The two Florida teams should just relocate. Charlotte, Nashville, Indianapolis, Austin or Salt Lake City are all viable. As a business transaction, the Chicago White Sox ought to move but I hate the idea of one of baseball's storied franchises relocating.
Indy and SLC are the least likely on that list...Indy has 7 MLB teams within a 5 hour driving radius already, and SLC is just too small of a market. Not sure how popular baseball is relative to other sports in the remaining cities but totally agree that baseball in FL has been a failure and both teams should move.
Estadio Latinoamericano in Havana Cuba. 55.000 capacity. Could sell out every game and conduct some major bridge building diplomacy. Not to mention build a fan base that will more than likely be moving to Florida at some point. They'd need to establish their own power supply though.
Other than that there are no immediate locations open with large enough unused stadiums other than Montreal.
But in all seriousness, I think Orlando would be a better long-term place for the Rays if they want to stay in Florida.
MLB expansion has proposed Nashville and Salt Lake as next options in terms of population centers that can sustain a major league franchise, but no stadiums of MLB caliber have been built there yet, regardless of the A’s strange Sacramento odyssey, where they’ll have had over a year to plan and fix up that AAA park.
The idea of Portland Oregon seems strange as an MLB town since 2020.
Columbus, Ohio would make sense except they would take away from the Reds and the ex-Indians. I'd almost say that Tidewater Virginia would be a good place but I worked one summer there forty years ago and the traffic was horrific.
Omaha supports their minor league team well. I think the locals would be upset if the College World Series was displaced as a result. I can't see the Rays agreeing to a situation where they had to spend the year in Omaha and play most of June of the road also. I would expect games with the Yankees and Red Sox to sell well in any city the Rays play their home games. After that the novelty could wear off quickly.
> I can't see the Rays agreeing to a situation where they had to spend the year in Omaha and play most of June of the road also
The 2025 CWS is scheduled for June 13-23 (Fri-Mon). Teams routinely go on 11-day road trips in MLB, with the Rays doing so August 19-29 this past year. However, Omaha also hosts the Big Ten tournament, which is expanding to 12 teams and may be held May 20-25 (Tue-Sun), so if the Rays were to play there they would have a week-and-a-half to have a 10-game homestand of their own before the extended road trip.
> Omaha supports their minor league team well
Until I just looked it up, I didn't realize the Storm Chasers don't play at the CWS site; they play 12 miles southwest in Papillion in a much smaller park.
That's is the other problem with temp relocation, any other even semi viable stadium is already used by another team. None of these teams have any great incentive to help Tampa out by disrupting their own team. It would also be bad for their relationship with their fans. Many of whom would not come back as committed once their team resumed its regular schedule.
I'm not convinced they can't play in their home stadium without a roof and using the normal recourse of playing double-headers to make up scheduled games for rainouts. It's a loss vs having an intact stadium, but cheaper than investing a lot in very temporary infrastructure, I would think. And maybe build rain tents over the stands to handle showers that don't rise to the level of game-cancelling downpours.
Yeah, Tampa's climate is not that different from (although not quite as bad as) the climate here in Hong Kong. The summertime temperatures don't look *that* bad at first glance, but the relentless humidity makes being outdoors even in the evenings unpleasantly sticky no matter what you're doing.
I looked up Tampa's climate averages and confirmed another thing I suspected: Tampa gets a lot of rain, and its four wettest months are August, July, June, September, in that order. On average it rains more days than not in Tampa in July and August. Not optimal for baseball.
So build a draining substrate and drains. Water that fell on the roof was being drained away from the vicinity of the stadium so the drains wouldn't have to be run far and it shouldn't take long to install some. It's just excavation. As to people not wanting to sit outside... so the team's attendance drops. There are no alternatives where their attendance doesn't drop. Didn't I understand that they were anyway going to build a new stadium? Are they going to cut ties to all their current seat holders? This is a fairly simple exercise in cost-benefit analysis. And contract law - how did they finance the current stadium? What promises were contracted for by whom and to whom?
Nice to see Lefty Grove get a shoutout. Grove was the better pitcher, but purely on nickname quality I’ve always preferred his quasi-contemporary Walter Johnson.
Walter “The Big Train” Johnson. Mmm. Pure, uncut Americana
"Grove was the better pitcher, but purely on nickname quality I’ve always preferred his quasi-contemporary Walter Johnson."
