What Happens Now to the Tampa Bay Rays? Another cash casualty

I have made no secret, in personal conversations, that I prefer professional sporting events to amateur events. Professional athletes are the best of the best in the entire world in their areas of skill. The competition cannot be more intense. Often, winners and losers are decided by inches, not feet. However, the one undeniable advantage that college and other amateur athletics have over the pros is that money cannot directly alter the games or the makeup of the teams participating in college athletics.

At least college athletes cannot be corrupted with money. Or CAN they? 1

In Major League Baseball, money appears to dictate everything, for the worse. The Tampa Bay Rays, winners of the American League pennant in 2008 and heavy favorite to advance to the World Series in 2010 (with the American League's best regular season record), lost game 5 of a five game series with the Texas Rangers. The Rays have been baseball's shining example of doing less with more. The Rays play in a small television market, have low attendance, and have a payroll just over $70 million. They moved from the long term cellar of the American League to front runner with a crafty manager and a very effective farm, making prospects into stars.

Longoria, Upton, and Crawford - one of these people will not belong...next year. 2

Star players Evan Longoria, B.J. Upton, and Carl Crawford were acquired by the Rays not through dumping hundreds of millions of dollars into the free agency market, but by effective scouting and recruiting. This takes hard work, baseball skill, strategy, and research. Teams such as the "Evil Empire" of MLB free agency, the New York Yankees, and their closer competitors, all but use other major league teams as their own personal farm system. They watch the young stars grow, then offer them so much money that they cannot refuse the offer and the small market teams, that discovered these players, are left with nothing after six seasons, no matter what efforts are made to retain these players.

Teams like the Yankees, which pick the bones off of teams that have developed prospects into major league stars, are responsible for two undesirable fates for franchises. One result is a team like the Rays, which build themselves into contenders from scratch, only to be forced to start over and reload after a few seasons because their young stars are eligible for free agency. The other result is a team like the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Mark Teixeira, C.C. Sabathia, and A.J. Burnett - for a couple of hundred mil, they (and a pennant) can be yours!

The Pirates were a once proud franchise that could expect to be in pennant races and World Series matchups every so many years. The Pirates have not been to the playoffs since the 1992 National League Championship Series. They have essentially spent the past 18 seasons playing their minor league call-ups in front of mostly empty stadiums after the All-Star break. The Pirates have survived and remained profitable by waiting for their revenue sharing check to land in the mail. It is like welfare for professional sports franchises!

Irrelevant franchises and franchises with three year windows of opportunity to win a World Series as a reward for recruiting dynasty-caliber talent are bad. They are bad for baseball. They are bad for all but the wealthiest franchises. And they are bad for the average baseball fan. This is not lost on fans, who continue to be treated as lemmings by the leadership of Major League Baseball.

As mentioned previously, the Rays had the American League's best record in 2010, yet ranked near the bottom of the major leagues in attendance, even in the waning weeks of the season while engaged in a tightly contested battle for the American League East division title. How many fans are going to be fired up to hand their hard-earned money over to the Rays for season tickets or partial packages in the regular season when the core of the team will not be together after the playoffs? Why get too excited and emotionally (and financially) invested in a team that plans to break itself up and sell of the parts, so to speak? Sure, people will show up for playoff games because they are very meaningful. But the attendance problems, which begin with ticket package sales, in Tampa are not going away until the fans see long term value in return for their time and money.

Unless they scout and draft to perfection, we will never see a uniform like that on a player like this (or any player participating in the post season or in front of a home sellout) ever again.

 

The solution is simple. It is a remarkable concept that has brought parity to the National Football League and the National Basketball Association. It is called a SALARY CAP! By capping the total payroll for all teams, owners of each team are all playing on a level field with the Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers, and any other big market club. It is understandable why players, who want to get paid, are not going to make a push for a salary cap. It is understandable that a minority of owners, those in mega media markets, would fight tooth and nail to avoid a salary cap. You cannot buy your way to the top if you cannot outspend your competition.

MLB cities can hope.

1) Image from Punting on Third (scottbergen.blogspot.com)
2) Image from sportsillustrated.com
3) Image from Joe's Locker Room (joeslockerroom.wordpress.com)
4) Image from mitchellandness.com