Saturday, July 11, 2020
State of the Rays
Our last installment in the "State of" series goes to the Tampa Bay Rays. The Rays are an expansion franchise joining the AL in 1998. They have struggled as a franchise with poor field performance for the first 10 years of existence as well as a chronically poor stadium situation leading to subpar revenues and payrolls. Brilliant baseball management over the past 12 years has allowed them surprising on-field success out of proportion franchise fundamentals.
Ownership:
The team is owned by Stuart Sternberg who made his stash in securities trading with Goldman-Sachs. He's been a mixed bag as an owner: Good judgment in hiring of baseball management. Investing in improvements to a bad ballpark. Frequently threatening to move the team or become a 2-city team paired up with Montreal. Consistently among the lowest payrolls in MLB. Rumored desire to sell the team and buy the Mets, which is not going to happen now but may or may not have been true at one time(he lives in NY and is a Mets season ticket holder).
Grade D.
Management:
The Rays have a long and deep history of cutting edge baseball management starting with the tenure of Andrew Friedman and the export of multiple brilliant executives to other teams. Current GM is Eric Neander who works with a large team of highly analytical baseball executives at every level of the organization.
Kevin Cash succeeded Joe Maddon as field manager in 2014 and has continued the tradition of innovative lineup and in-game strategies. How much those innovations vs roster talent have contributed to the Rays on-field success during this time is unclear but it makes for interesting discussion among fans and analysts.
Grade A.
Current Roster:
Starting Nine: Mike Zunino C, Ji-Man Choi 1B, Brandon Lowe 2B, Yandy Diaz 3B, Willy Adames SS, Hunter Renfroe LF, Kevin Kiermeier CF, Austin Meadows RF, Jose Martinez DH.
Bench: Michael Perez C, Yoshitomo Tsutsugo 3B/OF, Joey Wendle IF, Manuel Margo OF.
Starting Rotation: Blake Snell LHP, Tyler Glasnow RHP, Charlie Morton RHP, Yonny Chirinos RHP, Ryan Yarbrough LHP.
Bullpen: Nick Anderson RHP, Diego Castillo, Colin Poche LHP, Oliver Drake RHP, Jose Alvarado LHP, Chaz Roe RHP, Andrew Kittredge RHP, Jalen Beeks LHP.
This is a young, talented, deep and versatile roster on both sides of the plate. Standard pitching roles are blurred although Kevin Cash has said he is looking for a more traditional starting rotation in 2020(which may have been blown up by the the shutdown and shortened season).
Grade B+
Farm System:
The Rays have the consensus top prospect in all of MLB in SS Wander Franco. They also have impressive depth down to #10 with Greg Jones, another SS prospect. In between they balance out the positional talent with pitchers Brendan McKay LHP, Shane Baz RHP, Brent Honeywell RHP and Shane McClanahan LHP.
Grade A
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IMO, Stuart Sternberg deserves a higher than a D, unless it was bad judgement buying in!
ReplyDeleteIn 2005 he took over a doormat (& dormat) team which had never won more than 70 in a lousy park, without a real MLB following, in a Twin-Cities type environment, and has built a consistent winner: 90 or more wins 7 times in the last 12 years playing in arguably the best division in baseball.
A fish rots from the head down.
A corollary: the team can't be better than the top. At least not for 12 years.
I separate ownership and management factors. Yes, I did mention that Sternberg has done a good job with his management hires, but he's also not done much to resolve the stadium situation and has maintained extremely penurious payrolls. So, other than hiring extraordinary management, which I gave the only A grade to, he hasn't been a great owner.
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