Rays up
Try as they might, few clubs can replicate Tampa Bay's remarkable success on one of Baseball's tightest budgets
No matter who your favorite team may be, it’s likely the Tampa Bay Rays have a much smaller payroll.
It’s likely the Rays’ roster features fewer household names, and it’s likely the Rays draw fewer fans (my hometown team excluded).
It’s also likely the Rays are better.
Why? Because it’s likely they scout better than your favorite team. They evaluate better. They draft better. They develop better. They trade better. They sign better. They analyze better. They innovate better. They construct their roster better. They employ their roster better.
And they play baseball better.
Defense, base running and situational hitting. Taking advantage of mistakes made by the opposition. Limiting their own miscues. All the things you hear so many teams talk about as areas of emphasis every spring? These are generally areas of strength for the Rays.
Tampa Bay has begun 2023 with 11 consecutive wins, outscoring the opposition, 83-20. Only 2 teams have had longer season-opening winning streaks in big league history: the 1982 Braves and 1987 Brewers, who both started 13-0.
And the Rays have done it by leading the majors in runs scored, home runs, on-base percentage and slugging on one side of the ball and in ERA, fewest runs, hits and home runs allowed on the other.
But mere statistics don’t even begin to scratch the surface when you’re talking about Tampa Bay’s success.
Despite a dire stadium situation and a sea of empty seats at most home games, the Rays have reached the playoffs each of the last 4 seasons, an active run matched or surpassed by only the Dodgers, Yankees, Astros, Braves and Cardinals.
And this is anything but a recent phenomenon. Over the last 15 seasons (2008-2022), a span during which Tampa Bay has played in October 8 times, the Rays have a .544 winning percentage, surpassed by only 3 teams, all Baseball blue bloods: the Dodgers (.583), Yankees (.574) and Cardinals (.554).
They’ve done that with the lowest cumulative payroll in MLB in that period.
Here are the 4 winningest teams in MLB over the last 15 seasons, with their cumulative Opening Day payrolls, per Cot’s Baseball Contracts, as well as their average payroll per season and their dollars spent per victory:
Dodgers $2,762,106,647 (an average of $184,140,443/season)…$2,033,952/win
Yankees $3,027,976,678 (an average of $201,865,112/season)…$2,264,754/win
Cardinals $1,857,404,304 (an average of $123,826,954/season)…$1,440,965/win
Rays $952,864,847 (an average of $63,524,323/season)…$752,064/win
You read that correctly. The Yankees have spent more than $3 billion on payroll over the last 15 seasons. The Rays have spent less than $1 billion in that span.
During those 15 years, the Yankees have averaged 4.7 wins per season more than the Rays. In that span, the Rays have played in 2 World Series, the Yankees one.
In case you’re curious, over the last 15 years, the Marlins have the 2nd-lowest payroll in MLB, only slightly ahead of Tampa Bay’s, but Miami has the worst winning percentage in MLB, 30th out of 30. Tampa Bay has averaged 14.8 more wins per season than the Marlins since ‘08.
Marlins $969,733,647 (an average of $64,648,910/season)…$927,975/win)
In the last 15 years, the Rays have ranked higher than 25th out of the 30 clubs in Opening Day spending only once (they were 22nd in 2010). They’ve been 28th or lower 9 times, including in both 2008 and 2020, years in which they reached the World Series.
And with their red-hot start in 2023, the Rays again have their sights set on playing deep into the fall.
Tampa Bay’s Opening Day 26-man roster payroll this year ranked 28th in MLB, ahead of only the Orioles and Athletics, with the Rays committing nearly $20 million less to this year’s start-of-season roster than the Marlins.
The names and faces have changed over the last 15 years—from Evan Longoria, Carl Crawford and James Shields to Wander Franco, Randy Arozarena and Shane McClanahan. Dugout leadership has been passed from Joe Maddon to Kevin Cash.
