Even after dealing away right-hander Tyler Glasnow and outfielder Manuel Margot in a cost-cutting deal with the Dodgers back in December, the Rays are set to hit a franchise record in terms of payroll this season. As relayed by Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times, principle owner Stuart Sternberg recently spoke regarding the new high-water mark for spending in Tampa and the club’s future payrolls. In his comments, Sternberg indicated that the elevated payroll for 2024 is “going to lead to real losses this year” for the club.
While its impossible to evaluate that statement fully given the lack of publicly available information regarding the Rays’ (and the majority of MLB clubs’) finances, it’s easy to see that the club’s 2024 payroll is well outside of their typical range. RosterResource projects the club for a $99MM payroll in 2024, while Cot’s Baseball Contracts projects Tampa to open the season with a payroll of just under $91MM. Regardless of which figure you take into account, it would be a healthy increase to payroll for a club that opened the 2023 season with a $73MM payroll and has an all-time high of just under $84MM.
Per Sternberg, his willingness to exceed past payroll limits is fueled by the club’s competitive window. It’s easy to see the logic behind that, as the Rays have been among the league’s most competitive clubs in recent years. The club has a cumulative 511-359 record since the start of the 2018 season, good for an excellent .578 winning percentage. Meanwhile, they’ve made the playoffs in five of those six seasons, including a trip to the World Series during the shortened 2020 season.
It doesn’t appear as though the increased payroll is guaranteed to last, however. While Sternberg acknowledged that he wants to keep the team’s success in recent years “rolling… if we can,” he also acknowledged that the club’s competitive window is far from guaranteed.
“We think this is, like, our sort of time, and we don’t know if we’re going to have this opportunity in a year or two,” Sternberg said, as relayed by Topkin, who went on to note that Sternberg suggested that the club could “pull back” payroll in 2025 if the club fails to meet expectations in 2024. That’s a possibility worth considering, as the club resides in a difficult AL East division that also sent the Orioles and Blue Jays to the playoffs last year, not to mention a Yankees club that added the likes of Juan Soto, Alex Verdugo, and Marcus Stroman this winter.
Even so, the Rays are coming off a 99-win campaign and feature a strong core of position players that includes the likes of Yandy Diaz, Brandon Lowe, Randy Arozarena, and Isaac Paredes. The pitching staff is less solid, but nonetheless features the likes of Zach Eflin and Aaron Civale to go along with youngsters like Ryan Pepiot, Shane Baz, and Taj Bradley as well as a strong bullpen led by Pete Fairbanks, Jason Adam, and Phil Maton. If the Rays do end up slashing payroll in the coming years, that could mean parting ways with several key players from the aforementioned group. Eflin, Diaz, Lowe, and Jeffrey Springs are all slated to make more than $10MM in 2025, with Arozarena also presumably due for a raise on his $8.1MM salary for the 2024 season.
Aside from the team’s on-the-field success, Topkin notes that Sternberg has plenty of off-the-field incentives to field a competitive team in the coming years. The team announced plans for a new stadium last fall, which Topkin adds is expected to be voted on by local officials in May. Attendance has also been on the rise for the Rays in recent years; per Sternberg, the attendance boost was “the first time it moved up a nice amount” since the mid-2000’s.
I don’t believe him.
I’m sure he’s excited that he probably won’t have to pay the remainder of that contract to that pedo Wander
Haha, true!
Craven – I disagree. He was a huge part of their success last season.
Any team would love to have a 5.5 WAR player making just $2.5M. Remember, his contract is heavily backloaded.
any one would love a 5.5 WAR guy to make 2.5 if he was playing. Last year he barely played and it’s not looking good for the next 5-25 years either.
@Fever except we re not talking about a guy who can potentially put up 5.5 WAR anymore. We re talking about $ for a player who will not be playing, so Craven is unequivocally correct here.
This is not a hypothetical it is reality.
With the RSN fiasco, more than half of baseball has payroll uncertainty going forward.
