Absolutely perfect comments.  There is nothing more to add.  I share your views completely on this.  The Rays in my estimation truly believe the answers come from the farm and not from other teams.  Oh contrare. you can use the farm as trade bait to acquire pieces to the puzzle like a big time power middle of the order bat. needed bullpen help (especially a left hander) and a true innings-eater established veteran pitcher instead of just relying on the kids (Shields and Kaz) to be the thump.

Until Friedman and Stu Sternberg understand the forest beyond the trees and use their deep reservoir of money which they DO HAVE to acquire these types of assets, the Rays will be consigned to this purgatory they are in.  Someone has to come in here and show these players the way.   How do you expect these players to win when none have won at the major league level before?  Its like bringing rocks to a gunfight.  Its virtually criminal what Sternberg and Andrew Friedman's thought processes are.   The farm can not be the cure for this club's tide for success, it must come from the OUTSIDE.

The Rays owe it to fans not just like me but the other fans who think they are a bunch of businessmen who know they got a payroll of $23 million and will simply play the player development game with the player development manager!  Just because you acquire a SS off of waivers from Washington is no excuse for giving him a start on a Saturday afternoon and continually shuffling the lineup up!

When you play for the future, or any set date, the future will never arrive.  The future can be NOW if the front office gets off their collective derriers and invests money at proven players either by making trades and using some of our chips or by being agressive.  Sure you can continue to harness and develop players in our system like Davis and McGee and soon to be David Price but still, you got to be able to bake your cake and eat it too.  Would you rather have Jake Peavy or Johan Santana pitching for us in battle or against us by the Red Sox or Yankees?  Sooner or later Stu Sternberg and Andrew Friedman will have to punch the competition in the mouth and beat them at their own game, whether they like or you like it or anyone else likes it or not.

You reap what you sew, and the Rays like I said reap from the bottom.  Detroit goes out and pays the price.  That can be said from at least a half dozen to dozen other contenders that go out and pay the price!  So what the prices are exorbitant?  It's the price of doing business in today's MLB market.  You can't just rely on your players 6 years of arbitration eligibility prior to free agency.  This is what Matt Silverman is selling to the media in this region and I don't frigging buy it!!  Bless Ty Wigginton's heart, he is scrappy, but his skill set is what it is!  He will never be a prolific hitter, maybe Young or Dukes can be that but the atmosphere and conditions that exist in the organization are not the most conducive to their maximum development.

Yeah, keep dreaming, I know.  Well you know what,  people and fans bleed and sweat and pay the price and so many fans have been turned off by the Rays here locally they have charred the manager locally.  Fans here want something to embrace and they aren't getting it!  The disconnect is starting to form up.  All I am asking the front office to consider and dial up is the value of some of these players like a Youkilis or a Paul Konerko pay for itself far more than their numbers indicate!  The infatuation with "bargain hunting" has to end at some point, the excuses about the lack of resources has to end from Andrew Friedman and the functional bullpen that Joe Maddon asked for 16 months ago must be DEMANDED!  And like I said, it can't and shouldn't be all about the farm!

Bad Dancer,

I appreciate your candor and all, and I respect your postive nature, but I have been harping on this from day one.  You don't just throw Baseball America's #1 rated farm system on the wall and just hope it sticks out there.  Let me give you an example of a deal that could have been made.  Two years ago, the Rays could have ended up with Josh Beckett and Mike Lowell for a combination of prospects led by BJ Upton at the time.  Ok, Upton is playing well for us now, but Beckett and Lowell could have answered a couple of spots for us AND help us in both the near term and the future.

Its easy to say when you take 2 from the Yankees but a larger sampling of games tells a larger truth about this club.  Don't get me wrong, I loved it too, and the Rays can play with anyone over a short series.  The NDRO is holding their revenue sharing money like cheese on the edge of a hamster wheel and the players are the hamsters trying to bite that cheese.  It doesn't work that way, and as a fan, I can see that.  The principle may be sound, but this club will eventually have to acquire a 1B, either by trade or free agency.  I really do like Wiggy, but he simply isn't prolific enough in the lineup.  It doesn't help either the "player development" attitude of the field manager who feels to give everyone a degree of ABs and forsaking some strategy that has costed the Rays some victories this year.

