The Rays’ offseason has so far been dominated by the questions swirling around Tropicana Field after it was badly damaged by Hurricane Milton earlier this month. While the damage has not yet been fully assessed, it seems certain that the club won’t be able to start the season in their home ballpark in 2025 and there remains the possibility that local officials decide not to repair the field at all with a replacement for the Trop planned to be constructed in time for Opening Day 2028.
The unusual situation leaves plenty of questions about the Rays’ short- and mid-term future, even as the club knows its long-term home for 2028 and beyond remains in St. Pete. Potential temporary homes such as Durham, North Carolina and Montreal have already been shot down, and while MLB commissioner Rob Manfred has expressed a preference for the Rays to remain in their current market, local officials in St. Petersburg have cautioned that they’ll be “financially responsible” as they attempt to find an avenue to keep the Rays in the area for the 2025-28 seasons.
Manfred made additional comments about the Rays’ situation to The Athletic’s Evan Drellich recently that for the first time helped to crystalize a timeline for a plan to be put in place. While previous discussions of the club’s future have simply noted that it would likely take several weeks for damage to the Trop to even be fully assessed, Manfred told Drellich that a plan needs to be in place before the end of the year.
“I think by Christmas they gotta have a pretty good plan in place,” Manfred said, as relayed by Drellich. “and there’s a lot to that.”
While two months isn’t necessarily a long time for the club to map out a new plan for where it will play its games in 2025, even that relatively short time frame could have an impact on the Rays’ offseason as the club attempts to court prospective free agents who won’t even know where they’d be playing and living during the season if they were to sign with Tampa. Of course, the Rays have always been more prolific on the trade market than in free agency, and that once again figures to be the case this winter as they explore ways to upgrade their lineup and rumors percolate that they could deal from their rotation this winter. In the event that the lack of a clear home ballpark impacts the club’s recruitment in free agency, it’s possible they’ll need to focus even more on the trade market than usual this offseason.
Turning back to the stadium questions at hand, Manfred suggested the league would be able to “make it work” in a minor league park by adjusting not only the minor league team’s schedule but also potentially even the Rays’ schedule as necessary. Using a minor league park or Spring Training complex could be a way for the club to remain in their current market even if city decides against repairing the Trop. Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times notes that the Phillies’ and Yankees’ respective spring training complexes in Clearwater and Tampa seem to be the most likely local options for the Rays to utilize as a temporary home.
Of course, using a minor league facility runs the risk of a clash with the MLBPA over any negative impacts the move might have on players. MLBPA head Tony Clark recently discussed the union’s role in the process, noting that they’re limited in terms of their ability to impact the team’s choice of facility but can ensure that the ballpark’s amenities are up to major league standards and ensure the players are not put into “harm’s way” by the move. One example of how the MLBPA’s role works can be found in the similar situation playing out on the west coast due to the Athletics’ temporary relocation to Sacramento, where the club initially planned to utilize artificial turf but will now continue using grass on the field in 2025 following intervention by the union due to concerns that artificial turf would retain too much heat.
Knock the stadium down
Find a new home for the Rays (fish) first
Then rebuild
Why in the world as to why they would put 3 dollars into then old building is beyond me…the stadium sucks and now it is in disrepair
You’re too late Einstein. Groundbreaking is set for January 2025.
Einstein?
Well thank you Copernicus
I went there in January for stupid wrestling (my friend really wanted to go for his Bday) and it really is a complete dump.
The Royal Rumble. Your friend can call me next time if he wants to go with someone who would actually enjoy it.
Informed – Royal Rumble?
Sounds like what you hear when Salvador Perez is hungry.
@Fever
5/10 for effort.
Wrestling is serious, dammit.
Informed – I was into it during the golden era … Superfly, Undertaker, Hulk, Macho Man, Stone Cold, The Rock, Chyna, The Animal. I even worked out in the same gym as Bob Backlund.
@Fever
K. You know the name, prestige and history of the Rumble then. You can see where your previous reply would suggest otherwise.
Informed – All I remembered was Wrestlemania, I think I just blocked out all the other event names. LOL!
Do they also still have steel cage matches? Those were kinda cool.
Is the stadium not covered by insurance?
Manfred needs to stay out of it and let the Rays do what’s right for the Rays.
I do tend to agree. If Manfred ain’t paying for the stadium he shouldn’t be dictating the outcome. MLB has a longtime antitrust exemption and can(unfortunately)do whatever they want.
