Now that Rays are closing in on new stadium, it's time to pay up for roster

The Tampa Bay Rays cleared a major, long-awaited hurdle on Thursday when the St. Petersburg City Council approved a deal to build a $1.2 billion dollar stadium to keep the team in the city.

The only vote that remains is the Pinellas County Commission, which is expected to vote on the deal on July 30. It is also expected that the county will approve the deal, paving the way for construction to start soon after.

The Rays have been in a decades-long battle to find funding and agreements for a new stadium to replace the archaic Tropicana Field.

Now that Tampa Bay has finally closed in on a solution, which includes a significant public money investment, the time has come for the Rays to make a bigger investment into their roster.

As part of the new stadium deal, the city of St. Petersburg is slated to invest more than $417 million into the project, including $287.5 million for the stadium and an additional $130 million on infrastructure into the area around the stadium.

Pinellas County is expected to invest $312.5 million in tourism revenue while the Rays are on the hook for the remainder of the funds, including half of the stadium cost as well as any additions or overruns.

Using public money on professional sports stadiums is always a controversial decision, and even more so when the teams on the receiving end do not return the favor by investing in a winning product on the field.

The Rays have been one of the lowest-spending teams in baseball over the years and have never consistently invested top dollar into building a contending team.

While the Rays have been a competitive team over the past decade, making the playoffs in five consecutive seasons including a World Series appearance in 2020, they have relied so on a shoestring budget, sharp player development and outsmarting everybody else. There is a lot to be said for their success and the talents of their baseball operations department to consistently churn out competitive teams in that manner.

That approach, however, has a ceiling and limitations. No matter how smart your baseball people are, you still need star players to win — and it is imperative to keep the players you do develop through your system. The Rays' inability to acquire, and keep, star players is one of the biggest reasons why they have consistently lost out to larger market, larger payroll teams in the playoffs. They simply do not have the impact players other teams have.

The Rays' 2024 payroll checks in at around $94 million, the third-lowest mark in the league ahead of only the Pirates and Oakland A's. They are also one of just three teams that do not have a payroll of at least $100 million.

When the new stadium is officially approved and built, the Rays can not continue to find themselves keeping that sort of company in payroll. They have to spend more.