Reds, I know we hold different perspectives on the financial aspect of MLB and resolutions to competitiveness. But, I wanted your take on a theory I had on how to curb costs for teams and regulate salaries:
1) To clarify, I know this would never happen and MLBPA would never agree to it;
2) that said, what if the MLB used structures for pay based on an agreeable metric, like annual and total WAR, for FA. That would incentivize players to perform as well as possible and create a more uniform pay structure for most players, similar in some ways to arb guys. It would also serve to keep costs lower for teams pursuing most FA. It would also prevent bidding from driving teams completely out of the market for players.
Again, just discussing the theoretical implementation as an alternative to the caps other sports have.
I was laughing reading this, because for years my wife has said that baseball players (and other sports actually) should be paid a base salary plus bonuses based on what they do that year (rather than the past, basically).
That being said, I think it’s a good idea, but as you said, the MLBPA would never go for it.
Okay, I appreciate that. She’s obviously a brilliant woman!
I’ve thought the exact same thing as well. It would ensure the young guys actually get the pay they deserve, and would ensure players stay motivated, because every year would be a ‘contract’ year.
And yes it will absolutely never happen.
@Reds They wouldn’t bc how does one quantify value for player’s brand image and marketability for say someone like a Shohei Ohtani. Surely the Dodgers aren’t just only paying him $700MM for strictly his on-field performance. You can throw in Jeter’s final contract with the Yankees as well.
Clip – Sorry to butt in, but there’s a reason why performance-driven bonuses are not allowed in MLB.
You would have players fighting over playing time.
You would have injured players not earning any income.
You would have small revenue teams unable to afford paying young players with less than 6 years service time who have a high WAR.
You would have disputes about the accuracy of the WAR calculations, as well as which one to use.
And without guaranteed contracts, owners could release players any time and not have to pay them a dime.
Yeah that just wouldn’t fly.
Many good points FPG. Although, In terms of guaranteed contracts I’m not convinced they are a good thing. That doesn’t mean I think they’re bad either. I see pros and cons to both.
It would also encourage players on non competitive teams to “help” former teammates raise their stats. Slow jumps turning outs into hits. A slower than normal fastball, right down the middle. Missed tags on steal attempts. Black Sox type of stuff.
Make them compete. If you don’t win then you don’t get paid.
Baseball would be better off if they only partially guaranteed contracts like the NFL. Like with Ohtani you could say here’s ya $350 million guaranteed and if you hit the other yearly incentives you get the other half.
@FPG great points ur making there. I’d add that there are some pretty glaring flaws in the conceptual assumptions for this idea. The idea assumes that players lack motivation to compete under the present system without immediate financial rewards which is a dubious assumption at best. Then we have a rather sweeping generalization that this system would necessarily enhance player performance on average. Its equally if not more likely in any case that this could be detrimental imo. I would expect to see negative impact to results for a significant number of players due to anxiety and pressing at the plate, etc as well as undesirable effects on how individual players function within their team as a whole.
Mr. Clipper
I thought of the same thing but knew your 1st statement would stop it from happening. Sounds great but there are some problems with it unfortunately.
Using fWAR as a metric to determine arbitration salaries was one proposal from MLB during the last round of CBA discussions.
Charles Finley proposed making every player a free agent every year. Obviously, this would never happen.
I think a move to Montreal would be beneficial to just about everyone. They don’t draw well and a new yard will not change that.
That was always my hope. No division realignment needed, and it would make a nice little north east division… Toronto, Montreal, Boston, New York, and Baltimore. Lots of regional rivalry spillover from hockey. And a new stadium anywhere in Montreal would draw far better then the Tropicana garage.
Clip, one of my ideas was to realign the large markets in their own divisions, mid markets in another one or two, then small markets. So everyone has a shot at playoff time, at least.
The Montreal Raypos. I like it.
The Montreal Ex-Rays
If ya going to move to Canada go somewhere that isn’t mostly French. I don’t think the players like Montreal much. They are very snobby to people who don’t know French. I suggest Calgary or Winnipeg as long as you build a dome. The best place for the Rays though is either Nashville or Mexico City. However, Mexico City would be a bigger launching pad for home runs than even Coors Field is since Mexico City is like 8,000 ft up not 5200 like Denver.
