The Rays Tank: Stadium Financing News Due Today

Shadow of the Stadium has the latest news on the Rays stadium search - you know, should the team not move to Montreal. Two area chambers of commerce have put together a financing plan that is due sometime today. Noah Pransky reports:

expect the presentation to mention easier-to-swallow pills like rental car taxes, Tax-Increment Funding (TIFs), and/or Payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILOTs).

However, these ideas are all still taxes, and the chambers of commerce face an uphill battle when it comes to winning public support for any kind of stadium subsidy right now.

It is all but certain that public financing will be required for a new stadium to be built. Whether this new financing plan will call for a bold multi-county tax will be key. The forthcoming plan does not advocate a particular stadium location.

As Pransky has noted numerous times, the timing for discussion on a new stadium could not be worse for public relations - given Miami's recent firesale one year into their new establishment - but any stadium news will be welcomed nonetheless.

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The Hot Stove continues to disappoint for the Rays this week. Jon Heyman reports that Kevin Towers and the Diamondbacks have all but abandoned plans to trade Justin Upton, with MLBTR summarizing the Rays plight:

there was talk the Rays have also approached the Diamondbacks, but they don't have a young big-league-ready shortstop to deal and couldn't as easily absorb the $38MM remaining on Upton's contract over the next three years.

Dollar amounts aside, it would appear that Tim Beckham and Hak-Ju Lee were either not part of discussions or not enough to convince Arizona they'd receive a better talent than Cliff Pennington as their shortstop of the future. Prior rumors involved a Rays starting pitcher, but even in retrospect that was a high price to pay for the Rays to acquire three years of an expensive and oft-injured corner outfielder.

LINKS

- Reflecting on Miami's mega-trade, TBO.com's Roger Mooney wrote about the Rays stadium search, with the latter half from the perspective of Rays owner Stu Sterberg.

- Bryan Grosnick took a retrospective look at the career of B.J. Upton. The former Ray could earn 5 years / $75M this offseason - according to Braves beat writer David O'Brien.

- Glenn DuPaul: Albert Pujols has forgotten how to walk, but should we be surprised?

- Fangraphs: The Longest Plate Appearance of the Year - 16 pitches from Matt Garza.

- Monday morning read: Beyond the Box Score continued their series on pitching prior to Tommy John surgery last week, adding three articles in regard to pitch velocity and frequency.

- The Mailbag continues this week. Send your Rays-related question to the DRaysBay writing staff at draysbaymailbag@gmail.com.