MLB Stadium Saga: Oakland/Tampa Bay/Southside

[PrimalCookie]

3 minutes ago, GDAWG said:

So how is the attendance for the Lightning as compared to the Rays?

You can't compare that. The Lightning are in a modern arena in downtown Tampa. The Rays are in the worst stadium in the league, in St. Petersburg, which is 45 minutes to an hour away from their main fanbase on the Tampa side of the bay.

1 minute ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

 

Yes.  I was opposed to the awarding of a team to Miami in the first place on the grounds that Florida is for spring training.

 

 

 

Baseball can indeed work there: spring training, Florida State League, Gulf Coast League.  But a Major League team?  No.

So baseball fans in Florida who want to support major league teams from their area can get screwed?

[GDAWG]

Doesn't that stadium host a college football all star game?  The East-West Shrine Bowl I think?

[SFGiants58]

1 minute ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

 

Yes.  I was opposed to the awarding of a team to Miami in the first place on the grounds that Florida is for spring training.

 

You’re not alone on the first point. I would have wanted a Colorado-Washington expansion for 1993, with an Arizona-Portland/Charlotte move in 1998.

 

But “Florida is for spring training” is just narrow-minded.

 

1 minute ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

 

 

Baseball can indeed work there: spring training, Florida State League, Gulf Coast League.  But a Major League team?  No.

 

It hasn’t worked, but it could have worked in Miami (which is fairly far away from Spring Training land in Florida) given better ownership and no fire sales after winning championships. 

[~Bear]

Is there anyway the Rays could relocate before 2027? The news of splitting cities can't help attendance. People aren't going to show up any more than the abysmal numbers they are now if they think the team's in lame-duck mode. 

[AustinFromBoston]

1 hour ago, pmoehrin said:

The Rays can talk to Montreal all they want, but the city of St. Pete has already announced any potential move like this violates their lease agreement.

 

I doubt the Rays are going anywhere until at least 2027.

I don't understand why the city is so intent on keeping a team that they don't want, fans clearly don't want, and doesn't make any money. 

[DEAD!]

Mont-Ray-Al !!!!

[buzzcut]

1. Contract both the Rays and Marlins.

2. Expand rosters to 30 to insure no roster spots are lost.

3. No expansion ever again.

[Gothamite]

3 hours ago, SFGiants58 said:

 

Would you be saying that if the Marlins had competent ownership and didn’t perform the first fire sale?

 

For all the bitching about the first file sale, they went back to and won a second World Series.  Hard to feel too sorry for them. 

[smith03]

40 minutes ago, insert name said:

If they're gonna move the Rays to Montreal then I request the (Ex)Rays and Nationals to swap leagues to have DC back in the AL and Montreal back in the NL. Order will then be restored.

Don't forget the Astros and Brewers

[SFGiants58]

6 minutes ago, Gothamite said:

 

For all the bitching about the first file sale, they went back to and won a second World Series.  Hard to feel too sorry for them. 

...then followed it up with a fire sale a few years later. Then came the stadium debacle, a second fire sale, several transformative players leaving via trades and one region-perfect playing making a fatal mistake. It’s a little easier to feel sorry for the fans that stuck by them.

 

Again, it could have worked. Huizenga and Loria made sure it wouldn’t work.

[sky1324]

Wow, baseball in Florida has looked awful for the past few years. It's not even like we can place it on the teams themselves being bad: the Marlins have two World Series titles (in like 25 years), and the Rays also made it the Fall Classic. The problem is, no one in the region seems to care. The Rays have been decent to pretty good for the past few years, but they're still setting record lows for attendance. That's pathetic. The Trop is obviously in an awful location, but I have to argue that the announcement of this split relocation has permanently killed any chance of this team staying in Tampa Bay forever. Whatever little goodwill the tiny fanbase has for the Rays is now gone. Even less people will show up, even if the partial move doesn't go through. As less people show up, the team will get more desperate for any kind of move, and Montreal may bend over backwards for a new stadium, and the Rays (and the MLB) leave the Tampa Bay area for good. It's a shame for the 10,000 (at most) people in the area that seem to care, but the market just is not right for the Majors.

[Marlins93]

15 minutes ago, buzzcut said:

1. Contract both the Rays and Marlins.

I'm still really baffled when people think it's remotely possible that the Marlins are a candidate or relocation or contraction. Are you ignoring the fact that they are playing in a brand new, state of the art, climate controlled ballpark? MLB wouldn't relocate the Rays because their attendance is low; it's because they play in a ballpark that was obsolete the second it opened...in 1990.

 

The Marlins might not remain in Miami forever, but they have at least two or three decades before anything like that is considered. The attendance situation is dire right now, sure, but I wouldn't say the future is eternally hopeless. It will take several years for Jeter to rebuild trust, but it's far from impossible. He made some unpopular moves and some other ill advised moves that reek of Loria incompetence, but there's some good mixed in there too in terms of their drafted prospects and trade hauls.

 

The Marlins will always face some huge obstacles that other teams don't (most notably transplants from NYC and elsewhere), but you are wasting your breath if you think MLB will consider making any bold decisions regarding baseball in Miami, at least in the near future.

[Marlins93]

7 minutes ago, QueenCitySwarm said:

Wow, baseball in Florida has looked awful for the past few years. It's not even like we can place it on the teams themselves being bad: the Marlins have two World Series titles (in like 25 years), and the Rays also made it the Fall Classic. The problem is, no one in the region seems to care. The Rays have been decent to pretty good for the past few years, but they're still setting record lows for attendance. That's pathetic. The Trop is obviously in an awful location, but I have to argue that the announcement of this split relocation has permanently killed any chance of this team staying in Tampa Bay forever. Whatever little goodwill the tiny fanbase has for the Rays is now gone. Even less people will show up, even if the partial move doesn't go through. As less people show up, the team will get more desperate for any kind of move, and Montreal may bend over backwards for a new stadium, and the Rays (and the MLB) leave the Tampa Bay area for good. It's a shame for the 10,000 (at most) people in the area that seem to care, but the market just is not right for the Majors.