And the NDRO talks about signing players for the near term and the future.  Any player that is signed to a multiyear contract is going to help a team for both the near term and future.  I have mentioned this before but remember how the Tigers were chastized as well as Pudge Rodriguez for signing that 4 year $40M deal in 2004?  Look who is laughing now?!  How would the Rays look in 20/20 hindsight with a guy like Alan Embree or Hideki Okajima or god forbid, Joe Borowski or Mike Gonzalez in our pen?  The essence of my point is all the NDRO talks about is the minor league system.  The have a death grip on it; its all they talk about and it can not be the cure and the answer for this team.  In its twelve years, they have still not produced a top flight left handed reliever who can matchup and lock down opposing left handed hitters.  Yes, fault can be assigned to the prior regime, but even the NDRO is guilty of some missevaluation.

If you are going to throw your young prizes into battle, you should have procured some reinforcements behind it.  The bullpen is a joke, and it will continue to be a joke with the organization's attitude to it.  I fear that one of the golden arms in Durham or Vero are going to be converted to a pen arm.  The organizations best relief pitching prospect was just busted for performance enhancing drugs and now will have to restart from square one.

As far as names go, I will admit to you, the names were not out there.  But help in the pen was out there, and eventually this team will have to step up to the plate and not exclusively trust the farm to get this team over the hump.  The excitement this team had was generated by curiosity and the fact that the kids hustle and play hard.  Sometimes they make bonehead decisions, but you also have to question if some of these guys are as good as we or the establishment think they are.  I am sorry, but if you want to jump Baltimore and Toronto in the standings, you have to beat them head to head.

I just read a great quote from Billy Beane, which I felt was relevant to this discussion:

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Inaction is a far greater danger than action in this marketplace and taking the chance that you could face some of the things that could possibly happen.  We could sit here in our marketplace and do nothing but draft and develop, but we wouldn't win a lot very consistently.  We might be cute for a while, but we wouldn't win.  
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He was responding to critiques of his renting the services of Frank Thomas and Milton Bradley last year.  Thomas worked out great, Milton not so much.

For years I have followed the A's and Beane from afar.  In many ways I have wanted to understand how they did what they did, because it gave me hope that the Rays could follow a similar path and become a small/mid market success story.

The irony is, the more I read about the Oakland Way, the more drawn I am to what they do.  And the more I watch Tampa's inaction, the more I feel pushed away from what they do.  I can foresee a situation where by the end of the year, I will cut my ties as a Rays fan and become a fan of the A's. Not that it will happen, but it could.

I have lived through too much failure with this organization, and have never felt we had a shred of hope.  At some point, ownership runs the risk of losing what little hardcore fan base it is lucky to have.

I agree with the balance of what you said.  Inaction is true.  However, you have to consider who the A's competition is.  I guarantee you if they played the AL East monster 18-19x a year and not 6-9x per year, his mindset would change.  He would have to be far more active than what he is now, giving more impetus for our argument that Stu Sternberg can't just develop players, but he has to compete in the offseason and the Hot Stove at the Winter Meetings and throw his hat and money around and compete for players off the field too!  Its not just on the field where the competition beat the Rays but during the months of November to January too!  

Having said that, what have the A's or the Twins won?  Nothing!  Its about the world championship to me.  And you count success on building world championships not just looking to get in the door.  Look at teams like Detroit, St. Louis and Milwaukee or even Chicago or Houston did it.  You develop a core AND you spend big bucks on difference makers like a Jeff Suppan or turning Carlos Lee into Coco Cordero or Pudge Rodriguez and Kenny Rogers.  The strategy that Stu and Andrew are imposing on the fans here is suicide!

Maybe in time I will be proven wrong or Stu is willing to make an impact in the Hot Stove.  Whaddya say Stu?  Are you ready to throw your money around or are your players the hamsters on the cheese, ready to bite and nibble like minions?

Maybe I misread the quote, but I think he is saying that is exactly what Oakland does, Joe.  What I took from it is that just doing player development is not enough - you have good young promising players every year, but you never win games.  Kinda like Tampa the past few seasons?  You need to have a great farm system, but you also need to use that farm, and the FA market, to grab players which can make you a winner today instead of tomorrow.  Which is what Chicago and Detroit did.  (And btw, it has been 1.5 decades but Minnesota did win an amazing world series)

What he talks about throughout the interview is a lot of what you mentioned previously in the thread - about being willing to part with a prospect to get the players you need to win NOW.  

