The Rays plan to play the 2025 season at Tampa’s Steinbrenner Field

The Rays plan to play the 2025 season at Tampa’s Steinbrenner Field, the spring training home of the rival New York Yankees.

The Rays have been looking for a temporary home since Hurricane Milton caused extensive damage to Tropicana Field last month. Under a repair plan unveiled Tuesday, the Trop will not be playable until the 2026 season.

The Rays apparently chose Steinbrenner Field over Clearwater’s BayCare Ballpark, the spring home of the Philadelphia Phillies, in consultation with Major League Baseball.

An announcement will be made later today.

“We have ongoing discussions with (the Rays) and they had talked to me about it,” St. Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch said. “… I understand their reasoning for Steinbrenner. … I’ll let them speak to that.”

“We discussed Clearwater versus Tampa and why they might want to go in that direction with MLB.”

Pinellas County Commissioner-elect Vince Nowicki said Thursday morning that he was told the Rays called St. Petersburg city councilors to tell them about their plans.

Details of the deal with MLB and the Yankees and the fate of the Class A minor-league Tarpons, who play at Steinbrenner Field during the summer, were not immediately clear.

Rays officials declined to comment as they have questions regarding their preferences and prerequisites for potential housing.

Although there has been speculation about stadium sites across the state and country as well as internationally, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said last month that he wanted the team to stay in the Tampa Bay area and noted several viable spring training stadium options.

Steinbrenner Field, which opened in 1996 as Legends Field, is located across Dale Mabry Highway from Raymond James Stadium. It provides the largest capacity (11,026) of the spring stadiums, along with 13 suites, numerous club areas, social spaces and cabana seating, plus other upgrades from a $40 million renovation prior to the 2017 season.

Equally appealing, it has much of the required major-league standard equipment, amenities and facilities for players in place. As a result, the facility would require the fewest upgrades to meet MLB regular season and players union standards.

A disadvantage would be playing in the summer heat and rain. According to Florida State League data, over the past 10 seasons the Tarpons have averaged 6.4 postponements annually, almost all weather-related.

Playing in Tampa would also give the Rays an entrée to a segment of their market they’ve apparently had trouble connecting with, bringing the game closer to fans who have at times cited the travel time to downtown St. Petersburg as prohibitive.

The decision likely won’t sit well with some Pinellas County commissioners, who wanted the team to remain in the county by playing in Clearwater or Dunedin (the spring home of the Blue Jays). They have the ability to vote against the bonds needed to finance the Rays’ planned $1.3 billion stadium, which could kill the deal.

Said Commissioner Chris Latvala Thursday at a county workshop: “I’m not going to say you play in Dunedin or you play in Clearwater and I’m a yes. But if they play in Hillsborough I’m a no. So, you know, they can figure out how they want to figure out.”

Welch, determined to get the Rays back to a repaired Trop in 2026, said he remains “optimistic” they could work with the county and keep the new stadium deal intact.

“We’ll have that conversation about the long-term value of the deal with the Rays and see where it goes from there,” Welch said. “I still believe that the 30-year agreement makes sense for the county and the city. …

“I think the right financial decision will win out and we’ll talk it through. At the end of the day, we have a lot of priorities in the city. The deal we made still makes sense. … I sees many ways to make it work.”

Welch hopes the Rays only need a year in a temporary home. An assessment report determined that repairs to the Trop will cost at least $56 million and take until just before opening day in late March 2026 to complete.

As a result, he said, there is not much they can do about 2025.

“If we had a perfect world, they’d be in Trop, but we’re not. So they’ve got to figure it out,” Welch said. “My goal is to get Trop fixed and have them back in ’26, where they should be in St. Pete.”

The Rays’ arrival would cause disruption for the Yankees’ Tarpons farm team, which plays in the Low A Florida State League and is often the affiliate where major-league players start injury rehabilitation assignments, since the team has its minor-league base across the street.

Under the current schedules, there are 42 dates when the Rays and Tarpons — who averaged 993 fans per game last season — would both play at home. Manfred said there could be some adjustments to team schedules if there was an agreement for the Rays to play in a minor-league facility, and FSL officials have recently been told to expect changes.

Rays catcher Ben Rotvedt, a former Yankee, said last month that if the Rays ended up playing at Steinbrenner Field, it would be useful.

“The facility is fine,” Rortvedt said. “The dressing room is fine, they have renovated it. There are plenty of batting cages and (covered) mounds. It is one of the nicer facilities I have been to.”

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