Japanese pitcher Roki Sasaki appears to be heading to the MLB.
However, he’ll be considered a minor league free agent, which means there’s a ceiling for what his contract can amount to. He can be added to a major league roster virtually immediately, but must sign a minor league contract.
He should move from the Marines to the Mariners. That would make one of the best starting pitching rotations in MLB. They even have enough talent to run out a six-man rotation, should they choose. Also, the flight to Tokyo is shorter from Seattle than L.A…
There’s at least idle speculation that the Cubs are going to try to pry a starter off of the Mariners to round out their rotation. With Imanaga, Taillon, Assad and Wicks, they need at least one more good arm. They have plenty of IF and OF prospects. Chicago’s main considerations this offseason are the rotation, back-of-the-bullpen, and an upgrade at C.
Tropicana Field, the home stadium of the Rays, which was damaged by Hurricane Milton last month, can be repaired, but it wouldn’t be ready until 2026, forcing the Rays to play elsewhere next season – MLB would prefer to see them stay in the region, which would likely mean playing at a minor-league or spring training facility.
The bigger issue appears to be that the repair would cost $56 million (to replace the roof, and make other repairs), but the stadium is already slated for demolition, to be replaced by a new stadium by 2028. The city may not be interested in footing the repair bill, for a stadium that’ll only be used for a few more seasons anyway.
Regardless, it’ll undoubtedly mean that there will be two MLB teams playing in minor league parks in 2025 (at a minimum), as the A’s will be playing in Sacramento, sharing a stadium with the AAA River Cats, until their new stadium in Las Vegas is completed.
At 16,515, the Rays were 3rd from the bottom in average attendance this season. A minor league park would be sufficient for them next season, and they might sell out every game! Plus, Tropicana is a terrible place in which to play baseball.
Oakland had the lowest average attendance (11,528), and Miami was next (13,425).
Looking at capacity of the spring training / minor league ballparks in the Tampa area, mentioned in the ESPN article (there’s a recurring theme):
Most of them only have a capacity of about half of what the Rays drew, on average, last year, and they also have minor-league teams playing there during the season (the same scheduling issue that the A’s are facing in Sacramento). It’ll work, but not ideal.
No argument there, and I’m sure that the Rays were happy to be able to finally be getting a new, less lousy stadium. But, they’re in for some strangeness, and really poor ticket sales, in the meantime.
TD Ballpark is probably the best stadium of any spring training facility, is close to St. Petersburg, and has previously hosted regular season games. Steinbrenner and BayCare are pretty good too. The only problem is they’d have to pay another team to play to them, so I suspect they wiull end up at Port Charlotte.
PEople are also suggesting thjey play in Miami, but
I don’t think people realize how far Miami is from St. Petersburg; Florida is a big state. It’s like a four hour drive. It would be like the Mets playing in DC, or Atlanta decamping to Nashville. The Rays do have some fans and you want the games accessible to them,
The Grapefruit League stadiums noted above only hold 8000-11000 but I sincerely doubt the Rays would draw 8000 in Miami anyway. Some days the MARLINS don’t get 8000, and
At least when it isn’t raining, playing in a place like TD Ballpark would offer a nicer experience in many ways. Tropicana’s not a very attractive place to watch baseball. You could probably max out attendance many days at MLB level prices.
How many games would be rained out if they just played without a roof?
Given the current state of Tropicana Field, and the fact that damage to the stadium from the storm wasn’t solely limited to the roof, I’m not at all sure that it would be considered to be safe to play in today.
Even if the verdict was “just tear off what’s left of the roof, and play in open air,” that’d take time and money, and I’m not sure that the stadium’s interior is built in a way that it would remain playable if it’s regularly rained on. Open-air stadiums are built to deal with heavy rain and runoff, both on the field and in the stands; a closed-air stadium likely isn’t built that way.
Announced today they will be playing at Steinbrenner Field.
Obviously the Rays front-office team reads the Dope.
I’m surprised to see that the single A Tarpons who play at that field only average 6.4 weather postponements a season. Not bad it a 132 game season. The amount of delays may be high.
No word on where they will play during their season.
Pretty much a no brainer. The league was apparently pushing for them to stay in the area. It’s the biggest stadium in the area and apparently the team facilities are excellent and new.
I guess they could adjust the FSL schedule to just play when the Rays are on the road.
And/or play a couple of more games on the road this next couple of seasons. It’s Florida - nothing is that far away from Tampa.
The plot thickens further, regarding the Rays’ new stadium.
The team has fronted $50 million for early work on the stadium project, but are saying that further progress is stalled, as there have been delays in Pinellas County’s approval of a bond issue for the public portion of the project’s funding.
At this point, the Rays are saying that the delays are making it unlikely that they’ll be able to start play there in 2028 (which was the current plan), meaning that, unless Tropicana Field’s roof is repaired, the team is looking at 4 or more seasons playing in a minor-league ballpark (or not playing in the region).
The figure I’ve seen is $15 million to the Yankees to use Steinbrenner Field for the season. Or maybe that will be $15 million to Juan Soto. I also heard MLB is paying not the Rays.
The Guardians’ Stephen Vogt and the Brewers’ Pat Murphy have been named the AL and NL Managers of the Year, respectively; both of them were in their first season managing their teams.
Vogt had never held a managerial role prior to this year. Murphy had managed extensively in the college ranks (for Notre Dame and Arizona State), and for two seasons in the Brewers’ minor-league system, but his only previous major-league managerial experience had been as the Padres’ interim manager in 2015.
An interesting note: Murphy will turn 66 years old next week. He’s the fourth-oldest winner of a Manager of the Year Award, behind Jack McKeon (who won it twice, at ages 72 and 68) and Davey Johnson (who won it at age 66).
Rob Manfred is cooking something up right now with national broadcasting rights for MLB games. There’s nothing concrete at all, but it sounds like he wants to consolidate all ownership of local and national broadcast rights under the MLB, which would end blackouts for good. MLB would auction off national broadcast games to various networks/streamers, and the local games would be sold as a package via MLB.tv or some other service.
At first glance, it seems like this would really screw over big market team fans. Yankee and Dodger (and other big market team) games would be the obvious first games being sold, and their fans will need to have subscriptions to every service (I.e. Amazon Prime, Apple+, MLB Network, ESPN) to watch games. I could see there being a way for in-market fans to watch on MLB.tv, but who knows.
Overall, this would be a game changer for the average fan, in a good way. Eliminating blackouts has seemed like the third rail of baseball commissioner-hood, and this would be amazing - especially if there’s a palatable solution for in-market fans during national broadcasts.
Dodgers fans are used to being screwed over by sales of broadcast rights. From 2014-2020, they had this (article from 2014):