Opening Day payroll for the Rays this season is expected to land at around $73MGETTY IMAGES
The Rays "insist they are not tanking," despite many in and around baseball accusing the club of "revisiting that past strategy," according to Marc Topkin of the TAMPA BAY TIMES. While last week's flurry of moves/trades "sparked the roar of criticism, the reality is the Rays have had this plan in place for the past several years." Team officials inadvertently "fed the frenzy with last week's ill-timed debut of an unfortunately named new blog called The Ray Tank." Rays Owner Stuart Sternberg said, "We tanked in 2006 and '07, if you want to call it that. We were the original tankers. Or tankees. It seems to be all the fad now" (TAMPA BAY TIMES, 2/25). In Tampa, Tom Jones wrote the Rays are "not going to be very good this year." Fans are "complaining, talking about boycotting games, demanding owner Stu Sternberg sell the team." Jones: "Where have you been, fans? Have you not been paying attention?" This was a "mediocre-to-bad team that has been flailing away for four years." Jones: "So why not try something? Why not overhaul it? Call it tanking, if you will. Call it a rebuild. Call it building for the future. But also call it this: smart" (TAMPA BAY TIMES, 2/25).
THAT WINDOW HAS CLOSED: In K.C., Sam Mellinger wrote the Royals' rebuild is going to be "long, difficult, and at times ugly." Mellinger: "Depending on your standards a rebuild of this magnitude figures to take four years, minimum." The Royals are "essentially starting from scratch again." The Royals "wanted to build something sustainable, but their margins are tiny and they missed on too many draft picks and signed at least one bad contract too many" (K.C. STAR, 2/24).