Of coursed I'm biased, but I think the Rays fans have more to be ashamed of than Marlins fans right now when it comes to attendance. I understand the ballpark location argument (but I'd argue that Marlins Park is poorly located too), but at least the Rays have had competent ownership, no history of soul crushing firesales (despite still losing franchise players like Price and Longoria), and are a competitive team on the field. If the Marlins were playing so well that they were first in their division up until several days ago, their attendance figures would most definitely be better than what the Rays are pulling so far this season, although not necessarily sell outs by any stretch.

[_DietDrPepper_]

I agree the Marlins 2 World Series proved that when their good the fans come out, a bad stretch shouldn’t be enough to ship them off to somewhere else, unless it gets especially long, I’m talking 15-20 years of this kinda attendance 

[BBTV]

From a Reel Line Mint standpoint, I wouldn't mind the Marlins moving to the AL and elb being in the NL East.  Having BOS and NYY on the schedule on a regular basis might help Miami (though it didn't help TB), and MTL belongs in the NL East (and it'd split up TOR and MTL again... though I would understand if people thought they should be together and have a regular rivalry.)

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

1 hour ago, Magic Dynasty said:

So baseball fans in Florida who want to support major league teams from their area can get screwed?

 

Those fans are no more screwed than baseball fans in Buffalo or Charlotte or anywhere else that doesn't have a Major League team are "screwed". Having a major league team in your city is not a constitutional right, and not having one is not an injustice .

 

1 hour ago, SFGiants58 said:

“Florida is for spring training” is just narrow-minded.

 

It hasn’t worked, but it could have wor ked in Miami (which is fairly far away from Spring Training land in Florida) given better ownership and no fire sales after winning championships.

 

I strongly doubt that it could have worked under any  circumstances. Saying that Florida is for spring training is perfectly sound because the majority of baseball fans in Florida support Northeastern teams. That will probably change eventually. And when it does, that's when Florida cities will be legitimate places for Major League teams.

 

Also, Miami is not far from spring training land. The Orioles trained in Miami for decades; and the Dodgers played plenty of games there even while their main base was in Vero Beach. And, of course, the Yankees were in Fort Lauderdale for a very long time. 

[sky1324]

23 minutes ago, Marlins93 said:

Of coursed I'm biased, but I think the Rays fans have more to be ashamed of than Marlins fans right now when it comes to attendance. I understand the ballpark location argument (but I'd argue that Marlins Park is poorly located too), but at least the Rays have had competent ownership, no history of soul crushing firesales (despite still losing franchise players like Price and Longoria), and are a competitive team on the field. If the Marlins were playing so well that they were first in their division up until several days ago, their attendance figures would most definitely be better than what the Rays are pulling so far this season, although not necessarily sell outs by any stretch.

For certain, but no matter the reason, attendance woes are still attendance woes. I'm sure if the Marlins were consistently better we wouldn't be having this discussion, but it's still possible that baseball in Miami has been contaminated like Tampa Bay. Incompetent ownership and fire sales aplenty has harmed the goodwill between fans and the team, and even if a better owner took over, that relationship may be permanently damaged. Moving the team to a new fanbase will not only change the suitors for the team (I'm sure people would rather own the Miami franchise than the Charlotte one), but it wipes the slate clean for the team to build trust between it and the fans. The Marlins have done really nothing to reward long-time fans, even with two World Series wins, since right after they win they just burn it to the ground. Even if it's the owners' fault, the goodwill may be gone. It's like a nuclear explosion: one mistake can make the soil infertile for years to come.

[marlinfan]

Except Miami is not full of transplants from the Northeast.

[SFGiants58]

16 minutes ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

 

Those fans are no more screwed than baseball fans in Buffalo or Charlotte or anywhere else that doesn't have a Major League team are "screwed". Having a major league team in your city is not a constitutional right, and not having one is not an injustice .

 

 

Wow, telling somebody “You should lose your team!” isn’t a good look. It makes you look like a dick. Did you say that to Giants and Mariners fans in the early-1990s? 

 

16 minutes ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

I strongly doubt that it could have worked under any  circumstances. Saying that Florida is for spring training is perfectly sound because the majority of baseball fans in Florida support Northeastern teams. That will probably change eventually. And when it does, that's when Florida cities will be legitimate places for Major League teams.

 

It changed in that direction once a few generations of “native” Floridians occurred. It might not have in Tampa, but I’m sure it has in Miami (people from Miami, let me know). Would you use that as a defense for why Florida shouldn’t have basketball teams?

 

16 minutes ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

Also, Miami is not far from spring training land. The Orioles trained in Miami for decades; and the Dodgers played plenty of games there even while their main base was in Vero Beach. And, of course, the Yankees were in Fort Lauderdale for a very long time. 

 

I didn’t know that. Thanks for the history!

[DustDevil61]

1 hour ago, insert name said:

If they're gonna move the Rays to Montreal then I request the (Ex)Rays and Nationals to swap leagues to have DC back in the AL and Montreal back in the NL. Order will then be restored.

 

It only makes sense. 

 

I’m not looking at a map at the moment, but I bet that MLB would invoke an Astros-in-the-AL situation* for the Montreal Expos v2.0, keeping them within spitting distance of Toronto.

 

(*IIRC the switch was made, at least in part, to help cut travel costs for the Rangers and the rest of the AL West when they come into the state of Texas.)