In five months, the Texas Rangers went from bankruptcy to playing in the World Series.
They went from borrowing $40 million from Major League Baseball to stay afloat to vowing to aggressively pursue their free-agent pitcher, Cliff Lee, against certain competition from the Yankees.
Team ownership changed in August from Tom Hicks, who weighed down the Rangers with debt that exceeded M.L.B.?s limits, to a group led by Nolan Ryan and Chuck Greenberg, who have a cleaner balance sheet because of the bankruptcy and deep-pocketed investors backing them.
Bob Simpson, one of those investors, told The Fort Worth Star-Telegram last week, ?We?re going to go after Cliff Lee ? hard, and we have the financial firepower to do that.?
He added, ?Guys like Josh Hamilton, we will take care of those guys.?
Now the question is whether a team that had the 26th-lowest opening day payroll, at $55.2 million, truly has the wherewithal to match up against bigger spenders like the Yankees, the Boston Red Sox and the Los Angeles Angels, and in particular keep Lee from bolting to the Bronx.
The Rangers? owners have room to add to their payroll, but will they do it with an unwavering plan or will they execute it willy-nilly, as Hicks did when he overpaid a megastar like Alex Rodriguez or over-the-hill players like Juan Gonzalez, Rafael Palmeiro and Chan Ho Park?
?They should be able to approach a $100 million payroll in two or three years and still be fine,? said Marc Ganis, a sports industry consultant. ?But if they mistakenly try to be the Yankees, they will go into a major economic slide.?
The Rangers are certainly better positioned than they were recently under Hicks. Simpson and Ray Davis, the other lead investor, say they are willing to spend to maintain the team?s momentum. Attendance at Rangers Ballpark increased by 15.7 percent to 2.5 million this season, and the team will get an extra revenue kick from postseason games.
Usually, a successful team that goes as far as the World Series can expect increases in revenues from attendance, sponsorships, concessions and suite rentals.
Vince Gennaro, a consultant to several major league teams, said: ?Drawing 2.8 million is very conservative. Three million is probably more likely.? He said that after the Chicago White Sox won the 2005 World Series, their season-ticket base nearly doubled, to 25,000.
The Rangers still owe $45 million to ex-players like Rodriguez (they have already financed the liability, which Hicks did not), and the owners took on debt of about $189 million to buy the team.
One positive indicator of the Rangers? future financial health was their signing in late September of a contract worth $1.6 billion to $2 billion with Fox Sports Southwest to carry the team?s games on cable for 20 years starting in 2015. According to several reports, the Rangers got $80 million to $100 million up front on a deal that will pay about $50 million to start, with payments rising incrementally each year.
But increased revenues from various sources could soon lead the Rangers to start paying into baseball?s revenue sharing pool, rather than receive payments, as they have the last two years.
The Rangers certainly seem poised to absorb the extra salary they will have to pay Lee and Hamilton. Lee earned $9 million this year with Seattle and Texas and will most likely get a deal like the seven-year, $161 million contract that C. C. Sabathia signed with the Yankees in 2008.
Hamilton is not a free agent but is eligible for arbitration for the second straight season. He avoided arbitration in 2010 and signed for one year at $3.25 million. But he will probably double or triple that in 2011, especially if he is voted the American League?s most valuable player.
?Lee?s a big-game pitcher and those pitchers command a high price,? said Jim Duquette, a former Mets general manager who is a commentator for Sirius XM Radio. ?He has every right to compare himself to C. C. but he probably won?t get that money, or to what the Mets paid Santana,? he said, referring to pitcher Johan Santana.
He said the Rangers could try to sign Hamilton to a long-term deal that would take him past his first chance to be a free agent in 2013.
Beyond Lee, the Rangers do not have a lot of free agents due huge contracts, and they could reduce their payroll if they buy out the mutual option on Vladimir Guerrero, who would get $9 million next year. Guerrero had a terrific regular season but faltered in the World Series.
Third baseman Michael Young, their highest-paid player at $13.2 million, is signed through 2013; second baseman Ian Kinsler has a contract through 2012; outfielder Nelson Cruz is eligible for arbitration, but younger players who emerged this season, like relief pitcher Neftali Feliz and shortstop Elvis Andrus, are not.
The Rangers? off-season may well be defined by whether they can keep Lee.
?There?s pressure on them,? Duquette said. ?They gave up a lot of talent, like Justin Smoak, to get him, so signing him would justify giving up that talent.?
But the Yankees lurk with a reputation burnished by more than a decade of signing the free agents they want. In 2008, they executed the sort of triple play unimaginable to other teams: they signed Sabathia, Mark Teixeira and A. J. Burnett to more than $420 million in long-term contracts.
But if they signed Lee, who is 32, to a five-year contract at $20 million or more per season, Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman would be adding another aging, highly paid player. In 2013, for instance, Sabathia (who last week had arthroscopic surgery on his right knee) will turn 33; Derek Jeter will be 39; Mariano Rivera will be 43 and Rodriguez 38. Jeter and Rivera are heading into salary talks.
YANKEES HAVE THEIR SAY A day after Chuck Greenberg, the chief executive of the Texas Rangers, called Yankees fans ?violent? and ?apathetic? during the American League Championship Series, the Yankees? managing general partner, Hal Steinbrenner, called the remarks ?inappropriate? and ?ridiculous.?
Greenberg apologized within hours after intervention from baseball officials. But that did not keep Steinbrenner from being upset.
?Bottom line, Chuck realized they were ridiculous comments and inappropriate and reached out to us within an hour of the news breaking and apologized in a sincere way,? Steinbrenner said Tuesday in an interview with ESPN Radio.
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