Why do you think Grove was the better pitcher? Analytic measures like ERA+ and waaWL% are close to identical and Johnson had a much greater workload/career.
idk I don’t feel strongly about it - you could make a case for Johnson. Instinctually I kind of discount the pre-live ball era, it doesn’t really seem like the same sport, so the fact that’s Grove’s peak period was statistically similar to Johnson’s on advanced metrics but was accomplished in the live ball era makes me give the nod to Grove, but I wouldn’t go to the mattresses over it
It must cost a fortune to air condition an entire stadium 80 days a year. Perhaps they don't do it well enough to get people in the seats.
Do you really think they can draw over 10,000 in a different city? There are plenty of damnyankees in the Triangle (Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill), but are they Yankees fans?
Florida is BIG, much more along the lines of Texas and California than New York, Pennsylvania, or SC.
Famously, when people drive to Florida across country, they get very excited when crossing the border into Florida (they have welcome centers with Florida orange juice there), only to realize its another 7-9 hours to get to Orlando or Miami.
They'll use it as an excuse to try out a new city with no current club that they wanted to move to but hadn't yet.
In years past I would have said they'd (an American league club) would try a city either that had no clubs ( e.g. Nashville, New Orleans, Phoenix, Portland), or else a large city with only a National League club (e.g. Philadelphia, St. Louis, Atlanta). But these days, with inter league play crap and the removal of the DH ruining the AL/NL divide mystique, the crime rates in cities being so high that going in to see a ball game downtown is putting your life in your hands, and the expendable income for luxury items is way down thanks to Bideninflation, I don't think going to an NL city would sell. The newness in a new town with no ballclub is probably best.
But avoid towns with large black or large hispanic percentages! Such customers are not loyal to local teams. Baseball is a white/Asian game these days.
The White Sox owner threw out the possibility of moving. Nashville?
The two Florida teams should just relocate. Charlotte, Nashville, Indianapolis, Austin or Salt Lake City are all viable. As a business transaction, the Chicago White Sox ought to move but I hate the idea of one of baseball's storied franchises relocating.
Indy and SLC are the least likely on that list...Indy has 7 MLB teams within a 5 hour driving radius already, and SLC is just too small of a market. Not sure how popular baseball is relative to other sports in the remaining cities but totally agree that baseball in FL has been a failure and both teams should move.
Estadio Latinoamericano in Havana Cuba. 55.000 capacity. Could sell out every game and conduct some major bridge building diplomacy. Not to mention build a fan base that will more than likely be moving to Florida at some point. They'd need to establish their own power supply though.
I will laugh my ass off of they force them to spend a year in Buffalo.
Oakland has an unused stadium.
Other than that there are no immediate locations open with large enough unused stadiums other than Montreal.
But in all seriousness, I think Orlando would be a better long-term place for the Rays if they want to stay in Florida.
MLB expansion has proposed Nashville and Salt Lake as next options in terms of population centers that can sustain a major league franchise, but no stadiums of MLB caliber have been built there yet, regardless of the A’s strange Sacramento odyssey, where they’ll have had over a year to plan and fix up that AAA park.
The idea of Portland Oregon seems strange as an MLB town since 2020.
Columbus, Ohio would make sense except they would take away from the Reds and the ex-Indians. I'd almost say that Tidewater Virginia would be a good place but I worked one summer there forty years ago and the traffic was horrific.
What about San Juan? It has one of the few stadiums that has hosted regular-season MLB games.
Omaha supports their minor league team well. I think the locals would be upset if the College World Series was displaced as a result. I can't see the Rays agreeing to a situation where they had to spend the year in Omaha and play most of June of the road also. I would expect games with the Yankees and Red Sox to sell well in any city the Rays play their home games. After that the novelty could wear off quickly.
> I can't see the Rays agreeing to a situation where they had to spend the year in Omaha and play most of June of the road also
The 2025 CWS is scheduled for June 13-23 (Fri-Mon). Teams routinely go on 11-day road trips in MLB, with the Rays doing so August 19-29 this past year. However, Omaha also hosts the Big Ten tournament, which is expanding to 12 teams and may be held May 20-25 (Tue-Sun), so if the Rays were to play there they would have a week-and-a-half to have a 10-game homestand of their own before the extended road trip.
> Omaha supports their minor league team well
Until I just looked it up, I didn't realize the Storm Chasers don't play at the CWS site; they play 12 miles southwest in Papillion in a much smaller park.
The Austin minor league team are the Round Rock Express that play in a stadium of 11.5k.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Round_Rock_Express
That's is the other problem with temp relocation, any other even semi viable stadium is already used by another team. None of these teams have any great incentive to help Tampa out by disrupting their own team. It would also be bad for their relationship with their fans. Many of whom would not come back as committed once their team resumed its regular schedule.