The valuation of the Ray’s is over $1.2B per Forbes last year. Their operating costs may appear at a loss, byt there have been reported offers close to $2B. Take the money and let a competitive owner take over. That’s what’s been wrong with MLB. Too much old guard. If there were more competitive owners invested into improving baseball, that would trickle down and raise the level of play. Love the game first, give back, and the money will come.
Omar – Teams in some sports leagues are owned by fans, that would be great if it happened in MLB too. Fans would operate in the interest of the team, not the interest of a greedy billionaire owner’s bank account.
Or at the very least MLB should ban corporations from owning teams, like the NFL has done (except Green Bay).
The Braves and Blue Jays are owned by corporations and spend reasonably well and are reasonably to very competitive, year to year.
The A’s and Pirates are owned by individuals.
The problem isn’t corporations. More often then not, It’s individual owners who don’t understand the basic principle of spending money to make money.
As an Astros fan, I’ve been so happy with Jim Crane because he spends while avoiding albatross contracts. He also has a plan, which can’t be said for half the teams in the league.
Expand the league by at least 6 teams. Their 1st year is spent in MLB2 (2nd Division) along with the 6 teams with the worst records im MLB from the previous year (relegation). Top 6 teams move up to MLB the following year and bottom 6 teams in MLB go to MLB2.
Or something along these lines. It’ll make an owner think twice as to how they will invest in player payroll each year.
@omarj
The problem with your post is that the Rays owner has been competitive. You just don’t like how he has done it.
Considering the ownership was named in a grievance for pocketing revenue sharing funds alongside stellar groups like the A’s, Marlins, and Pirates it’s probably a safe bet to assume they’re constantly lying.
Case. Speaking of “revenue sharing”, per my above post suggesting major expansion including creating a 2nd lower division where yearly relegation is a reality, the luxury tax would be eliminated.
Another key point from Topkin’s piece:
“Attendance last year was up nearly 30% from 2022, “the first time it moved up a nice amount” since 2007-08, he said, with the 1,440,301 total their highest since 2014.
Sternberg said they’ve gotten “a really great response” from sponsors, both in adding newcomers and increasing existing arrangements.”
My take is as long as they continue to attract new and keep current advertisers, Steinberg could continue to incrementally increase payroll.
YBC – They certainly had a nice spike in attendance when they went on that incredible run early in the season, but I’d be curious to know about their ticket revenue. Increasing attendance by drastically slashing ticket prices is not a positive.
Real margins are made off of concessions, merch and parking. Cheap tickets is an avenue into consumer wallets. Its also a way to build your fan base.. Families cant always afford a seat cause lets face it we are all tight on funds these days. All of MLB teams should allow any unsold ticket to be free or 50% discounted after the 3rd inning. This would put people in the stands,drive additional revenue and help fans and teams both. Nothing worse than seeing empty seats at a game. Oatmeal is better than no meal.
True but that would just stop fans from buying any tickets in the first place.
My plan to get families back into the ballpark would start with requiring teams to maintain 75% seating capacity attendance. (Adjustments made for cold weather areas) Too many games are played in front of empty seats. Have teams reduce ticket prices on less popular sections to draw in fans. Grow the sport. Teams that choose to play in front of empty seats should not be getting the same revenue sharing as teams that do.
We are all tight on funds? I see restaurants packed on Tuesday nights and Amazon trucks everywhere. You may very well be tight on funds, but don’t speak as if you represent everyone., mate.
@Stymeed teams are not choosing for those seats to be empty fans are. You can try and correlate those empty seats to whatever, but ultimately it’s the fans choice not to attend.
Here’s an honest long term outlook
Zero spending
Alot of development and trading
And every pitcher will go down with TJ eventually
Pretty sure that’s what’s on the little motto plaque that hangs over the TB President’s door.
That’s what I love about Tampa. It’s like a challenge to do the most with the least. If they did spend more much of the appeal would be gone for me, as a non-resident, tho I’d still like things about them. Reasonably speaking tho I don’t want revenue high and spending low.
