The mystique that the Tampa Bay Rays have in the eyes of the curious-minded sports aficionado can be summed up by three ordinal numbers:
Attendance, 2008 to present: 30th in MLB
Opening Day payroll, 2008 to present: 30th
Wins, 2008 to present: 5th
In a sport where there has long been a correlation between financial might and winning, this should not be possible. Sure, quite a few teams have proved they can win over a span of a single year or even a few years without upper-crust revenue numbers. Sustaining that balancing act is the truly hard part, and while even the Rays have had their ups and downs, over the long haul they have been one of baseball's winningest teams despite their unchallenged status as baseball's most financially strapped organization.
As teams reach the one-third mark of the 2021 season, the Rays are at it again. They own one of baseball's best records and lead economic behemoths Boston and New York in the American League East. Once again, despite entering the season as the reigning AL champions, the Rays opened the campaign with a bottom-five payroll. However you define the Rays Way, the chief trait is that it keeps working.
Teams must have realized that they can learn valuable lessons from the Rays' success, because they keep hiring Rays executives. The list of former Tampa Bay execs heading up baseball operations departments across baseball now includes James Click in Houston, Chaim Bloom in Boston and the progenitor of this era of Rays baseball, Dodgers VP Andrew Friedman.
Still, perhaps Tampa Bay's biggest contribution to contemporary baseball is that it kneecaps any possible excuse that underachieving or underspending organizations might serve up to their fan bases. The lost art of crying poor has been rendered absurd. If the Rays can do it consistently, then anyone can do it. Right?
Indeed, anyone can, but few teams actually do. Some go toe to toe with the Rays in some areas, but few do so in every area. Beyond the limited spending, every organization can use a little more Rays Ways in their lives.
Rays Way No. 1: Squeeze more wins out of every dollar
We begin with the most obvious and vague of observations about the Rays, which is that they win a lot without spending very much. That's true in the long-term window as presented above, but it remains a dynamic very much still in play. Since the beginning of the 2019 season, only the Dodgers have won more games than Tampa Bay. Yet in terms of Opening Day payroll, only the Pirates have spent less.
Now, while no one can dispute that the Rays have had persistent trouble drawing fans to Tropicana Field, there are some who think the Rays could spend more than they have been. And the fact that they have not could be looked at as something detrimental to baseball. Those are debates for another day.
For now, let's respond to those concerns by asking a question: Is it possible the Rays would have been less successful over the years if they had larger budgets? In other words, how much of the Rays' deserved reputation for efficiency and innovation is a product of necessity, even if that necessity is more self-imposed than it has to be?
In any event, no team has spent more efficiently than the Rays over the years. Let's use a simple metric to illustrate this. An example: Say you rank third in payroll during a season and second in wins. That's one point -- three minus two. If you rank 13th in pay and 15th in wins, that's minus-two points. And so on.
Since 2008, the Rays lead the majors by this junk stat with 216 payroll efficiency points, followed by Oakland (172) and Cleveland (107).
Five teams that need be more like the Rays: Tigers (minus-111 payroll efficiency points), Red Sox (minus-105), Giants (minus-90), Angels (minus-81), Mets (minus-78).
The team that can't be the Rays: New York Mets
On the list of teams that have most overspent in relation to their level of winning, the Red Sox and Giants have titles to show for it and certainly don't need to apologize for that. At the same time, the Red Sox hired Bloom to streamline their operation, while the Giants brought in Farhan Zaidi, who worked under Friedman in Los Angeles and Billy Beane in Oakland. They have already started to become more Rays-like in some ways.
On the other hand, the Mets have revved up their payroll under new owner Steve Cohen. And, frankly, they should. If a large-market team tried to get away with a Rays-like level of payroll, the backlash would be epic. The Mets, as a denizen of our nation's largest city, can't ignore the need to be more efficient with the money they spend. But they certainly can spend a lot of it, and the challenge is to blend their spending power with Rays-like efficiency.
Rays Way No. 2: Win trades by selling high
This bit of general advice remains true: MLB teams, do not trade with the Tampa Bay Rays. You will lose the deal.
According to Roster Resource, 55.3% of Tampa Bay's 40-man roster comprises players acquired via trade. Only the Marlins have more.
The Rays have been able to rely so heavily on swaps because they have a knack for timing deals that is as acute as their ability to maintain a deep stock of tradable assets. The latest example of this was over the past winter, when Tampa Bay traded starter Blake Snell, a recent Cy Young winner who had three more years left on his contract and is still in his prime.
Among the players the Rays received in return for Snell were two younger, cheaper players who are already helping Tampa Bay win. There is 25-year-old perennial catching prospect Francisco Mejia, who has 114 OPS+ so far this season, and 21-year-old righty Luis Patino, who has 19 strikeouts against four walks over 15 innings. Both players are just getting started. Snell, for what it's worth, has struggled to a 66 ERA+ during his first couple of months with San Diego.
The Rays do this time and again: Trade a productive player or a prospect for multiple cost-controlled players who then tend to get better once the Rays have them. This sell-high/buy-low strategy is often referred to as a Wall Street axiom, but it's also an old baseball concept.
