19 Comments

Regarding the Rule 5, I don’t see the Pirates protecting anyone. Alonzo is the only interesting player, but I don’t think an A+ catcher will get drafted and or make it a whole year on any team’s roster. Hope they use the 40 space on actual major leaguers.

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I didn’t even get his name right, Alfonzo!

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OT, and I’m surprised this hasn’t been in MLBTR, but the Rays’ deal for a new ballpark may be dead. The Pinellas County council has voted against issuing bonds that were necessary to start work, which was supposed to be underway now and isn’t. It appears the council is pissed the Rays chose to play 2025 in the Yankees’ spring training park, which is in Hillsborough County, instead of the Phillies’, which is in Pinellas.

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Isn't The Yankees ballpark closer to TB than Clearwater (Phillies)? Bradenton did not offer, or were they not asked.

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Not a big difference. The big factors were supposedly more seating at the Yankees' park and the Clearwater park would require a lot of upgrades to comply with the CBA.

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Thank you, sounds like TB management made the right decision. Good chance they get more attendance there?

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I don’t think it’s physically possible, but it will be a great beta test on playing outdoors. They may also make more money there, which is crazy to think about.

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This has long been one of the craziest situations in professional sports: one of the best run franchises in MLB playing in an awful ball park with no fan support. What’s the point of keeping them in Tampa Bay? There are any number of cities (Nashville, Charlotte, Portland, Montreal) that would support this franchise at the level it deserves.

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Tampa is fine, they just need to actually be in Tampa proper. Family households with income are in Hillsborough County, the overwhelming majority of corporate money is in Tampa, and bridges/large bodies of water serve as a physical and psychological boundary for almost all people regardless of real property use. “They” think that by building a large-scale, multi-use development that it will draw from a larger geographic area, but that’s not how real estate development works.

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If they moved to a bigger market (Charlotte), with their methods, they’d be an even bigger threat.

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Really seems like they'd be better off elsewhere. The deal, though, gave the Rays the ability to develop a large area around where the Trop currently sits. I think that's where the big money was.

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Atlanta made a bold move away from the downtown area to the North suburbs of Cobb County, where many of the Braves lived. Truist Park and the entertainment complex surrounding it makes going to a Braves game almost like a destination vacation

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Perhaps a blessing in disguise? I didn’t understand the Montreal split season thing, and I didn’t understand building a new ballpark where you don’t draw in the current one.

Baseball also needs to consider viability in some of these markets considering that the overpriced cable package scam dollars are drying up. If you aren’t getting the TV dollars you have to sell tickets right?

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Corporate sponsorships, then gate receipts. I believe I heard the ideal ratio is like 75/25. The Rays are currently 20/80 bc the Trop doesn’t have corporate suites.

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Move 'em to Nashville!

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Apparently Nashville is marked for expansion. Along with allegedly Salt Lake City. There’s other good markets though. Texas could take a third team. Raleigh/Charlotte. Portland.

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I'd rather Nashville get an expansion team than the Rays only because it would be more interesting to watch them build from nothing, but MLB moves so slowly I also don't want to wait another decade.

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Agree that an expansion team would be fascinating to watch in today’s game. Doubly so because I believe that the Nashville group consists of a bunch of old school guys like Dave Stewart who hate the modern trends in the game. That approach hasn’t yielded much in the way of results where it’s been tried recently, but it would be intriguing nonetheless.

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Nov 17·edited Nov 17

Runners were successful on 83.1% of stolen base attempts in the league, but the Pirates players went 11-for-11 in steals, while Planchart went 1-for-21 in throwing out runners.

Stolen bases involving Pirates: 96.9% success rate

not involving any Pirates: 81.7% success rate

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