He also talks about how winning percentage drives attendance, and how keeping attendance up is vital to keeping his player budget where it is (albeit 1/4 that of the East Coast monsters).  Therefore, Beane says he cannot afford to rebuild, or to fall off.  He must put a winning product on the field to stay afloat.

And that is what I just cannot figure out about Tampa Bay.  If they had a more competitive product, they would have greater team revenues due to increased interest/attendance, and logically more resources to keep their good players or bid for ones that can help them win.

I agree with you.  I knew what you meant and the premise of Billy Beane's point is true.

I will say this.  No one will admit it.  So much of baseball's landscape changed with the 1994 strike.  To me, that was the year the line was crossed.  That is when the Two Team League was formed (Boston and New York) and a massive trickle down was formed.  Some corrections were made in the 2002 CBA and reratified last year with some minor modifications, but largely speaking, teams are basically encouraged to spend money to a rather increasingly large luxury tax threshold.  Did you know within 3 years that the new luxury tax barrier will be $175 million per year?

And NYRay, I do agree with you.  I think we are arguing the same point.  Bud Selig doesn't give a fill in the blank about fans in this market or the success of this team.  I have been informed by other members of the media here that the Rays virtually exist as collateral damage to pay off the collusion of the effects of the 1994 strike.  Its too bad, because the fans lose. I have cried too many tears living here for 20 years and hear about "prized, hot minor league prospects"!!!

You got no idea how much I wish I will be wrong.  And I will eat my words with pride if and when I am.  But you know what?  It is what it is.  The only team in the AL with no left hander in the bullpen.  Its cross your fingers every time this team goes to the pen.  As long as the current conditions and and climate exist especially in the AL East, it will be hard.  The Rays can't settle for decent players like Wiggy, Pena and Norton, the thriftiness has to end.

Thanks Joe.  And I agree with what you wrote about the 1994 strike.  Costas I think somewhat touched upon this in his Fair Ball book.  

There clearly are 2 leagues - Boston, and the 2 New York teams, then everyone else.

Ironically I have always been leery of salary caps. I thought the NFL cap created too much parity, and took a lot of the fun out of following the league. There were no longer dynasty bad guys which everyone could root against.

However MLB clearly needs a salary cap, and has for several years now.  It doesn't have to be low.  Even if it were sitting at $150 mil, I would be happy.  But I think somewhere around $100-$120mil in today's terms would be perfect.  At least it would give hope to a Minnesota or a Detroit, who might spend $80 mil or so, that the Yankees won't simply spend $250 mil to crush them.  There has to be a ceiling somewhere so that teams underneath can at least know the worst case scenario they might be up against.  And unlike the NFL dynasty which was often the product of great drafting, and ran its course after 2 or 3 years, the Yankees-Red Sox dynasty exists every season.

I'm already hearing talk up where I am about how NY and Boston will be in a race to get Johan Santana if the Twins don't sign him in the off season, as if it is their God Given Right to have him.  Honestly I would not surprise me in the least if he ended up in one of those 2 spots, and that is really sad when nobody else is even in the conversation.

And the circle is complete.  That is why the Rays have to compete for Santana and/or Jake Peavy.  The Rays NEED to be in the Santana conversation; I believe that he will command a $19-21M annual salary above Zito and the Twins will not be able to match that, regardless of what anyone thinks.  He will have to take a hometown discount, because his value will crush Zito's on the market.  I am not necessarily for a salary cap but a BALANCED schedule can help nullify the payroll effects.  The MLBPA will never accept a cap and I am for better and mechanisms that show the fans that teams like the Rays truly account for their revenue sharing on the major league payroll rather than invest in the minor leagues.  I do believe in a strong minor league system, but all the fans care about are major league wins and losses and not how players are developed.  Its not just for their own benefit, but to hurt and punish Boston and New York.  You know that Big Z, Peavy or Santana are going to end up going east or follow the money.

If anyone can't see it, there is a clear delineation forming within the sport.  Yes, the Milwaukees and the Detroits can rise for a 2-3 year shot but Boston and the New Yorks and the LAs and Chicagos (if they are more smart) will always have an inherent advantage. Even if they fall off the perch, they will always be a factor and will do even more to get back on top with knee jerk reactions (see Roger Clemens).

MLB is on a slippery slope.  A balanced schedule can help the Rays compete and I will bet the Rays can get 6-8 more wins IMMEDIATELY off of a balanced schedule.  The payroll effects would be more neutralized when the pressure is evenly distributed over the entire league.