Posted on October 1, 2011 at 10:50 pm by Zachary Levine in Astros , Astros/MLB , General , Pitching
The Rays made the playoffs for the third time in four years. (Karen Warren/Chronicle)
ARLINGTON – To say the Tampa Bay Rays are the model for how the Astros could continue to slash payroll and rebuild from triple-digit losses is to say the Large Hadron Collider is a good model for a science fair project.
In no other way, apocalyptic or otherwise, than just the fact that it’s ultra-ambitious.
The Rays, they of baseball’s second-lowest payroll at just $41.1 million, have demonstrated with their third playoff berth in four years that you don’t have to spend like the New York Yankees ($202.7 million) or Boston Red Sox ($161.8 million) or even the last-place 2011 Astros ($70.7 million) to get to baseball’s big party in October.
You just have to be really good with limited resources, a phrase that has entered the Astros’ lexicon through the (supposed) sale of the franchise and a seismic rebuild. The Houston payroll has dropped from eighth-highest in baseball to 20th in five years.
Even that current position is yacht money to the Rays, who are ahead of only the lowly Kansas City Royals in player payroll.
“We’re still not at a point where this game is entirely efficient,” said Andrew Friedman, the Houston native and analytical mind who took over as Tampa Bay general manager before the 2006 season. “If it was, payrolls would decide the standings. It’s about talent wins on the field. We have a $41 million payroll, but we’re extremely talented.”
That’s where the great diversion takes place, as obvious as it sounds to say, between the Rays and some of their fellow low-budget shoppers such as the Royals and the Pittsburgh Pirates – talent.
The easy criticism of the Rays is that they picked at the top of the draft so often during their first 10 futile seasons as a franchise that their perennial draft position would set up a run like this.
But that covers three of 25 players, David Price, B.J. Upton and Evan Longoria. It doesn’t begin to explain how they can hand the ball in Game 1 to a 2007 eighth-round pick named Matt Moore and have him throw seven shutout innings against the powerful Texas Rangers on Friday. Moore just happened to be the top pitching prospect in baseball, an exceptional find out of high school. The Astros, by contrast, have had no players from the disastrous 2007 draft even make the major leagues.
Then there’s the Rays’ 10th-rounder Desmond Jennings, who was able to take over ably – if not belatedly as a midseason call-up – for Carl Crawford once Crawford got to be too expensive to retain.
Sixteenth-rounder James Shields is the No. 2 starter in a postseason rotation that really defies rankings and is entirely homegrown.
“I believe it has to do with great scouting; I truly do,” Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon said. “It’s not just hitting on the number one guy; it’s about hitting on the other guys that come in later rounds, and we have done that.”
To hear Friedman tell it, there were no secrets to the success of the Rays’ braintrust, which includes former Astros general manager Gerry Hunsicker as an adviser and renowned scouting director R.J. Harrison.
It was a matter of taking inventory when Friedman and Maddon took over a team that would lose 101 games in 2006 and 96 in 2007.
The Rays had burgeoning stars or at least productive regulars in Upton and Delmon Young, the latter eventually swapped for Matt Garza and others, on a roster that was getting toward the end of its collective control with Aubrey Huff and Julio Lugo approaching free agency.
So in a step that should sound familiar to Astros fans who lived through the last two years, the Rays traded both of them – Huff to the Astros for would-be All-Star Ben Zobrist and Mitch Talbot – and concentrated on their shortcomings.
“We didn’t have nearly enough pitching on the horizon,” Friedman said. “With our resources, we were never going to be in a position to go to market for starting pitching. We had to develop it, so we put a lot of emphasis on that. We had an identity and a plan of how we wanted to execute on that, so we made some trades with Delmon and others to improve our defense and focus on the run-prevention side of things. And things turned quicker than even we imagined.”
Sure enough, the Rays went from worst to first in 2008, winning the American League pennant behind that core of developing hitters coming of age together and a balanced rotation led by Shields. After a bit of regression in 2009, they were back in 2010 and need only to hold serve at home to get to the 2011 ALCS. This time without Crawford, who signed a $142 million deal with Boston, and without any of the top arms in one of baseball’s best bullpens, which was rebuilt through low-cost free agency while the departed Rays signed lucrative deals elsewhere.
Astros taking note?
The ability to build and rebuild, to load and reload, to replace the production of Hunter Pence and Michael Bourn with those just waiting within is still a vision for the Astros, who are clearly not there.
“To get good and stay good” as Astros general manager Ed Wade frequently says and as has played out in Tampa Bay the last four years, is a process that requires more everywhere. In scouting, where the Astros hope to have found something with this year’s risers, J.D. Martinez and Jose Altuve. In player development and in trades, which have been undertaken to get one of the worst farm systems simply up to respectable.
To produce a Price in 2008, a Jeremy Hellickson in 2010 and a Moore in 2011, among many other coups, is where the Rays are and the Astros strive to be.
Barring any big-ticket free agents, which Wade has all but dismissed, the Astros will have a payroll perhaps just north of $60 million next year. It could go lower should they again try to trade Wandy Rodriguez and find a buyer.
It’s not a death sentence, but there’s something quite telling in what was uttered by Johnny Damon, the free agent “final piece” the Rays added to a roster built mostly from within and from trades.
“Last year, I put myself around a bunch of young kids,” Damon said of his time with Detroit. “This year I did the same, and it feels like when I first started playing back with the Royals.”
The Rays, who have been to three postseasons in four years, and the Royals, who haven’t been there since 1985. Proof that there can be two much different directions to building through youth.
The knock on the Rays has been that through years of losing, of course they would build a good team through the draft. Not exactly. The 25-man Division Series roster shows they have taken advantage of just about every way of building the roster, from early picks to late picks such as Matt Moore and Desmond Jennings to trades and low-cost free agents.
RHP Joel Peralta (1 year, $925,000)RHP Juan Cruz (1 year,
The top team in payroll in each league secured that league’s No. 1 seed, but as the rest of the playoff teams’ payroll ranks out of 30 MLB teams show, October is not just a party for the lavish spenders.
Note: The Astros’ payroll for 2011 was $70.7 million, which ranked 20th in baseball.
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