LOL They have to put any plan before Manfred and the MLBPA. He needs to stay involved and not let them waste time on plans that will not be apporoved.
Cleaver – Yep, players won’t be thrilled about playing in a Florida open air minor league park during the summer.
Bet they won’t be thrilled if 40 of their union members are unable to play this summer. Playing in a Florida open air minor league park beats not playing and not getting paid.
Stymee – Seriously? You think the only options are play all season in Florida open air minor league parks or don’t play half the schedule? Come on now, you’re better than that.
You do know there are other options between playing in the Florida sun and shutting the Rays down for 3 years, right?
Whoops! Just saw FPG’s post. I guess it was a fairly obvious response.
They play in an open-air stadium in Atlanta, which has hotter temps than Tampa in the summer.
Charles – We are talking about tropical weather in the Tampa area … high humidity, torrential downpours, tropical storms, hurricanes, rain almost every day, and it’s the lightning capital of the country. All this goes on from June thru October. Absolutely no comparison to the few months of heat in Atlanta.
No way a Hurricane ever hits close to the stadium.
Lol even if that was a realistic option, i have a hard time believing that the rays would put the league’s involvement even in their top ten of most pressing issues rn.
It’s literally his job, genius.♂️
Uh yeah. That’s kind of what I’m getting at.
“I think by Christmas they gotta have a pretty good plan in place”
Now you know how the A’s stadium situation spiraled out of control so badly and why they still don’t technically have a home
No one is going to watch them play no matter what stadium they choose.
Not in St. Pete. If they moved to Tampa they would draw crowds.
Nah wherever they go in Florida they will have trouble selling tickets (marlins are in the heart of Miami but still have 10k people go there per game)
However if they go out of state any city without an mlb team would welcome them
The problem in St Pete is getting there. My house in Tampa is 6-7 miles as the crow flies and an hour plus as the car drives. Longer if there is a wreck on either of the bridges.
For working families on weekdays it is practically impossible to get off work, get home, pack up the family, drive an hour plus and get to the park by 7:05.
Put a ballpark in Tampa and most of the population can get to a game.
The Marlins put their new park ina ghetto. It’s not close to people that can afford to go to games. It’s bad.
They would… Until they realize Stu is a terrible owner who will never upgrade the team no matter how many fans show up. More fans means more money for his pockets. Maybe they could splurge on an 8-10 mil AAV guy! But you also have to consider the TV deal collapse happening everywhere and whether they would getas much money as they would from the Rays market. Because despite what people think the Rays are lucrative… Well, were lucrative before Diamond Sports effed up
If people could go to the orange bowl on the same exact site then why can’t people go to a marlins game
80 games versus 8 games?
Marlins fans are fair weather fans.
To be fair, if I was a marlins fan I would be too with the horrendous ownership and post ws firesales they’ve had to deal with over the years. Hard to invest yourself in the team if ownership isn’t showing they’re committed to building something worth supporting over the long haul.
Darren – Not true. Lots of fans follow visiting teams in Tampa and would show up in other cities.
Rays will be hosting the Yankees, Red Sox, Phillies. Braves and Dodgers next season.
They can’t replace a torn piece of fabric?
Yes they can. By far the easiest course of action rather than facilitating a team playing elsewhere for 2+ years….All the comments are just asinine otherwise imo smh
Braves – Fiberglass would cost several million to replace with $39M being a common number thrown around. Plus the cost of repairing all the likely damage from the hurricane and rain still coming in.
It would be cool if the trop was open air for a few years
But they don’t have a drainage system so that isn’t a possibility
They could drill holes in the concrete floor, remove the turf and plant grass.
Not that simple. We’re not talking about taping cardboard over a busted car window to get by for a little bit here. The roof is made of fairly expensive material, and a lot of it, and needs a lot of structural support, and engineering to be viable and safely attached to the structure.
Similarly, water that drains from the playing surface needs somewhere to go, and to be connected and in compliance with local sewer/wastewater systems. In a structure that was not designed or built with this functionality in mind, retrofitting for drainage would be a big, complex and expensive undertaking in time and money.
Pete – Exactly! And unlike other outdoor stadiums, nothing is tilted to allow for proper drainage flow. You would need hundreds of thousands of “holes” to prevent water from pooling in the seating areas, concourses, dugouts, etc.