Would the football stadium in Jacksonville make sense? Or the Buc's stadium?
They are not built to be transformed. The college stadiums in Orlando would make more sense.
If they temporarily moved to Oakland, they could temporarily rename themselves to the Oakland Fischers.
I'm not convinced they can't play in their home stadium without a roof and using the normal recourse of playing double-headers to make up scheduled games for rainouts. It's a loss vs having an intact stadium, but cheaper than investing a lot in very temporary infrastructure, I would think. And maybe build rain tents over the stands to handle showers that don't rise to the level of game-cancelling downpours.
Have you tried running outside in Florida half the year? It's soup! No one wants to sit in it, either.
Yeah, Tampa's climate is not that different from (although not quite as bad as) the climate here in Hong Kong. The summertime temperatures don't look *that* bad at first glance, but the relentless humidity makes being outdoors even in the evenings unpleasantly sticky no matter what you're doing.
I looked up Tampa's climate averages and confirmed another thing I suspected: Tampa gets a lot of rain, and its four wettest months are August, July, June, September, in that order. On average it rains more days than not in Tampa in July and August. Not optimal for baseball.
The stadium has no drainage
So build a draining substrate and drains. Water that fell on the roof was being drained away from the vicinity of the stadium so the drains wouldn't have to be run far and it shouldn't take long to install some. It's just excavation. As to people not wanting to sit outside... so the team's attendance drops. There are no alternatives where their attendance doesn't drop. Didn't I understand that they were anyway going to build a new stadium? Are they going to cut ties to all their current seat holders? This is a fairly simple exercise in cost-benefit analysis. And contract law - how did they finance the current stadium? What promises were contracted for by whom and to whom?
Nice to see Lefty Grove get a shoutout. Grove was the better pitcher, but purely on nickname quality I’ve always preferred his quasi-contemporary Walter Johnson.
Walter “The Big Train” Johnson. Mmm. Pure, uncut Americana
"Grove was the better pitcher, but purely on nickname quality I’ve always preferred his quasi-contemporary Walter Johnson."
Why do you think Grove was the better pitcher? Analytic measures like ERA+ and waaWL% are close to identical and Johnson had a much greater workload/career.
idk I don’t feel strongly about it - you could make a case for Johnson. Instinctually I kind of discount the pre-live ball era, it doesn’t really seem like the same sport, so the fact that’s Grove’s peak period was statistically similar to Johnson’s on advanced metrics but was accomplished in the live ball era makes me give the nod to Grove, but I wouldn’t go to the mattresses over it
Florida’s baseball should have remained spring training. Putting teams there was a terrible mistake. There’s too much to do there.
Not to mention how much fun the Grapefruit League games were
Florida is a state of transients, transplants and retirees. Tampa is filled with Cubs and Cards fans and Miami with Yankees, Red Sox and Mets fans.
It must cost a fortune to air condition an entire stadium 80 days a year. Perhaps they don't do it well enough to get people in the seats.
Do you really think they can draw over 10,000 in a different city? There are plenty of damnyankees in the Triangle (Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill), but are they Yankees fans?
> Do you really think they can draw over 10,000 in a different city?
Fans may come out to show MLB that they should be next in line for an expansion team or a relocation
> Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium used to host the Marlins of the National League, but it was widely hated when reconfigured from football to baseball use.
After the Marlins left the stadium was renovated to that baseball is no longer feasible.
> But nobody liked [Montreal] when [it was] being used
Sadly Parc Jarry has been reconfigured for tennis
I had to Google how close Tampa is to Miami
Florida is BIG, much more along the lines of Texas and California than New York, Pennsylvania, or SC.
Famously, when people drive to Florida across country, they get very excited when crossing the border into Florida (they have welcome centers with Florida orange juice there), only to realize its another 7-9 hours to get to Orlando or Miami.
They'll use it as an excuse to try out a new city with no current club that they wanted to move to but hadn't yet.
In years past I would have said they'd (an American league club) would try a city either that had no clubs ( e.g. Nashville, New Orleans, Phoenix, Portland), or else a large city with only a National League club (e.g. Philadelphia, St. Louis, Atlanta). But these days, with inter league play crap and the removal of the DH ruining the AL/NL divide mystique, the crime rates in cities being so high that going in to see a ball game downtown is putting your life in your hands, and the expendable income for luxury items is way down thanks to Bideninflation, I don't think going to an NL city would sell. The newness in a new town with no ballclub is probably best.
But avoid towns with large black or large hispanic percentages! Such customers are not loyal to local teams. Baseball is a white/Asian game these days.