There was an interesting article posted yesterday on ESPN.com. In it, ESPN Senior Writer Howard Bryant looks at the state of the Rays franchise and what Major League Baseball has done to help the Rays survive.
Check it out here: Playing Hardball
Although it is a good read, and I don't question Bryant means well for the Rays, there are a few things in this article I would question.
First, Bryant claims the Rays "can't afford their stars". This gets a "half-true", if we use the Poltifact terminology. The Rays did let Carl Crawford and BJ Upton leave. They did trade James Shields and Matt Garza (albeit for younger stars Wil Myers and Chris Archer). They have played musical chairs with their bullpen every year. But no departed player has been better away from the Rays than they were in a Rays uniform. In the case of Crawford and Upton, they stopped being stars completely.
The Rays have however signed several of their "stars" to long team-friendly deals, including Longoria, Zobrist, Moore, and most recently Chris Archer. This in a world where even the Yankees get outbid sometimes (see Robinson Cano).
Second, Bryant mentions the Rays have a "transplanted fan base with allegiances to other teams". Unfortunately Bryant doesn't cite any facts to prove this fact. I am not sure this is entirely true either. If there has been an ethnographic survey of baseball fans in Tampa Bay, I haven't found it yet. The closest I found is this September 2013 release by Public Policy Polling that says the Atlanta Braves are the most popular baseball team in Florida. But of the 579 Floridians surveyed, the Rays are second (13%), above the Marlins (11%), Yankees (10%) and the Red Sox (9%). And the Braves are not the most popular because of an influx of Georgians, but because TBS was the biggest TV station in the Southeast for decades.
As far as solutions, Bryant's idea that the Rays should move to the AL Central might just hurt attendance. We have shown the Rays do very well in attendance when playing the Yankees and Red Sox, and have mixed results when playing the AL Central. Reducing the amount of time the Rays play the Yankees and Red Sox, the 4th and 5th most popular teams in Florida respectively, would reduce butts in the seats. Unless opponent doesn't matter, and Rays fans are drawn to important divisional match-ups. Possible, but right now I think that is unlikely. There is something about sticking it to the Yankees or Red Sox and their fan base that I think Rays fans enjoy.
I do like the Bryant/Stu Sternberg idea of re-ordering the draft based on revenue. Back in 1965 when the draft was first started, teams didn't spend hundreds of millions of dollars in the offseason to reload. Now there are several ways to build a franchise. Allowing small market teams the earlier picks may help them stay competitive. But of course there is no guarantee picking high equals picking smart. For every Price, there is a Beckham.
Overall, I think Bryant wrote a good piece on the state of the Rays. I think some of the details were a bit fuzzy, but Bryant seems to want the best for the Rays. That's good to see.