2011 Rays, To Mediocrity and Beyond?

Since the Rays season has ended their has been a lot of chit-chat about what the future for their organization holds.  In my final division series roundup I was fairly optimistic about their future (on the basis of their starting pitching) and concluded: "how [the Rays] are able to rebuild their lineup while shedding payroll will determine how competitive they will be in 2011 and beyond".   Although I said 2011 and beyond, I admittedly was mostly focusing on 2011 where I still feel it's reasonable that they patch together a competitive team.  However, the 'beyond' part is the real worry with the Rays and Larry at It's About the Money does a great job diving into that issue with special attention paid to the financial aspects:

The point I’ve tried to make about the Rays still stands.  The core of their team, once young and cheap, grows older and more expensive.  We’ve seen this in detail as the Rays enter 2011, and it’s only going to get worse later on.  In 2012, Longoria’s salary doubles.  In 2013, David Price is a free agent.

Meanwhile, the Rays no longer pick near the top of the draft, the way they did when they finished consistently in last place.  It’s not going to be easy to replace a David Price (first overall pick, 2007 draft) or Evan Longoria (3rd overall pick, 2006 draft) or Jeff Neimann (4th overall pick 2004) or B.J. Upton (2nd overall pick 2002) (while we’re at it, let’s mention Delmon Young, 1st overall pick 2003, traded for Bartlett and Garza).  Not when you’re picking next to last in the 2011 draft. 

While the Rays may struggle to win the division
 continuously, at least this era is over.
(Don Zimmer)

It's common knowledge that the Rays, as of now, stand to lose Carl Crawford, Carlos Pena and Rafael Soriano.  They could also lose other (pretty) valuable relievers like Joaquin Benoit,  Grant Balfour, and LOOGY Randy Choate to Free Agency.  Further, since they intend to shed "$22 million" of payroll, pitchers like James Shields and/or Matt Garza as well as center fielder BJ Upton have been rumored to potentially be placed on the trading block.  With that said, the Rays still have some of the pieces to patch that together: Jeremy Hellickson, Jake McGee, Desmond Jennings, 1b are easier to replace, and they have a pretty good knack at finding good value (see Benoit, Joaquin; Zobrist, Ben; Soriano, Rafael etc.).


However, what I failed to address and what Larry@IIATM does, is what about 2012, '13, '14...?  It's easy to forget, since they are currently on the team, that Longoria, Upton, Price, Garza, etc. all get more expensive and for the Rays, more expendable.  The Rays are a good example of what a smart team can be, but it's very hard to have continued success with such a small payroll, unless you are the Twins, but even they have a large payroll compared to the Rays.  It'll be hard, very hard, for the Rays to consistently have peaks like this (96 wins, AL East division champs) but like I said, the Rays are a very intelligent, well run organization so they're not likely to have many valleys either.  Their future may lie somewhere in the middle, which sadly could be mediocrity, but I still got hope.   Portland Rays 2015 World Champions!