The Tampa Bay Rays play in a poorly located, badly outdated domed stadium featuring all the the ambience of a 10-story parking garage.
Last season their gate revenue was about a fourth of what the Cardinals pulled. Forbes Magazine places the Rays’ franchise worth at less than one-half of its $2.3 billion valuation on the Cardinals.
And yet the Rays have remained one of baseball’s most successful teams on the field.
The Rays have posted winning records in 11 of their last 15 campaigns. They captured the 2020 American League pennant — with former Cardinals outfielder Randy Arozarena leading the way — then rolled to 100 victories last season.
Like the Cardinals, the Rays are currently chasing their fourth consecutive postseason berth.
But unlike the Cardinals, the Rays have enjoyed this sustained success with limited resources. Their Opening Day payroll for this season was about $84 million.
That was about $70 million less than the Cardinals’ starting point — and $225 million less than the Los Angeles Dodgers’ committed to their players.
The Rays have one player with an eight-digit salary this season: outfielder Kevin Kiermaier at $12.2 million.
The team has made just one long-term deal commitment, locking in star shortstop Wander Franco to an 11-year, $182 million contract.
So how can the Rays win so much despite spending so little?
Their baseball operation sets the major league standard for operating efficiency thanks to prescient player evaluation, clever asset management and innovative player deployment.
Every team, even the steadily competitive Cardinals, can learn from this.
The Rays can’t outspend rivals, so they must outsmart them. And they have, which is why they have lost so much front office talent to other franchises.
This success started under former Rays executive Andrew Friedman, who moved on to guide the big-budget Dodgers. It continued under Chaim Bloom (now chief baseball officer for the Boston Red Sox) and James Click (now the Houston Astros’ general manager).
Rays president of baseball operations Erik Neander and GM Peter Bendix are running the show these days as the Rays continue to rise above their circumstances.
Effort after effort to build a new stadium to replace dreary Tropicana Field have failed, prompting principal owner Stuart Sternberg to propose playing half of his team’s games in Montreal.
Most years the Rays draw about one-third as many fans as the Cardinals. Forbes estimated their gate revenue for last season at $19 million, or $60 million less than the Cardinals’ gate.
In turn, the Rays spent $100 million less in player expenses than the Cardinals last season, according to Forbes.
Tight budgeting can keep the Rays profitable because major league teams collect so much shared revenue. That’s how the Rays earned operating revenue of $45 million last season, according to Forbes, while the Cardinals had an operating loss of $34 million.
While the Cardinals should emulate the Rays’ baseball operation, their lean-and-mean business model would not work in the STL. Bill DeWitt Jr. has turned Busch Stadium III into the hub of a multi-faceted real estate and commercial development.
Strong attendance not only boosts franchise revenues, it fuels the related Ballpark Village commerce and underwrites new ventures.
So the Cardinals have acquired and marketed star players on DeWitt’s watch. It's good business. Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado are the latest examples of that.
This franchise also keeps and markets its best players, as you’ve seen with Adam Wainwright and Yadier Molina. The Cardinals failed to keep Albert Pujols, but they brought him back for a farewell tour the franchise is selling like crazy.
The Rays can’t afford to add or keep high-level veterans earning huge coin, so they squeeze value from pre-arbitration players. They have scored some big hits in the draft (like pitcher Shane McClanahan) and international free agency (like Franco).
They will spend on mid-level free agents here and there (such as starting pitcher Corey Kluber and reliever Brooks Raley) without squandering millions.
But probably the Rays’ greatest gains come via trades, like the one that sent pitching prospect Matthew Liberatore to the Cardinals for Arozarena.
And how about the blockbuster that sent pitcher Chris Archer to the Pittsburgh Pirates for pitchers Tyler Glasnow and Shane Baz and outfielder Austin Meadows?
Along with Arozarena, Glasnow and Meadows helped the Rays on their run to the 2020 World Series. Meadows has since been traded to the Detroit Tigers and Glasnow is sidelined after Tommy John surgery, but Baz could become a big factor this season as he comes off the injured list.
The Rays identify promising players either stuck in a minor league system (like Arozarena) or struggling on a big league roster (like Glasnow). They keep proving that savvy management can often trump financial commitment in Our National Pastime.
So while the Cardinals won’t spend like the Dodgers during the DeWitt Era, they would do well to match the Rays’ intelligence.
