Rays talk 'best-case scenario' of 2025 home

This story was excerpted from Adam Berry’s Rays Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

TAMPA, Fla. -- When the Rays announced last week that they would spend the 2025 season with George M. Steinbrenner Field as their home ballpark, they felt they had made the best of a bad situation.

With Tropicana Field unavailable after being significantly damaged during Hurricane Milton, the Rays wanted to stay within the Tampa Bay area. The Yankees’ Spring Training ballpark checked that box, with the added bonus of having the largest capacity of any local Minor League ballpark.

The Rays needed somewhere with Major League-caliber facilities, or close enough that they could finish the necessary upgrades before Spring Training starts. Steinbrenner Field satisfied that requirement, too, and the Yankees were already renovating the home clubhouse and other spaces the Rays will use once the regular season rolls around.

“We're obviously dealing with less-than-ideal circumstances, and we're so fortunate that the Yankees' Spring Training complex provides a venue that can meet the standards required by Major League Baseball and the MLBPA,” team president Matt Silverman said last week. “We have only a few months before Spring Training begins, and our emphasis has been to make sure that our home games remain local so that our fans and employees, players and coaches have as much normalcy as possible, given the disruption that's taken place at Tropicana Field.”

Manager Kevin Cash echoed those sentiments, calling it the “best-case scenario, given what the [Tampa] Bay area has gone through” following back-to-back hurricanes. And ending all the ballpark uncertainty for next year relatively early in the offseason will provide some answers and ease a little anxiety for players and staff.

“We’re glad to not have to uproot and try to make it work in a completely new city,” closer Pete Fairbanks said.

Fairbanks, the Rays’ MLBPA representative, added that players were “grateful” and “excited” to stay in the area, although he joked they might have to “call up Fatheads and throw some extra decals up” to help make the Yankees’ (and Single-A Tampa Tarpons’) ballpark feel a little more like the Rays’ home.

“I think everybody would agree that this is our best spot for the short term, and obviously we would love to see the Trop get back operational and end that uncertainty for the next couple years moving forward – for the air conditioning and for the city of St. Pete,” Fairbanks said. “But in terms of being in a facility that’s being freshly renovated and has the capacity, I think we could deal with the rain and extra sweat to be in the area.”

Ah, yes. The weather. Outdoor baseball in Florida and all that comes with it.

Forced to play outside of the Trop’s tilted dome, it won’t always be 72 degrees and “sunny” at first pitch next year. Instead, the Rays will be exposed to the summer heat and rain, with the former likely a bigger concern, and they’ll have to prepare accordingly.

“I think the repetitive nature of it will be more challenging than playing in it. You can be outside and it’s hot, whatever. But doing that repetitively, I think that has the potential to build up fatigue, etc.” Fairbanks said. “We’ve all done it. It’s not necessarily fun to play in the extreme heat.”

The Rays could push back start times to avoid some of the heat and afternoon showers, and the schedule will be a factor. The Tarpons managed to play into mid-June this year without having a home game affected by weather, for instance, only to have a number of games canceled, suspended, postponed or delayed the rest of the way.

For what it’s worth, the Rays’ 2025 home schedule might work in their favor, as it’s heavier toward the front and back and a little lighter in the summer: 18 games in March/April, 13 in May, 14 in June, 11 in July, 11 in August and 14 in September.

“There’s no doubt that we’re going to have to adjust things that we’ve done in the past to make sure our players are rested and ready to play,” Cash said. “When we have those 12-day homestands, I don’t think we’ll be taking BP as much as we were at the Trop.”