Stu Sternberg maintained low payrolls as the owner of the Tampa Bay Rays. He frustrated fans, government officials and even Major League Baseball with his failure to get a new ballpark built. But past and present Rays employees always swore by him, praising him for his integrity, passion and treatment of others.
In his final act with the Rays, Sternberg outdid himself.
After completing the $1.7 billion sale of the club to an ownership group led by developer Patrick Zalupski, Sternberg awarded cash bonuses to every full-time member of the organization, more than 500 employees in all.
The bonuses were tenure-based, according to sources briefed on how the money was distributed. Some longstanding employees, including scouts and minor-league coaches who spent more than a decade with the club, received a full year’s salary.
The total payout by Sternberg was in the tens of millions, sources said. The lowest bonuses were believed to be in the $25,000 to $50,000 range.
Sternberg, 66, owned the Rays for 20 years.
“We had a marvelous run for the baseball ages, and it’s all due to the people who worked together to make it happen,” Sternberg said.
MLB unanimously approved Sternberg’s sale of the Rays to the Zalupski group on Sept. 22. The sale was finalized eight days later.
Sternberg and his partners, who initially purchased the team for $200 million in 2004, remain minority owners with a roughly 10 percent share of the team. The expectation is that they will fully divest their investment in the coming years.
Under Sternberg, the Rays played in two World Series, losing in 2008 and 2020, and made nine trips to the postseason, including five straight from 2019 to 2023. Their payrolls always ranked in the bottom 10 and often in the bottom five, but they were one of the game’s most innovative franchises.
Four current heads of baseball operations around the league came from the Rays, not including their own top executive, Erik Neander, who has been with the team for 19 seasons and in his current position for the past nine years.
The Milwaukee Brewers’ Matt Arnold, Miami Marlins’ Peter Bendix, St. Louis Cardinals’ Chaim Bloom and Los Angeles Dodgers’ Andrew Friedman all had roots with Tampa Bay, as did former Houston Astros general manager James Click, currently in the Toronto Blue Jays’ front office.
The Rays were also the team that gave Joe Maddon his first chance to manage in the majors. Kevin Cash took over after Maddon left for the Chicago Cubs in October 2014, and Cash is now the longest-tenured manager in the majors.