Three days after a plan was unveiled to move the Atlanta Braves Spring Training home to St. Petersburg ― a proposal put together by former Major League star Gary Sheffield and St. Petersburg developer Darryl LeClair ― Major League Baseball and the Tampa Bay Rays issued their first public comments (below).
Rays president Brian Auld quickly made his first public comment on the proposal:
The Rays appreciate MLB’s attention to this matter. We fully agree with and support their statement, he said in a statement when asked for comment by the media.
Major League Baseball issued the following statement this morning:
Earlier this week, Major League Baseball and the Tampa Bay Rays learned of the St. Petersburg Sports Park proposal for the first time. Major League Baseball appreciates the support that it has received for the construction of Spring Training facilities throughout the State of Florida. The most pressing need, however, is the construction of a Major League-quality facility for the Rays.
Major League Baseball is committed to working with the Rays to secure a new ballpark in cooperation with the Tampa Bay region. This can only happen with the support of local political and business leaders.
Incidentally, Noah Pransky (Shadow of the Stadium) opined the proposal could mean one of three things:
- The Rays & MLB are assuming the Rays will be gone from Tampa Bay in a decade or so, thus diminishing any negative impact of a Braves spring training relocation. In fact, it could be positioned as a consolation prize for Pinellas County.
- The Rays & MLB want to stay in Tampa Bay, but are using the pressure on Pinellas County’s limited tourist tax bonding capacity to force St. Pete’s hand. Forced to make a decision about where bed tax revenues would be best-spent, the city could allow the Rays permission to begin negotiating for new stadium sites.
- The Rays & MLB want a taxpayer-funded stadium at Toytown and – unable to negotiate with Pinellas County right now – the Rays have coordinated with the Braves, MLB, and developers to orchestrate a bait-and-switch. The proposed 10,000-seat stadium becomes a 25,000-seat stadium and the Rays move closer to the bay bridges. The Braves could even share Bright House Networks Field in Clearwater without major expenditures.
Pransky was quick to note that while option three is a longshot, all three theories could mean a considerable bump in leverage for the Rays as they continue to push for a new stadium.
We’ll continue to follow this story as it breaks.