Yep. Not to mention a whole subsurface system and plumbing/sewage infrastructure to manage the drainage and pump it out. At that point they literally might as well tear it down and rebuild it from the ground up, and for what? To enable open air play in an area where the climate is super unsuitable for it?
Lol…suddenly everyone thinks structural engineering is a trivial and simple thing. I’m not anywhere close to being an expert here but I have enough common sense and general experience of the world to see how difficult, costly and complicated this situation actually is.
Pete – Yep, and not to mention all the electronics (scoreboards etc) that would need to be replaced since none of the current electronics is weatherproof.
I guess it’s good that commenters here are trying to think of options, but they really need to think a bit more. My opinion is still play through May in Dunedin, Orlando or some other minor league Florida facility and then share the Marlins stadium as much as possible even if it means having two games a day when they both have home games scheduled.
And if the players live in lets say Naples or Ft Myers, it would be only a 2-hour drive to Miami.
So if a pipe burst somewhere in the building, causing a massive overage onto the seats or stand, there’s no drainage?
Apples to oranges. There’s a world of difference between designing a structure with a roof and how you would handle a localized issue of a burst pipe versus designing a large open air baseball stadium in a climate where it rains heavily and often much of the year with the expectation that drainage will be regularly needed on a larger scale.
For a stadium they plan to tear down in 2 years? Don’t think our cheap owners would be happy about that, especially if the city doesn’t bail them out.
Bay – Why would the Rays care? Any Trop repairs would be covered by insurance or the local gov.
The Rays care about one thing, revenue. And playing all year in a minor league park would decrease revenue.
Fever – you missed the last part of my comment stating IF the city leaves them dry. St Pete is willing to spend a lot for the Rays but if insurance doesn’t cover it for whatever reason, the Rays would be on the hook. Neither bothered to replace it within the lifespan of the product so it’s possible insurance companies will reject their circumstances to get compensated.
Rays – That’s not my understanding, the local gov is the landlord and they would be financially responsible for anything that isn’t covered by insurance. Otherwise what’s to stop them from intentionally being under-insured with the notion they wouldn’t have to pay anything if a significant loss occurs?
I think you may be confusing the current lease with the lease on the new unbuilt stadium, because in the new stadium the Rays WOULD be responsible for insurance and repairs.
Insurance companies cannot legally deny coverage for the roof’s age, they issued the policy and collected the premium. If they don’t want to cover an old roof past it’s useful life, they need to require repairs/replacement PRIOR to issuing the policy.
That’s why many Florida insurers are requiring new roofs as a contingency for covering residential properties.
The late Bud Selig would have fixed this by now
He’s still alive. I don’t get the joke.
Oh. My bad. I was thinking of Rick Flair’s son. Glad Bud is still with us.
I still don’t get the joke. But great trolling.
Wasn’t a joke nor whatever trolling is. I get confused sometimes. It’s a medical issue. Kind of you to jest at someone’s disability though. Jerk
Now that was a good joke. Rec’d.
@ informed
It reminds me of the always sunny episode “the gang beats Boggs” where Charlie kept referring to wade boggs being dead but everyone telling him he’s very much alive
@brodie-bruce
I watched Cheers as a kid and was too young to have seen Boggs play, so my main memory of him is his guest appearance on Cheers.
The gang think he’s a fake and a prank being played on them by Gary’s Olde Towne Tavern, the rival bar, so they pants him and run him out of the place.
/trivia time
Same and didn’t know Boggs was in that episode
Informed – That’s a classic episode, even though a Boston bar not recognizing a current Boston superstar was far fetched.
Do you remember the Kevin McHale episode?
@Fever
I don’t know basketball well enough to recognize his name. But yes, the one where they get McHale obsessed with determining the number of bolts in the floor of the Boston Gardens. Classic.
@Fever
The Cheers gang recognized Boggs. The joke was just they were so convinced Gary from Olde Towne Tavern was putting one over on them again, that they talked themselves into thinking he must have been a lookalike.
Gary had actually sent the real Wade Boggs over to give them all autographs, no tricks this time. (Assuming he didn’t anticipate the Cheers gang would fool themselves.)
In the end, the Cheers bunch claimed victory because they had something Gary didn’t: Wade Boggs’ pants.
Informed – Thanks, it’s been a long long time since I’ve seen the episode and you motivated me to watch it again.
youtu.be/AnCKM7cmUCY?si=W7qVPF_u3zgKry_0
@Fever I am legit glad for that.
