The Rays are getting a nice little holiday bonus. According to The St. Petersburg Times:
The stunning run to the World Series benefited the entire Rays organization. For the players, coaches, manager Joe Maddon and some staff members, that reward included a $223,390.05 bonus.
The amount of bonus money for each team (the eight in the playoffs plus four others) is determined by the gate receipts from the postseason and split up based on a vote of the players that was held the final week of the season.
The gate receipts were $12.3 million, which was split into 43 shares, 10.645 partial shares, and 27 cash awards, which it says are mostly given to other staff members(I'm thinking bat boy, maybe grounds crew, etc).
Since the Rays have such a small payroll a lot of players don't have big contracts.
For a player making at or near the major-league minimum salary, such as Andy Sonnanstine ($395,800) and J.P. Howell ($397,400) and a dozen others, the postseason money, though taxed, is a significant bonus.
Imagine all the Ray Romano memorabilia Sonnanstine could buy with an extra $200k. Man.