Why Did The Rays Trade Everyone?

I don’t know about you all, but the moves the Tampa Bay Rays were making during the trade deadline just didn’t sit right with me. I understand being behind nine games may be frustrating, but fire-selling half of the team just seemed a bit premature. I would even be skeptical enough to say that the moves seemed spiteful. The biggest question that lingers. Why did the Rays trade everyone? Here are some possible reasons.

You read correctly! The real reason the Rays traded everyone away is because of a deal gone bad. According to the New York Post, Tampa Bay Rays owner, Stuart Sternberg, had an all-out fire-sale with arguably our best players all because plans to sell the team failed.

A source who was part of the buying group that was supposed to buy the team told the New York Post that the Tampa Group had talks and intentions to buy the team. However, the lead investor who was going to inherit 35% of the team decided to back out of the deal. The group even attempted to make plans for another investor said to be worth $10 billion to step in, but those fell through too.

As you can imagine, Major League Baseball teams are hard to sell. I'm not sure if you do, but I don't know anyone with an extra $1.6 billion just lying around. As a matter of fact, only one MLB team has been sold in the last four years. But I would imagine someone would want to add value to their team by trying to win, instead of just trading everyone away. Don't you?

It's hard to make money when people don't attend your games. Unfortunately, The Rays have the 27th-ranked attendance in the league. That's only ranked above the Kansas City Royals, Miami Marlins, and Oakland Athletics. So you have to try and save money somewhere. If you think about it that way, it wouldn't be a horrible idea if the Rays dealt away close to $60 million in salary.

So let's all have a moment to appreciate our traded Rays. Thank you Arozarena, Civale, Rosario, Paredes, Efflin, Adam, and Maton. You will be missed.

Source: NY Post