Can The Rays Cut Payroll And Still Compete?

Let’s start with four Tampa Bay Rays-related facts we know to be either true or at least have been recently publicly stated as such:

1. The team’s 85 losses in 2014 were more than the franchise has had since 2007, when they were still the Devil Rays, had Brendan Harris, Akinori Iwamura and Delmon Young in the regular lineup, and were finishing off a run off 10 consecutive 90-plus-loss seasons.
2. The two men most publicly associated with turning the franchise around, general manager Andrew Friedman and manager Joe Maddon, both departed in the past month in search of higher salaries and greater visibility.
3. The 2015 payroll, as disclosed by owner Stu Sternberg in September, is “clearly going to be lower” than the $76 million Opening Day figure it was this year, a franchise record that nonetheless ranked as one of the lowest numbers in baseball and was referred to by Sternberg as “an enormous aberration.” While there are plenty of very valid reasons not to shift blame to the fan base, this is no doubt impacted by a third consecutive season at the bottom of the average attendance standings.
4. The battle to find the team a new stadium, clearly the main impediment towards long-term success and stability in the Tampa Bay area, continues to go nowhere, with a recent Tampa Bay Times editorial clearly showing the exhaustion and frustration with the issue, and forcing franchise officials to deal with rumors of a move to Montreal.

This isn’t all going to be doom-and-gloom, I promise, but it’s going to start out that way, because those four items are all irrefutably bad news. While new baseball boss Matt Silverman is well-respected and a replacement for Maddon hasn’t yet been named, it’s probably time to investigate the Rays as the offseason gets moving and ask the question: Have we seen the best this franchise has to offer? Has the miraculous run of success that lasted longer than anyone thought would finally come to an end?

The bad news

Let’s start with that payroll, and while we don’t know exactly what the 2015 payroll will be, we’ve seen this show before. According to Cot’s, in 2010 the team had a $72m payroll on Opening Day, and that was down all the way to $42m the next season. Even with David Price and Heath Bell off the payroll, there’s still a considerable amount of salary here:

Not shown here, but to be remembered, is reliever Michael Kohn, who signed a major league in October for an unknown amount that’s likely less than a million dollars. Obviously, not all of those arbitration-eligible players will simply get their allotted raises, but for the moment, without even including the usual minimum salary types that round out a roster — in this case, guys like Wil Myers, Kevin Kiermaier, Jake Odorizzi, Brad Boxberger and others — and add a few million dollars a year, the 2015 Rays, with no improvements, are already looking at approximately $80 million.

Now, whether that $55.25m is money well-spent depends in large part on how well you believe some of these players can bounce back from down 2014 seasons. Longoria remains well underpaid for his value, but he also had the worst year of his career this year, fueled by a mysterious disappearance in his power and poor (for him) plate discipline. Balfour turns 37 next month and also had the worst year of his career, as he was unable to overcome declining velocity and ended up posting the second-highest BB% of any pitcher with 60 innings. No amount of pitch framing wizardry can overcome Molina’s .178/.230/.187 line; Loney’s slightly better than league average hitting at first base made him a slightly better than replacement player overall, and DeJesus missed months with a broken hand. Moore, of course, made only two appearances before blowing out his elbow.

So! That’s all problematic, and there’s not a ton of immediate help coming from the minors. The Rays don’t currently have any prospects in the MLB.com Top 100, and of the team’s current Top 10 prospects, only four have made it even to Double-A. Shortstop Hak-Ju Lee, attempting to come back from a 2013 knee injury, hit only .203/.287/.276 at Durham. Alex Colome showed some skill at Durham and made it to Tampa for a few starts, though his season began with a 50-game PED suspension. Infielder Ryan Brett also has a suspension on his resume, but performed well at Double-A and could see the bigs next year; pitcher Enny Romero had made a cameo for the Rays in 2013, but couldn’t get back in 2014.

It’s not a bad farm system, because guys like Nate Karns and Mikie Mahtook could contribute in 2015, and further-away players like Willy Adames and Justin O’Conner show great promise. There’s just not necessarily anyone who is making a big impact on the 2015 Rays, outside of maybe Colome, and that’s sort of the problem: A team that wasn’t that good last year, probably needs to dump money rather than make additions, and count count on a ton of help from the farm system might be in trouble.

The good news

So that’s the bad news. What’s the good news? There is good news here, trust me, and not just the fact that Friedman left behind Silverman and plenty of smart people when he left.

To start with, Steamer is pretty optimistic about bounce backs from all of those down seasons we talked about above. If you look at our current projections, which combine Steamer with our curated depth charts, the Rays actually have the sixth-most WAR in baseball. There’s a pretty serious caveat to come with that, which is that the Rays have enough players under contract right now to field a regular team if they needed to, and other teams will be filling their obvious holes — Giants at 3B, Dodgers/Yankees at SS, etc. — as the winter goes on. But it’s also because outside of DH, Steamer likes each position to be league-average at worst, including a rebound season from Longoria and valuable years from Kiermaier and Myers.

There’s also this: Base Runs, which is quickly becoming one of my favorite tools on the site, thought the 2014 Rays should have been better than they were, figuring that the 77-85 record, when removed from sequencing and context, could have been 83-79, the third-biggest difference in MLB.

The rotation, even without Price, is young and talented. Archer, Cobb, and Odorizzi have all proven themselves to be worthwhile major league starters, and none is going to be older than 27 next year, and Smyly was impressive after coming from Detroit. Moore will be back at some point in the summer, and Karns and Colome are internal options as well. Even Hellickson might be in the mix, though he seems like an obvious option to be moved if payroll is truly an issue.

But payroll is an issue, of course, so Hellickson could be on the way out, and Joyce’s increasing salary combined with his ongoing power decline might make him too pricy to hang on to. An easy way to clear salary would be to trade Ben Zobrist, who has only one more year left on his contract now that his option has been picked up, pocket the prospects, and allow Nick Franklin, Brett and Forsythe to combine at second base. That would work, easily. It’d also make the 2015 product worse, most likely. It’s never easy to compete and tighten the belt, simultaneously.

If the Rays aren’t very good in 2015, you can already imagine how many “Friedman and Maddon took the magic with them” stories are going to be generated, but that’s a far-too-easy narrative. There’s a lot to like about these Rays, certainly. There’s also a considerable amount of issues, ones that wouldn’t have been avoided simply by having Friedman and Maddon calling the shots. But hey: At least they finally dumped Josh Lueke.