The Rays Should be Going for It. They Traded Blake Snell Instead.
Opinion: Why try and get back to the World Series when you can slash your budget and deal your ace?
When MLB.com first reported that the Rays were open to trading Blake Snell, the team’s finances were the cited motivation behind a potential move.
There was no mention of Snell aging – he’s in his prime at 28 – or concerns over his durability. Just money. With Snell entering the relatively more expensive – but still team-friendly – portion of his contract, and the Rays being one of baseball’s thriftiest teams, that probably didn’t need to be explained. But the Rays – and baseball at large – are at a point where a contending team can trade a star player with years left on a below-market contract and no one blinks. Never mind being all hush-hush about the motive on the league’s own website.
Anyway, two months removed from falling two wins shy of a championship, the Rays achieved their cost-cutting goal on Sunday night. They agreed to trade their ace to the Padres for a collection of prospects: Luis Patiño, Francisco Mejía, Blake Hunt and Cole Wilcox. The haul, by most accounts, is an impressive one, with top pitching prospect Patiño serving as the centerpiece.
The return, however, should not distract from the fact that the Rays are slashing their budget after coming this close to winning the World Series. Snell, who is set to make over $10 million in 2021, is only the latest penny-pinching transaction Tampa has made since losing the World Series to the heavy-spending Dodgers. The Rays also declined options on Charlie Morton ($15 million) and Mike Zunino ($4.5 million) and designated Hunter Renfroe ($3.3 million) for assignment with him set to get a raise in arbitration.
No one expected the frugal Rays to spend like drunken sailors this offseason, but that they’re shedding salary and impact players after nearly winning it all – and that it’s widely accepted as normal – makes them and the sport look bad. If the team’s absolute No. 1 priority was to win right now, the Rays’ focus this offseason would have been How do we get over the top in 2021? But that’s clearly not the main objective.
Now you may be thinking, Haven’t the Rays been able to remain competitive through these means? And the answer to that is yes. By dealing their best players when their value is at a premium, the small-market club avoids paying high salaries while stocking up on young, controllable players. The hope is that the young players will quickly become stars themselves, but it’s also alright if they fall a bit short of such status because their value remains high when comparing their production to their minimal salaries. Then the Rays deal those guys before it’s time to really pay them. And then they repeat the cycle again and again and again, all the while sustaining contention but falling short of greatness.
There is more than one way to build a competitive roster, and spending doesn’t necessarily guarantee championships, but this should have been the winter that the Rays turned their hedge fund brains off and pushed themselves just a bit further. Or at least maintained their payroll. They should be, you know, going for it – like the team they traded Snell to.
Unfortunately for the sport, it’s now more surprising when a team does go all in than when one doesn’t. Even baseball’s richest and most profitable teams speak of cash concerns and limited finances, and that was before the pandemic took an economic toll on MLB. And why wouldn’t they? If a team like the Rays can be successful without spending money, why would an owner want to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on payroll? And if a team like the Rays can then downgrade after nearly reaching the sport’s pinnacle, what incentive does the competition have to do more than just enough to be better?
Maybe the answer is that, for some, winning the World Series isn’t the pinnacle it’s supposed to be anymore. Maybe the rings and the trophy are only worth it if achieved in compliance with cost-efficiency. Maybe the system that enables such an approach throughout the sport is rotten and in need of change.
When someone like Snell gets traded in the manner in which he did, it certainly appears that way.
Gary Phillips is a reporter, writer and editor for hire. He has written for The Athletic, Sporting News, USA Today Sports, Bleacher Report and Yankees Magazine, among others. He can be reached at garyhphillips@outlook.com.