Paul isn't a small market.

 

The Minneapolis/ St. Paul metro area is 16th in the nation at 3.2m in line with Seattle, San Diego, and St Louis (at 2.8m).

 

The small amrkets in baseball are Milwaukee (who is almost a class by itself), Kansas city, Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh (though Pittsburgh isn't really that small).

 

I don't know if it is or is not a "small market", but at least you have provided some evidence beyond Joe Morgan's "they signed Mauer for $184 million...".http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

 

I think the Twins also benefit from being a long distance from any other team. The nearest teams to them are Milwaukee, St. Louis, KC, Colorado, and Seattle. Meanwhile Milwaukee has Chicago 90 miles away, with two teams that each have been around continuously for over 100 years.

They aren't small because they are 16th in the nation. Now its not as ridiculous as pretending Miami is a small market. Here's the list of US metro areas:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/w...olitan_Statistical_Areas

 

They're not NY or LA because no one else really is. But they are right in line with other mid markets.

(fixed link --1992)

[owbc]

I'll agree that Minneapolis is a mid-market, but it doesn't take away my argument that they are at a disadvantage to the White Sox under the current economic system, despite having better attendance and fan support. While the postseason is a small sample, I also think that their lack of postseason success shows that they are ultimately inferior to the big boys. The Twins are good, but fell short in part because they could not afford to re-sign Tori Hunter.

[crewcrazy]

The Rays make money. They just don't make huge amounts. The owner is lying through his teeth.

 

Proof?

From the leaked documents, and linked to one of many articles:

 

"The documents show that the Rays earned $11 million in profit in 2007 and $4 million in 2008"

 

http://floridaindependent...-fight-for-a-new-stadium

According to Cot's, in 2007, their payroll was $24 million. In 2008, their payroll was $43 million. This year, their opening day payroll was nearly $73 million. If their profits were that small when the payrolls were so low, it's not a stretch for Sternberg to say that they're not going to come close to making a profit with a payroll that's $30 million higher than it was two years ago. If anything, I would think the leaked documents prove his point about this season, but I'm not an expert on financial documents.