Hall of Fame executive Branch Rickey used to say that it's always better to trade a player a year too early than a year too late. Rickey, one of baseball's pioneers of organization building, also wasn't especially fond of spending money on players. One would think he would have a lot of admiration for the way the Rays do things.
Five teams that need to be more like the Rays: Twins (16.7% of 40-man roster comprises trade acquisitions), Rockies (16.7%), Cubs (18.6%), Nationals (20%), Phillies (20.9%).
The team that can't be the Rays: The Cubs are rolling right now, and in doing so may have headed off a possible fire sale of some of their most notable players, like Javier Baez, Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo, all of whom will hit free agency after this season. If so, they would sidestep a firestorm of controversy in Chicago, at least among many fans of the North Siders, because the practice of dealing away star players because you don't think you can sign them would not play well there.
Chicago fans do tend to get attached to their players. The Cubs pulled off a sell-high deal over the winter, dealing ace starter Yu Darvish to San Diego, along with backup catcher Victor Caratini. When the Padres visited Wrigley Field last week, and Caratini came up to pinch hit, the ovation he received was as if he were the second coming of Ernie Banks.
None of this means the Cubs should avoid deals because their fans won't like them. But it does mean that it's a more complicated problem. The Rays' relative anonymity is almost their brand. Could the Cubs get away with the constant shuffling of core players in the same way? It would be tough, if only because the central rationale for doing so -- keeping payroll low -- does not make sense in their market, nor would it play well with the players' association.
Still, teams have to be careful to avoid being too precious with their own players. If you trade a star like Bryant when his value his high, you'd better be bringing back win-now players. But what if the Cubs had traded Kyle Schwarber when his bat was a coveted asset, especially by AL teams? That's where they could have been a bit more Rays-like.
Rays Way No. 3: Keep the farm system stocked
Yes, this is an easy thing to say and a very hard thing to do. Even the Rays saw a dip in the prospect rankings during their down years of the middle of the last decade, but the dip was short-lived. The Rays have ranked first or second in each of Baseball America's last three sets of preseason organizational rankings. ESPN's Kiley McDaniel has ranked them first in each of the last two preseasons.
Year-to-year organizational rankings vary a great deal, as top prospects graduate to the majors and others are added to the professional baseball ranks. So let's consider the rankings in terms of five-year rolling averages, using data from Baseball America. In terms of average five-year ranking since 2000, only the Braves (8.5) have rated better than the Rays (9.7).
So much of what the Rays do depends on having organizational depth and redundancy. Yet despite their high aggregate rating in terms of prospect talent over the past couple of decades, homegrown players account for just 27.7% of the current 40-man roster, per Roster Resource. Again, they aren't precious about their own players.
A great recent example of this was the trade that brought Randy Arozarena from St. Louis. Arozarena nearly carried Tampa Bay to the title with his postseason dominance last October and still looks like a budding star. The Rays gave up left Matthew Liberatore in the deal, and he is one of the game's better pitching prospects. Most clubs hang on to premier pitching prospects like grim death, but the Rays knew they had plenty more where that came from.
Five teams that need to be more like the Rays: Tigers (21.6 average BA organization ranking since 2000), Giants (19.9), Orioles (19), Mets (18.9) and Angels (18.6).
The team that can't be the Rays: Frankly, there aren't any. Every team can and should strive to have a strong, deep farm system. It's been the most proven way to field a consistently strong organization since Rickey came along nearly a century ago.
Teams make mistakes. The Mets may be haunted by dealing away outfield prospect Jarred Kelenic to Seattle for a couple of decades. The Orioles were mystifyingly absent from the international player market before the current Mike Elias-led front office came along.
Still, there is no good reason for a franchise to accept a consistently poor farm system, even if it is only interested in dealing unproven players for proven players. But one possible market inefficiency could be emerging: Some teams have been more draconian in cutting back their in-person scouting operations than others.
The Rays, according to Baseball America's research, are one of the teams that have been cutting. A lot of the largest reductions have come from teams with reputations for being the most reliant on analytics. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the years ahead.
Rays Way No. 4: Avoid lengthy free-agent commitments
Here is a concept that Tony Clark and the MLBPA aren't going to be on board with. And most teams can sidestep the occasional mistake in free agency. Given their payroll constraints, the Rays are not one of them. And because of that, they've been ultra-conservative when it comes to doling out long-term contracts via free agency.
According to Cots, the two biggest free-agent contracts the Rays have ever given out were the $35 million deal given to Wilson Alvarez and $34 million to Greg Vaughn. Both of those contracts came early in the century, during the pre-Friedman era and in the early years of the Rays franchise. Alvarez, Vaughn and reliever Roberto Hernandez -- also a pre-Friedman signee -- are the only outside free agents to ever get more than two years from the Rays.
Before the 2019 season, starter Charlie Morton got two years plus a club option for an un-Rays-like $15 million per season. Morton performed well for the Rays. As a resident of Bradenton, Florida, he was a natural fit in the community and popular with the fans. And he did not get that club option picked up, so now Morton is pitching for the Atlanta Braves.
