Bill Madden: Tampa Bay Rays ready to usher in new era with stadium relocation near

NEW YORK — For years baseball people have marveled at the Tampa Bay Rays’ ability to remain competitive in the American League East despite consistently low industry payrolls and annual attendance. Since 2008, the Rays have been to the postseason nine times, including the World Series twice, always with payrolls of well over $100 million less than the Yankees.

At the same time, Tampa Bay fans have gotten used to the Rays’ jettisoning their favorite players (See: Isaac Paredes, Randy Arozarena, Brandon Lowe and Tyler Glasnow in just the last three years) as soon as they became too costly or near free agency. And with the clock continuing to tick on their expiring (2028) lease at dreary Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Fla., there’s never been a sense of permanence of the Rays in Tampa Bay.

But now, finally, there is.

Recently, both the Tampa city council and the Hillsborough County commissioners voted to approve a new $2.3 billion mixed-use stadium project near Hillsborough College’s Dale Mabry Boulevard campus, not far from Raymond James Stadium, the home of the NFL Tampa Bay Bucs. The plan is similar to what the Atlanta Braves constructed in Cobb County, Ga., in 2015 for a stadium surrounded by a village of shops and restaurants that would produce addition revenue for the team.

It was always the accepted view of most folks in the Tampa Bay area that if the Rays were going to survive they would have to be in Tampa where the large majority of their 3 1/2 million residents are. This was part of the reason the Rays have remained one of the top revenue sharing recipients in baseball, an average of nearly $60 million a year. That’s on top of the $50 million they and the other 29 clubs receive annually from the MLB Central Fund. So they’ve had the money to increase payroll, but the previous Rays owner Stu Sternberg just chose not to spend it.

If the owners are able to establish a cap in the new collective bargaining agreement, revenue sharing would go away, but the Rays are anticipating revenues of far more than $60 million from the new park and surrounding village which is now slated to be ready by 2029. For sure, now that the stadium issue has finally been resolved, the Rays, under their new ownership led by Jacksonville developer Patrick Zalupski, are expected to be operating vastly different. Last week Zalupski told the Tampa Bay Times: “Tampa’s the No. 11 media market in the country. There’s nothing holding it back, “adding that with the new ballpark and the development around it, “we should be able to drive payroll (currently 27th at $116,208,358) into the top 15 circle and maybe even the top 10.”

In the meantime, the Rays have been leading the American League East since June 27, but will be facing their biggest challenge now in the September stretch, starting with this present road trip through Texas where they snapped a 10-game skid at Globe Life Field as of Friday, and three in Atlanta against the Braves. They then finish the season with three games with the Red Sox, four in New York with the Yankees and three more at home with the Phillies.

That four-game series at Yankee Stadium Sept. 22-24 figures to be the biggest regular-season series for both the Rays and the Yankees in years, especially since the Yankees expect to be (Aaron Judge) whole, while Rays GM Eric Neander made significant upgrades to his pitching at the trade deadline with Freddy Peralta from the Mets and hard-throwing righty reliever Tyler Wells from the Orioles, and in perhaps the best acquisition of all, filled the Rays longstanding need — a catcher who can hit — by landing Liam Hicks from the Marlins

If the Rays are able to emerge through that gauntlet still atop the AL East it should be cause for considerable concern for the Yankees. Because as improved as they’ve become this year, they figure to be this good and better for years to come with one of the top player development systems in baseball with a half dozen top 100 prospects including outfielders Theo Gillen, Jake Melton and Austin Overn and catcher Caden Bodine, all of whom could be making their debuts at some point next year.

In every way, the baseball future couldn’t be brighter in Tampa Bay.