Double Talk From Stu Sternberg
August 15th, 2016
The must-read interview of Stu Sternberg in the Tampa Bay Times made Joe run head first at full speed into a blunt object.
In one breath, Sternberg told Mark Topkin that he was “shocked” by the Rays’ collapse this season, but there also was the following:
Sternberg’s assessment of Cash’s work so far?
“Tremendous.”
And the chances of Cash’s job being imperiled?
“Zero.”
Sternberg compared these complaints to what they heard after Joe Maddon lost 101 and 96 games, respectively, in his first two seasons on the job — then went on to average 92 wins for six seasons and lead the Rays to four playoff appearances.
How the hell does that all jibe?
Sternberg had plenty more to say, including that the Rays’ rock-bottom payroll won’t be changing.
What gets Joe every time is how Sternberg will take full blame or credit for the product on the field, but the guy consistently claims the Rays’ struggling ticket sales and poor corporate support is more about the Tampa Bay market and the stadium than his staff’s inability to sell. Keep that attitude and this team will never fully thrive.
August 15th, 2016 at 11:49 am
What a load of malarky from Stu! There is ****ing way that you can grade out Cash’s performance as skipper as anything better than mediocre if you want to be kind! This is the guy who took a team that was 30-31 and propelled it to 40-60 and now 47-69 for a booming 17-38 clip which if projected out for a 162 games translates to a club that would ge 54-108 or so. While cash has been handicapped by injuries throughout the season he has also made numerous mental gaffes that have cost the rays at least 10 games. The use of Steve Geltz, pulling Andriese out of games of only to watch another Rays reliever blow a late lead on several occasions, continuing to put Timmy Beckham in the lineup, the inability to find a catcher that can bat 0.200 and occasionally cut down a runner at 2nd, etc, etc…. This is a lost season and I suspect that Cash will keep his job if he avoids 100 losses but Stu insults the Tampa Rays fan base by telling us that Cash is doing anything better than a below average job. Hey Stu: want to average 20K per game in attendance? Well the team has to be above 0.500 and i do not see that happening with Mr Cash; he has a knack of losing games ala Lovie Smith over at RJS and we saw what the Bucs did with him!
August 15th, 2016 at 2:58 pm
Couldn’t agree more Dave. His continued carping about the Tampa Bay market with ticket sales. He’s the one who bought the team with several restrictions on it. (Mainly a TV contract). I do have to give him credit as he made a very competitive team with a 10 cent budget, being the one of the first to use “money ball” sybermetics. Okay… That being said, the rest of the league figured that out and caught up on having the baseball nerds run the show. His TV money finally comes in next year. Will he still have the lowest payroll in all of baseball ? Currently at $ 45,000,000 (with 7 million of that going to James Loney of the Mets). As far as the comparisons with Joe Madden and Cash, Madden was a long time managerial bench coach for the Angels Organization. Cash was a backup pitching Coach for Cleveland. Quite a big gap in experience. That, along with the rest of the league catching up to the numbers game, Stu will have to start writing bigger checks. It’s either that or get out of the game for it’s become too big for Mr. Sternberg
August 16th, 2016 at 4:08 am
Joe M was much more experienced than Cash when he was hired by the rays. Cash IMHO is simply a hire that was cheap and brought in someopne who as allegedly “not so off the wall like Joe”. However Cash has proven to be very shortsighted and prone to numerous mental mistakes, of course the front office is partially to blame as Cash does not have much to work with talent wise. Still the rays are 8-18 in one run games with only Colorado having a record close to Rays inept mark. In comparison the blasted Yankmes are 20-9 in one run games and basically that adds up to the difference in the standing between NY and our Rays. One year Joe M could not win an extra inning game, I think it was his 77-85 exit job but I think that this stat reflects even more negatively on our manager, Cash; he makes just enough mistakes to lose very winnable games (again, this reminds of Lovie Smith oh so much!) and you can bet that several of those one run losses were leads that his bullpen failed to protect in the late innings as well as games where they had the winning run in scoring position but came up with nada at the plate! It has been a very frustrating season to say the least. Hopefully they can play respectable down the stretch and play spoiler but somehow I think that they will get pasted by the big boys in the AL east during their stretch run so they better pile up the wins against teams like the Pads if they want to avoid 100 losses!
August 16th, 2016 at 3:20 pm
I heard somewhere that the Rays ownership are expected to rake in a big profit this season. Reminds me of the Pirates sucking all those years until recently while the owners earned big cash on the decades of losing. Win or lose, big money. Where is the incentive to produce a winner?
August 16th, 2016 at 3:28 pm
The coming TV contract is huge. I’ve read that the Tampa Bay baseball TV market is in the top half of all of major league baseball. There is a fan base here and growing every year. Remember, the Devil Rays (I still like that name) where just started a couple a decades ago. That’s only one generation. The Cubs have had 6 generations rooting for them.
August 17th, 2016 at 1:46 am
According to Nielsen the Tampa Bay Tv market is in the top 15 making it even larger than Miami/Fort Lauderdale and only behind the ATL in the South. That translates to huge revenue especially if the Rays can add the fact that the Sunshine network also reaches the whole state so you can count in viewers from in the top 20 Orlando and Miami markets as well as top 60 markets in Jacksonville, Pensacola/Mobile and Fort Myers….
http://www.nielsen.com/content/dam/corporate/us/en/docs/solutions/measurement/television/2013-2014-DMA-Ranks.pdf
While Stu is not gonna get the coin that the Yankmes get via the YES network he sure as heck has got a pretty sweet deal here in Tampa which is good incentive to stay put and not try to move to Montreal, Charlotte, San Antonio, etc…. Too bad he does not want to put more money into the payroll or payroll and simply continues to bellyache about running neck and neck with the Indians for lowest attendance at about 17K a pop when his team is on its way to 95+ losses due to a thin roster decimated by injuries with no talent depth, a poor scouting department and a front office that trades away current talent for prospects who are years away from contributing at the mLB level if they ever do!
August 17th, 2016 at 2:17 pm
One positive – They fired their head scout for talent last year. On earlier blogs this summer, we surmised how awful our drafts were since 2010, with the last really good one being Longoria in 2006. It was amazing to see all the draft busts; especially the 1st rounders. You gotta hit on them! A monkee throwing darts at pictures of high school kids could have done better !