Meanwhile, the turnover has been every bit as dramatic in the Tampa Bay front office, where one key decision-maker after another has been poached by other major league clubs dangling bigger titles and paychecks, the hope being their Rays magic can translate elsewhere.
Members of the Rays Alumni Association include Dodgers President of Baseball Operations Andrew Friedman, Red Sox Chief Baseball Officer Chaim Bloom, Brewers GM Matt Arnold, Phillies GM Sam Fuld, Twins manager Rocco Baldelli and Blue Jays Vice President of Baseball Strategy James Click, who won the World Series as Astros GM in 2022 before leaving the club amid a contract dispute.
The continuity comes at the very top of the organization with owner Stuart Sternberg, who purchased the team in 2005, and club President Matthew Silverman, who has been by Sternberg’s side every step of the way.
They have been steadfast in their on-field approach and incredibly disciplined in its implementation.
The Rays win annually not by building around high-paid stars but by crafting the most complementary and flexible 26-man roster in the game.
Every player understands and embraces his specific role, and manager Kevin Cash is seemingly always armed with the perfect bat off the bench or arm out of the bullpen, no matter the game situation.
During his 7 seasons managing the Marlins, Don Mattingly spoke annually about the challenge the Rays present because of Cash’s ability to counter any move an opposing manager might consider making.
Under Sternberg and Silverman, the Rays have been at the forefront of various innovations in the game. They were the first team in the modern era to regularly employ defensive shifts under Joe Maddon, with the strategy initially devised in an attempt to slow down Red Sox slugger David Ortiz in 2006. Other clubs soon followed suit against left-handed sluggers like Barry Bonds and Ryan Howard.
In recent years, the Rays were at the forefront of clubs playing with 4-man outfields. And Tampa Bay introduced the concept of the opener to MLB in 2018.
The Rays build their roster by drafting and developing well but also by finding undervalued assets in other organizations. Talented players squeezed off of other teams’ 40-man rosters. Players who may have been blocked out of opportunities elsewhere. And most notably, players whose skillsets have not been used to their fullest by other teams.
The Rays may identify a slider as a pitcher’s best offering, but they see he had only been using that pitch a small percentage of the time. He’s brought to Tampa Bay, learns what it is the Rays see in him and, in so many cases, excels.
General Manager Peter Bendix talks about putting each individual player in the best possible position to have success. And it has worked within the Rays culture, where manager Cash’s one rule is to be a great teammate.
When looking to add to their organizational talent, the Rays have a clear vision of precisely what fits on their roster. They know exactly what they want and what they don’t want. They work to ensure any player they bring in will fit with their culture both on the field and off.
A major league assistant general manager told me his team is reluctant to trade with the Rays. “Sometimes you worry they know your organization better than you do.”
A general manager with multiple post-season appearances on his resume told me he occasionally talked trades with the Rays in part to get a sense of who they’d be looking to acquire out of his organization.
“Why do they value a pitcher I’ve had in Double-A the last 2 years more than I do?,” he asked. “It makes you look at that player in a different light, because they don’t miss very often.”
Today, the Rays have a roster full of players in the prime of their careers. Every Opening Day Ray was between the age of 22 and 31. In recent years they’ve built a more stable roster than in the past, and they started 2023 with only 2 players on their big league roster who weren’t in the organization a season ago.
They lack the financial resources of most every team in the league and, no matter how much they win, have a tough time filling seats at Tropicana Field.
They reside in the AL East with the perennially big-spending Yankees and Red Sox, the dynamic Blue Jays and the on-the-rise Orioles.
They’re annually overlooked in pre-season prognostications.
But they’re smarter, more disciplined and more focussed than most clubs in the game.
And they’re off to the best start in Major League Baseball in 2023, one of the best in the history of the sport.
The question most ask is, “How do the Rays do it year after year?”
In reality, the question people should be asking is, “Why can’t anyone else follow their blueprint and sustain success the ‘Rays Way’?”
I don't like it but it works for them, without a doubt, and for the owners it's Christmas.