According to Roster Resource, the Rays rank 26th in payroll commitments on the books for 2022, 25th in 2023 and 19th in 2024. The money tied up in those last two years is entirely from the multiyear early extension the club gave to infielder Brandon Lowe, buying him out of his arbitration seasons. The Rays have no other guaranteed deals on the books after 2022.
Not every contract agreement the Rays reach with a player works out well, but it never clogs the payroll for long.
Five teams that need to be more like the Rays: Yankees ($90 million in guaranteed payroll on the books for 2024, per Roster Resource), Angels ($72 million), Astros ($77 million), Phillies ($76 million) and White Sox ($72 million).
The team that can't be the Rays: Let's face it, the Yankees are always going to be in just about every conversation about an elite free agent. They can afford them more than most. Still, even in their more-restrained-than-they-used-to-be form, the Yankees have to be somewhat careful about who gets those megadeals. They can't sign everyone, and while they can be overstated, there are luxury-tax parameters to be kept in mind.
At the same time, you can't get the best free agents -- the no-brainer, generational types -- on a one- or two-year deal. You just can't. OK, you have the occasional free spirit like Trevor Bauer, who accepted a short-duration deal from the Dodgers. But usually, you're talking a half-decade, minimum.
Certainly Gerrit Cole wasn't going to do a short-duration deal. Cole got a nine-year, $324 million deal from the Yankees. It was going to take numbers in that region to get him, and the Yankees were wise to offer them. But that doesn't mean the Yankees can often get away with, say, paying a player $85 million to produce 9.8 WAR over four seasons, as they recently did with Jacoby Ellsbury. It won't break them, but it might limit their flexibility when better opportunities come along.
The Yankees cannot operate like the Rays in free agency and be the best version of baseball's marquee franchise. But a little Rays mentality mixed in here and there doesn't hurt.
Rays Way No. 5: Emphasize big league development
The best-run, analytically forward teams in the majors right now all stand out in this area. That is, they take a player who has fallen out of favor with another organization, or is simply overlooked, spot some skill they like and help that player build career value by leveraging it.
The Dodgers have been great at this, with Chris Taylor and Max Muncy stark examples of the practice. The Giants, under Zaidi, are rapidly joining this group. No one has gotten more from this often-overlooked area of organizational success than the Rays. It's a big reason they almost always seem to win trades and why they always seem to have more than enough quality depth.
So far in 2021, the Rays have five players who have posted at least one fWAR this season: Joey Wendle, Arozarena, Tyler Glasnow, Austin Meadows and Mike Zunino. None of those players began their professional careers with the Rays, and all spent big league time with another organization before the Rays acquired them.
To quantify this dynamic, we created a list of every season for every active player in the majors using data from FanGraphs. Then we flagged every instance in which a player posted his first quality big league season (minimum 0.5 fWAR) at the age of 26 or older, or past the time when most players begin to establish themselves.
This search for late bloomers turned up 14 such active players who made their first splash with Tampa Bay. No other team has had more than 10. Eight of those players broke into the majors with the Rays, so they were a product of organizational patience, and that total is the most in the majors. But the Rays also have led the majors in late bloomers who didn't break into the majors with them. They have had six such players.
Five teams that need to be more like the Rays: Nationals (5 late bloomers), Phillies (5), Royals (6), Giants (6) and Pirates (8). The Nationals, Phillies and Royals haven't had a single late bloomer -- as defined by these parameters -- whom they've brought in from another organization.
The team that can't be the Rays: This is another category in which you have to conclude that there is no reason every team can't develop players in this way. There are no external impediments to doing so. The only obstacle is organizational deficiency.
Another way to describe the kind of market we're talking about here is to call it the "second-chance market." A short list of second-chancers from the past half-decade includes Muncy, Gio Urshela, Wendle, Adolis Garcia, Luke Voit and Mitch Haniger. The opportunity cost of not being like the Rays in this area is enormous.
There are of course numerous other areas where the Rays stand out, gaining the marginal advantages that seem small when viewed in isolation but loom large when they accumulate at the bottom line. Their penchant for innovation stands out but is elusive to quantify, if only because it's not a static thing. By the time a Rays innovation spreads around the majors, they are on to something else. And it may be their anonymous/low-payroll status that serves as the perfect platform for experimentation. How long could the Yankees have gotten away with using openers, for example, if they had been the first team to dive into the practice?
There are other developmental traits you could look at, like favoring athletic defenders who have at least one offensive trait you can deploy. There is the focus on roster churn, which overlaps a bit with some of what's been written but is evident in how often the Rays turn over the last few spots of their 40-man roster each season. No upgrade is too small. There is also the way in which Tampa Bay avoids roster redundancy, as best evidenced by those graphics from last October that showed how each pitcher on the Rays' staff offered a slightly different arm angle.
Pinning down exactly how the Rays do things is not easy, mostly because at least at least one precept of the Rays Way is to not talk about the Rays Way. From the outside, we can analyze the results of their processes, but not the fine points of those processes.
Since we can't really know in any great detail how the Rays do the things they do, we can at least look at areas in which they have succeeded. And when we do that, we can also see where other teams have come up short. It's in those spaces where every team could stand a little more Rays in their lives.