In contrast I would argue that AS a resident it’s so tantalizing wondering what this team could really do if they were able to spend even an extra 10 mil. Sternberg has the money, he just doesn’t want to spend it for whatever reason. I almost want the move to Montreal just for us to spend money for once. Until then we’ll just keep winning 1-run games and go through 78 different pitchers to get into the postseason.
I’d feel the same way. But I also think much of their success is driven out of necessity of working within these small payrolls (justified or not). It brings out the best in them in some ways tho maybe they could have best of both worlds. Certainly another 10 mil would help. It is ashame really. I do see that. I just like having a few really low payroll teams around (as I said I don’t live there) because it’s easy to root for the underdog
I would like to see the Tampa fans show up for a consistently winning team and then the team have that extra 10 mil. to spend. The chicken is there already. It’s time for the egg to make an appearance.
I’ve always wondered why rays attendance was consistently poor
Tampa folks love the bucs and lightning.
I’ve been to rays stadium
Its a dome which is weird for baseball
Its small, and food sucks
Definitely needs an upgrade
“Long term outlook..Zero spending”..You must come from a real moneyed background if you consider $99,000,000+ in payroll to be “Zero spending”. Incidentally, I’m running a bit short this month, think you can float me $20,000 or so for a couple months?
Active payroll is 70 milion
Or what ohtahni makes in a season by himself
“Active payroll..70 million..Ohtani makes in a season”…I think you must be the only one in America that doesn’t know Ohtani’s making $2M this season with the rest being deferred until well into the future. But good job of fudging the numbers to make your faulty argument fit.
No, he’s making the $45mm this year. How it is dispersed doesn’t change that he earned it this year. Compliments to you on your bending the facts to fit the narrative, as well. As it sits in an account earning interest, it may eventually become $70MM, but that was just sensationalizing by the media for clicks.
@Stymeed you are 100% correct here. Ohtani is making neither $2M or $70M this season. He has opted to only collect $2M and have $44M funded this year to accrue to $70M via interest paid by a 3rd party the deferred money if invested with.
Player salaries are downright DISGUSTING
As is the revenue being pulled in by the owners…
Do you have a problem with other people in the entertainment industry like actors and musicians making millions of dollars as well, or is your outrage confined to athletes?
Don’t trust anything Stu Sternburg says publicly. His goal is to show a loss, so even if there was a profit, they wouldn’t want to show it.
If it is their time,’ it was stupid to get rid of their best pitcher.
Is your best pitcher really the one that spends half the season on the IL?
Principal owner
Stu Sternberg is the worst owner no one talks about. He earns profit and doesn’t invest said profit into the team. The Rays always fight over every penny spent with players while acting poor. They talk about stadium troubles and fan attendance… All a non-issue for him because it all doesn’t affect his bottom line.
As a Rays fan, Stu doesn’t care about winning. He cares about making marginal profits from TV deals. He has the money to put into the team, but it’s too risky for his agenda. He tried a part-time team idea that failed miserably and he hasn’t put significant money into the team since. (He invested in Eflin and Yandy, but we expect them to be traded in the near future). He also doesn’t care about fan engagement or fan attendance which,compared to other local sports teams, is severely lacking. He doesn’t understand that money (cheap tickets and giveaways) is not the path to building a strong fan base and fan relations. He deliberately cheapens the brand so he doesn’t have to invest money on better players.
We are all hoping he sells the team sooner rather than later because we got spoiled by the Lightning who have an awesome owner dedicated to winning.
I prefer having Stu to someone like Arte Moreno. At least Stu knows he doesn’t know anything about baseball and lets the actual people he hired to run the team do their job, instead of meddling in team affairs and trying to dictate who gets acquired and such. Those imo are the worst owners.
It’s .587 winning percentage instead of .578.
sabr.org/bioproj/topic/tampa-bay-rays-team-ownersh… A great read on the ownership of the Ray’s.
“Real losses.” Sure, Stu, sure.
Bargain Mart Rays!
Wasn’t this guy being sued by other owners for cooking the books?
Do they really need to build a stadium right before they relocate? We know it won’t draw after the first few months. It’s the Expos…er…Rays.
As much as the Ray’s continue to reload with young players the division has teams willing to spend. The window for TB to win a Championship has closed.