**2014 Tampa Bay Rays Thread** (Orlando, Gainesville: income, young professionals, transportation)

[Vannort54]

I can see the team moveing soon maybe to Montreal. MLB is tired of supporting them.

[BucFan]

Originally Posted by SeaSpur

Last Season Finish: 92-71 (.564), 2nd in AL East, Won Wild Card
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Our Tampa Bay Rays won 90+ games this season for the 5th time in 6 years and just like that...Spring Training is right around the corner! Kicks off in a few short months for the Rays on Feb 28th. First pitch of the regular season is March 31st against the Blue Jays.
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Until then, we can discuss possible trades/moves, stadium plans, and other news. A few notes of late:

- Wil Myers was named American League Rookie of the Year (link)! Pitcher Chris Archer finished 3rd place in AL voting as well. That makes the 3rd ROY in 6 seasons for the Rays (Longoria in 2008, Hellickson in 2011).

- Season ticket holders should receive a packet within the next 2 weeks on 2014 ticket plans.

- There is a very unfortunately likelihood that David Price will not be wearing a Rays uniform next season. According to sources of late, the Texas Rangers are among teams interested. We can only hope the Rays get some young talent in return, if this does happen.

- In stadium news, we may be heading for a new scene in the drama that has existed around the new ballpark. With St. Petersburg electing a new mayor, the Rays organization has hinted that things will move along a little faster now. Foster was a huge driving force behind keeping the Rays in St. Petersburg. Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn was quoted this week as saying that a ballpark in Tampa is within reach and "it’s either going to be Tampa or someplace else, not St. Petersburg." Recent polls have shown that St. Pete residents have warmed up to letting the Rays explore the area rather than that last option Buckhorn referred to.

Adding salt to that wound, the Atlanta Braves have decided to leave their 17-year old Turner Field to build a new park in Cobb County- north of downtown out in the suburbs. They expect to be in it by 2017.

We can only hope the steam picks up for the Rays situation really soon. I'm excited about the possibilities.

- Outfielder David DeJesus agree to a two year $10.5 million dollar contract. Also picked up options for Zobrist and Escobar through 2014. A few still up in the air like Loney and Rodney.

What else? What are your thoughts for the upcoming season and these developments so far?

I'm ready for the 2015 thread. How about starting a new one and have this one on lock down....... Rays just sent me my Xmas gift for being a 2015 partial season ticket holder. I'm kind of looking forward to what the new manger will bring. He's young, but maybe he'll bring a maturity to the team that wasn't there in the past. Kind of looking forward to heading down to Port Charlotte to see a spring training game and seeing them on the practice fields.........

[BucFan]

Rays are wheelin' and dealin' with the trades....we get this guy in a trade sending Wil Myers outahere.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8y-58Usl78

[JasonAnc]

So, it looks like the Rays will be moving out of the region within a few years.

St Pete City Council denied the Rays ability to look for stadiums within the region, but outside of Pinellas.

Now the Rays have only two choices; stay in the worst stadium in all 4 major pro sports, in a city/county which supports the Rays with less attendance than any other city/county in all 4 major sports... or move out of state entirely to a city that will probably be rabidly excited to finally have an MLB team in their hometown.

Gee, I wonder which option the Rays will pick, now that the pricks in their current home town refuse to attend games and refuse to even let the team look around for a better location locally?

[BucFan]

Originally Posted by JasonAnc

So, it looks like the Rays will be moving out of the region within a few years.

St Pete City Council denied the Rays ability to look for stadiums within the region, but outside of Pinellas.

Now the Rays have only two choices; stay in the worst stadium in all 4 major pro sports, in a city/county which supports the Rays with less attendance than any other city/county in all 4 major sports... or move out of state entirely to a city that will probably be rabidly excited to finally have an MLB team in their hometown.

Gee, I wonder which option the Rays will pick, now that the pricks in their current home town refuse to attend games and refuse to even let the team look around for a better location locally?

Let 'em go. I'd be interested to see which city will rabidly support the team by building a half a billion dollar stadium and fill it. There's a reason why baseball left Montreal. But the "experts" say give Montreal the Rays.......have at it.

