Rays of hope? Season could easily swing to either extreme

The general impression of the Rays last winter was of a franchise on the rise.

The general impression of the Rays this winter has been of a franchise on the edge.

The big question with Carl Crawford is whether he will be a Ray come September. (US Presswire)

"The hard-core reality is that they may struggle to keep their guys," said one executive who closely follows Tampa Bay.

We wondered last winter how the Rays compared to their American League East rivals in New York and Boston.

We wonder this winter if they're more comparable to their intrastate rival in Miami.

Like all these instant impressions, this one isn't totally fair. The Rays will spend twice as much money as the Marlins on payroll this year -- more than they've ever spent before and maybe even more than their meager attendance can support. They haven't torn their team apart, and will go to spring training next week with almost all the players who made the 2008 World Series run possible.

They're not cheap, and there's no way you can say they're not trying to win.

But perceptions matter, and there's little doubt that the perception of the Rays within baseball has changed over the last 12 months.

The perception now is that we're not sure if we should be watching the Rays because they might win the World Series or because we want to argue about where Carl Crawford is going to be playing by the end of this year.

It's a weird situation, because the reality is that the Rays could be as good as anyone, particularly if Rafael Soriano proves to be a quality AL East closer.

But the other reality is that, even coming off a World Series, the Rays of 2009 were 23rd in baseball in attendance. There has been no real progress toward getting a new stadium built, and the fine people of the Tampa Bay area have shown no real inclination to buy tickets at the stadium they already have.

The reality is that if attendance was that bad last year, coming off a World Series, it doesn't figure to get any better, unless the Rays are incredibly successful on the field (and even then it might not matter).

Rays people are already telling friends around the game that they worry about "a lack of revenue streams," and that they really don't know whether Crawford will still be a Ray in 2011 -- or even by the end of 2010.

It's easy to be very optimistic about the team on the field, and hard to fault club president Matt Silverman for telling the club's flagship radio station that his expectations are "incredibly high."

But it's also very easy to wonder about the long-term viability of the franchise, and easy to think that the Rays are about to enter the most important year in their young history.

Rays people play down any talk that the team could move out of the area (i.e. any further than across the bay from St. Petersburg to Tampa), but it's natural to wonder what happens if no new stadium is built and attendance in the old building continues at the current level.

It hasn't escaped anyone's attention that owner Stu Sternberg makes his home in the New York area, but at the moment it's hard to imagine him fighting what would be strong opposition from the Mets and Yankees to move the team anywhere near there.

Sternberg and his talented front office seem to have done all they can to try to make baseball work in the current environment. They've delivered a winning team, made Tropicana Field as palatable as possible and kept ticket prices reasonable.

And yet, with one of their best players (Crawford) approaching free agency, there's no certainty that the Rays will have the resources to keep him. The same goes for free-agent-to-be Carlos Pena, who tied for the AL home run title last year but is nowhere near as important to the Rays as Crawford is.

It's enough that some scouts are making plans to see the Rays a lot early in the season, just in case they fall out of the race and decide to sell off players in July.

It's easy to make too much of this. The Rays have traded away players who made some money each of the past two years, sending Edwin Jackson to the Tigers in what became a bad deal last winter, trading Scott Kazmir to the Angels last August and then sending Akinori Iwamura to the Pirates in the offseason.

Even with those deals, you can argue (as Rays people do) that the 2010 roster is the most talented in club history. You can argue (as Rays people do) that even if Crawford leaves, top prospect Desmond Jennings will be ready to take his place in 2011.

You can even argue that if the Rays hadn't made two mistakes last winter (trading Jackson for underwhelming Matt Joyce, and signing Pat Burrell to a terrible two-year contract), they would have had more of a chance to make big moves this winter.

Silverman still says the Rays would be favorites in any other division, and while that's arguable (are they really better than the Phillies?), it's not that far off.

It's possible that what kept the Rays out of the playoffs last fall was a bad start caused in part by World Series hangover and heightened expectations, and also a bullpen that broke down completely late in the year.

If Soriano is as good as the Rays hope, the bullpen may be fixed. And the expectations, while still "incredibly high," are less likely to negatively affect the Rays this time around.

So maybe the Rays do come back, maybe they do prove legit challengers to the Yankees and Red Sox, maybe they make it back to the playoffs and even back to the World Series.

And maybe next winter, we're once again calling them a franchise on the rise.