Did you confuse selig with David stearns?
Are you sure? Selig would have given the Yankees spring training complex to the rays if the Yankees lose the World Series combined with records on Yankees v rays, 2023-2024
So, Oakland Coliseum is presently unoccupied…
Y es but on West Coaet.
And the Oakland Coliseum will remain unoccupied until it’s torn down.
There’s no way they relocate a Florida team to California, into a stadium/situation in Oakland where their A’s narrative is dependent on it being unfit for baseball.
It would destroy baseball schedules. Imagine that Yankees road trip of NY-Oakland-Cleveland with no scheduled days off) or, for the Orioles, Baltimore-Oakland-New York in the middle of a 16 game stretch with no off days.
There are scheduled events in Oakland – there’s a soccer team, plus discussion of a cricket tournament.
It’s unfair for Rays fans to stage games on the West Coast, at PST/PDT.
You mean Oakland Coliseum, now home to the USL-League Oakland Roots and USL-Super League Oakland Soul, who will play there while their own field is being prepped elsewhere onsite, and the San Francisco Unicorns major league Cricket team.
(Not a joke, and there are a lot of tech workers in the East Bay who came from cricket-playing countries.)
ktvu.com/news/cricket-matches-headed-oakland-colis…
The insurance won’t cover close to the cost of repairing that roof. In New Orleans it cost $250 million. Half of that cost in St Pete would take it far beyond anything that could be recouped.
It will cost $6 million to bring the lighting at the Yankees minor league facility up to MLB standards plus whatever changes need to be made to the field and support facilities like TV camera stains, locker rooms, batting cages, and gyms. Maybe some temporary seating in the outfield instead of the grass berm.
Spending $20 million there seems like a better investment.
They may not need to do too much as Steinbrenner Field is pretty state of the art. The issue is the Yankees use Tampa as their HQ south year round as Hal Steinbrenner lives in Tampa so quite a bit of the operations of the MLB club occurs out of there.
I’m sure the front office of Tampa Bay would not need to use Halls offices.
Life – This is from a recent article: “Modeling predicted a maximum loss of $33 million-$39 million based on a once-in-250-years storm event.”
Insurance would likely cover up to $47M.
FP, that is what the insurance modeling was when the policy was taken out in 1995, not what replacement costs would be. The two insurance policies total would not cover $47 million because one has to cover damages to city properties all over the city and they are extensive.
We know what the Superdome cost to repair and that does not include inflation.
I am going to go out on a limb and say the Rays will never again play in the Trop.
Life – If the Trop was that underinsured (not sure why annual renewals wouldn’t reflect current replacement cost?) why should the tenant (Rays) have to suffer because of it? That makes zero sense. It’s gross negligence by the local gov, ESPECIALLY knowing how old and past it’s useful life the roof was.
Sure I can understand not wanting to spend a ton of money repairing a building that will be demolished in 3 years. But there should still be a sizable insurance check issued and most if not all of it should go to the Rays as compensation for lost revenue and the inconvenience of being homeless for 3 years.
Do the Rays need to play in 2025?
Yes
Why can’t they use a minor league stadium like another unnamed team is doing? There’s like 50 of them in Florida.
Maybe they can share the Marlins stadium for a small fee.
The Yankees could lease their Spring Training facility to the Rays, the name eludes me right now. Pretty sure that stadium is a whole lot better than the Trop ever was too…
Clip – Sacramento weather isn’t tropical, and they don’t have a hurricane season 5 months a year to worry about.
I believe the Marlins stadium is one of the better options for June-September, which would reduce the overlapping games from 49 down to 33 or so.
Playing in Dunedin, Sarasota, Clearwater, Port Charlotte or Orlando seems doable for March-May.
If they can’t find a minor league park to suit them, only needs 17,000 seats max, then play at the Trop. Make it playable as an outdoor stadium, it’s really getting ridiculous the amount of money cities put into stadiums and facilities. If they get rained out, so be it. They only average 17,000 fans in a good year, so add some drainage and play in the open air. It’s baseball for gods sake, it’s not the end of the world if they have to improvise a little.
