I was watching the World Series last night, and I kept looking around Tropicana Field thinking the same thing: this is where the championship is being decided?
The roof. The turf. The weird, joyless atmosphere of a building that looks like somebody designed a shopping mall around a baseball diamond. I don't care how many meaningful games Tampa Bay plays there. The place still looks like a punishment for people who love baseball.
But you know what's worse? The Rays are in that building playing World Series baseball, and the Red Sox are watching from home.
That's the part that should embarrass the people running Boston's franchise.
A game the Red Sox couldn't get near
Tuesday's Game 4 was terrific baseball, even if the setting did its best to argue otherwise. Milwaukee had a 3–0 series lead and went ahead 3–2 in the 12th when rookie Cooper Pratt homered. Tampa Bay was one inning from being swept.
Then the Rays did what good clubs do: they kept playing. A throwing error by Milwaukee's Joey Ortiz opened the door. Jonny DeLuca delivered the tying hit. Chandler Simpson singled to load the bases. Ben Williamson came off the bench and chopped a game-winning single into right. 4–3 Rays in 12 innings. The series goes to Game 5 tonight at the Trop, with the Brewers still ahead 3–1.
Tampa Bay's bullpen covered eight innings and allowed one run. That's how a team stays alive in an elimination game. One mistake by the other side, and an entire night of work becomes the margin between going home and going on.
I don't particularly want to cheer for either of these franchises. But I'm not going to call them bad baseball organizations just because I don't like their uniforms, buildings or payrolls. The Rays won 98 games. Milwaukee won 103. These aren't flukes that accidentally stumbled into October. They're two organizations that know how to find useful players and make a roster work.
Here's the money argument, and it's not the one you think
Using the same published postseason-payroll accounting, Boston carried roughly $208 million in player payroll. Milwaukee was around $146 million. Tampa Bay was around $96 million. In other words, the Red Sox spent about 2.2 times what the Rays did, and about 1.4 times what the Brewers did.
What did Boston buy? 87 wins, a third-place AL East finish and a two-game Wild Card sweep by the Yankees. Tampa Bay bought 98 wins and an American League pennant. Milwaukee bought 103 and a National League pennant. The gap isn't only financial; it's organizational.
To be fair, the Red Sox were not completely hopeless. Their plus-78 run differential suggested a club closer to 90 wins than its actual 87, and the team dug out of a miserable 32–46 start with a remarkable midsummer surge. Injuries mattered. There were stretches when the pitching looked capable of carrying them a long way. Those things deserve to be part of an honest assessment.
They don't erase what happened in the Bronx. Boston scored two runs across its final two games while the Yankees scored 18. This is now five straight seasons without a postseason game at Fenway Park. Every October seems to arrive with another explanation of what went wrong and why next year's plan should be better.
The Rays and Brewers aren't merely cheap. They're good at the parts of roster construction that don't fit in a press release. MLB's midseason farm-system evaluations had Tampa Bay second and Milwaukee third. Both have built enough depth to keep finding contributors while operating with tighter financial limits. Boston has money and tradition on top of everything those clubs are trying to build. Why is getting the entire product right so difficult?
There is no magic payroll formula that guarantees a pennant. Spending more and winning less in one season doesn't automatically prove incompetence. But when your expensive team gets dispatched in two games, and two of the sport's smaller-payroll clubs take the World Series to at least five, ownership and the front office owe fans more than a lecture about long-term flexibility.
The Red Sox should aspire to be the smartest organization and one willing to use its financial advantage. That's the job. This is Boston. Four World Series titles since 2004 didn't lower the standard; they established it.
And as much as I dislike watching October baseball at Tropicana Field, I'd trade our comfortable view of it from the couch for one meaningful postseason night at Fenway without hesitation.
The Rays have earned the right to be there. The Brewers have, too.
Now somebody in Boston should explain why the Red Sox haven't.