I have MLB Network and can watch whichever team I want. I think the Royals might soon be my new favorite team.

[JasonAnc]

Doesn't have to be Montreal or any of the other Canadian cities.

There are quite a number of regions large enough (and with the right demographics) to support MLB. Las Vegas. Charlotte. Austin. Portland. Sacramento. Maybe San Antonio, NC Triad, VA Tidewater, Indianapolis or Orlando. Surely one of them will be interested in having a team. Several of those regions have already made overtures to MLB in the past, as have various people/groups who want to buy an MLB team.

Don't think for a second that there aren't groups eager to take a crack at making MLB work somewhere. Have you seen the valuations of teams lately? In the right spot, they might even be able to swing a mostly privately financed stadium, which serves as the centerpiece of a much larger development. Then the public part of the cost is paid for with TIF on the development itself. (kind of like what the Braves are doing. And exactly what would happen in DT Tampa if the clowns in Pinellas stop putting themselves ahead of everyone else)

And as far as St Pete or Pinellas having any real leverage whatsoever, that is an absolute farce. The Rays and MLB can walk away from the Rays' lease pretty much whenever they want. They'll just leave, let the city sue them, and dare the city to find a judge who will force a money losing entity to be stuck in such an agreement. If push comes to shove, MLB will buy the Rays, then file bankruptcy on the team to break the lease and move them, or outright fold the team and "expand" with a new team somewhere else. Then just charge the new owner an expansion fee equal to or greater than the cost of buying and moving/folding the Rays.

St Pete and Pinellas are led by well intentioned people in way, way over their heads.

[The Villages Guy]

Bye bye Rays. Stupid move by the city council.

[JasonAnc]

I think there's a chance the language gets cleaned up and maybe it gets approved after all.

But I also think the tea leaves during this past off season (and going back the past few seasons when Sternberg raised the payroll on faith that fans would turn out for a winner and was burned bad.) kind of make it clear that the team doesn't expect to stick around. Members of the organization who don't want to deal with the turmoil of being a lame duck team during a relocation have moved on, and Sternberg has made some moves to cut his losses and batten down the hatches until he can sell.

[Vannort54]

Originally Posted by JasonAnc

I think there's a chance the language gets cleaned up and maybe it gets approved after all.

But I also think the tea leaves during this past off season (and going back the past few seasons when Sternberg raised the payroll on faith that fans would turn out for a winner and was burned bad.) kind of make it clear that the team doesn't expect to stick around. Members of the organization who don't want to deal with the turmoil of being a lame duck team during a relocation have moved on, and Sternberg has made some moves to cut his losses and batten down the hatches until he can sell.

If nothing gets done MLB will get rid of the team. Other club owners are tired of carrying the Rays with revenu shareing. The Rays are not paying their fair share. And the other owners have had enough. Either produce or get out or sell the team were fans will go and see them play. The Rays will never have a fan base like most teams have so what's the point of even trying for a new stadium. How can they be sure that people will fill up a new stadium. It's all a crap shoot, get rid of them and cut your losses. For this area they be better off putting in a NASCAR track.

[JasonAnc]

^They will indeed fold the Rays and start up another team somewhere else if that's what it took. Or just fold them outright for a while, and expand later as needed.

And that's exactly right about the subsidy the Rays are getting from the rest of MLB. Over the 12 years remaining on the Rays' lease, we're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars. Maybe even north of $500 million. Literally that much.

The existing lease penalties are way less than that, but are still significant enough to make it worth MLB's while to litigate the ever loving hell out of St Pete. St Pete would run a serious risk of getting nothing in the end, and the time and cost of lawyers would exert immense pressure on the pols of the day to settle.

St Pete/Pinellas residents are being flat out delusional if they think they're in any position to be trying to strong arm MLB, and one of Wall St's own. You p*ss those crews off, you better watch out for their federal and state sycophants coming after you. And in the mean time, they're going to screw the whole region out of their baseball team. They're the Tampa Bay Rays, not the St Pete Rays.