— Make it playable as an outdoor stadium–
That’s a big issue. While there is an A Ball league in Florida (FSL) it involves many DH’s, due to near nightly thunderstorms from July thru September which often come out of nowhere, last 30m, then magically disappear for those who have not been to Florida during that time of summer. i can’t imaging MLB allowing Tampa to have every start time prior to say.. 4pm to mostly avoid to flash storms, nor tolerating sometimes multiple DH’s per week. It’s why MLB teams have had domes in Florida, even the Fish in Miami since leaving Joe Robbie believe it was called.
Edit:
is this post of mine going to vanish also? It’s gotten last 2 days like it was 10y ago here. Is it time to write Tim??
…so add some drainage…
Yeah, because replacing the foundation of a sports arena is quick and inexpensive, compared to the roof.
Stymee – Exactly!
And good luck with all those non-weatherproof scoreboards and other electronics.
“Harms way”? Tony said
I laughed out loud when I read that in the article. These clowns are so out of touch with reality.
Come to Nashville. We’ll sell out every game around our minor league team.
I think they should put googly eyes on all the pieces of white roofing to look like ghosts for the holiday season.
Rays can come to White Sox Park. At least the Rays have a product worth watching on the field…
That’s just silly.
Rays don’t need a stadium. Just play games at the stadium of the opposing team. For example, if they were going to play the mighty Sacramento A’s at home, just play the game in Sacramento.
Problem solved. You can thank me later.
Old – Third time you said that and still a horrible idea. Union would NEVER approve it.
@Fever Pitch Guy
I’m sorry, but it seems like they’re a bit spoiled. Making multimillion dollars to play a kids sport and you can’t be bothered to go do your job in another part of the country?
York – They would be traveling literally every 2-4 days for at least 6 months. That’s way too big an ask.
@Fever Pitch Guy
All I read was poor little princes and princesses.
All the players would abandon ship . Unlike COVID where every team were under the same circumstances, this is uniquely a Rays problem. If players don’t want to be on the road a whole year, they can just opt to not play, request a trade, or attempt to void their contract. Maybe you don’t care if the Rays become unwatchable but I sure do (they already will be pretty unwatchable after the TV money dries up).
1) The MLPA would NEVER agree to this, and they shouldn’t.
2) You would destroy any hope of the team being competitive – why would any Free Agent want that situtation?
3) It’s horrible to Tampa fans, who would be screwed for something no fault of their own. The nearest AL park is what – Baltimore or Houston?
4) Just tacking on unexpected games is really hard in most stadiums, where they have a number of other events scheduled during team downtimes.
5) Your example of Sacramento is extremely unworkable – the A’s are going to be a tenant. The River Cats have to have time to play in their own stadium.
They should play in Oakland in the interim
The funniest part of this article is the author thinks the Rays will court new FAs. Yeah right. Nobody who is talented and has the power to choose where they play will not come to the Bargain Rays
Can we trade the entire Rays franchise to Canada for some pancakes or something
While it is sad what happened to the Trop and the state of Florida due to the hurricanes, I find MLB’s response unacceptable. We already have one team playing in a minor league park. We don’t need two. The Trop is fixable and it is insured. The Rays have been profitable and MLB has the money as well to put money with the insurance payments if that is what is needed to make the Trop playable again. At best, a MiLB stadium should be a temporary solution until the Trop is fixed. The notion that it might not make sense to fix the Trop with a new stadium coming on line in 2028 is laughable. Spending money on baseball doesn’t make sense to begin with. Cities clamor to spend on sport franchises and their stadiums even though the ROI is horrible. What doesn’t make sense is to suddenly get “fiscally responsible” when sports in general and baseball specifically is anything but “fiscally responsible.”
I don’t think you understand the reality of this situation. The Trop is insured to something like $50million by the city, but that policy also includes other properties owned by the city. St. Petersburg had about 15,000 properties damaged by the storm, including the sea walls and the municipal center. Spending extra money to fix a temporary baseball stadium is not exactly a priority, and really shouldn’t be.
The Rays likely don’t have a spare $50 million to throw around at a time when they are financing the construction of a new park, and when they legally aren’t obligated to spend it.
The City leadership is elected. Do you think prioritizing the repair of a baseball stadium for 2-3 years of use over assisting residents is a wise use of city resources? I guarantee the voters of St. Petersburg won’t agree with you.
The MLB gets a lot wrong. However, slowplaying this situation is absolutely the right move. It’s not only a political and legal situation that needs to be handled carefully, it’s an issue of human decency.
Manfraud
I have a great idea. remove the roof and let it be an open air stadium
It’s not a great idea and has been discussed ad nauseam.