Bush League Franchise Will Play in Minor League Ballpark

We’re a week into the 2024 MLB season and the biggest news so far is off the field. Below I explain what just went down with the A’s. And I touch on which teams and players have caught my eye in the early going.

A’s to play in Sacramento in 2025-2027 if not longer

John Fisher, the nepobaby owner of the Oakland A’s, has given so many middle fingers to the City of Oakland that it’s a surprise that finger functions at all.

Fisher gave another middle finger to Oakland today when the A’s announced that the team will play the 2025, 2026, and 2027 seasons—at least—at Sutter Health Park in Sacramento, a minor league ballpark in California’s capital city that currently seats a little over 14,000.

The A’s lease at the Oakland Coliseum expires at the end of this season. And with Fisher’s Las Vegas fever dreams moving at a snail’s pace, the team needed to find a place to play over the next three seasons, at least. Just as he did in negotiations over a permanent home, Fisher talked to Oakland officials, but played them off another city to drive down the price.

According to ABC7 News’ Casey Pratt, Oakland made the following offer to the A’s:

The A’s currently pay just over $1 million a year to lease the Coliseum so that $97 million fee over five years feels very high. (Reportedly the city lowered that number to $60 million last night). But if the A’s stayed in Oakland over the next three or more seasons, the team would likely have continued to receive $67 million each season from NBC Sports California for the right to broadcast A’s games played at the Coliseum, according to John Shea at The San Francisco Chronicle. The A’s reportedly are in talks with the network on a new broadcast deal that will likely be worth much less than $67 million per year.

The field conversion costs relate to changes in the field configuration for the Oakland Roots and the Oakland Souls—men’s and women’s soccer teams in the United Soccer League that will play their 2025-2026 seasons at the Coliseum.

The Coliseum stake? Well, Alameda County sold its 50% stake in the Coliseum Complex to the A’s in 2019 when it looked like a redevelopment of the complex for a new ballpark, housing, office, and retail was the best option for keeping the A’s in Oakland. Sitting here in 2024, you just have to shake your head: “What was Alameda thinking???”

They were thinking about getting out of the sports complex business, which hasn’t been particularly successful for Oakland or Alameda. But now John Fisher—after making the decision to decamp for Las Vegas with a stint in Sacramento—controls the City’s ability to redevelop the Coliseum Complex.

It’s sickening.

As to the demands to MLB, I don’t blame Oakland for trying. They thought they finally had some leverage over Fisher and MLB and went for it.

But Vivek Ranadivé had other ideas.

Ranadivé owns the NBA’s Sacramento Kings and Triple-A Sacramento River Cats and is a good friend of Fisher. Ranadivé, with his eyes on MLB expansion, hopes to show the league that Sacramento can support a major league team. Ranadivé swooped in, offered better terms to Fisher on a short-term deal, thereby undercutting Oakland.

Rich guys stick together.

There’s conflicting reporting on where the Sacramento River Cats will play their games while the A’s occupy their ballpark. The Athletic reported that the A’s and River Cats will share Sutter Health Field in 2025. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that the River Cats might play some games at the Coliseum and/or Oracle Park next season. The River Cats are the Giants’ Triple-A team, which would make games at Oracle Park very convenient.

John Shea reported in the Chronicle that A’s players are not pleased. Who can blame them?

The Major League Baseball Players Association must approve A’s deal with Ranadivé because playing at Sutter Health Park will affect the players’ working conditions. According to The Athletic, the union issued a brief statement following the A’s announcement: “The MLBPA has had preliminary discussions with MLB about a range of issues related to the temporary relocation and we expect those discussions to continue.”

This appears to be the end of the road for the A’s and Oakland. Yes, the team will play 74 more home games at the Coliseum this season. But it would take a miracle to imagine this A’s franchise ever playing home games in Oakland after this season. Even if the Las Vegas deal falls apart—and there are good reasons to think it might—the A’s will already have decamped to Sacramento, making the likelihood of a return to Oakland very small.

John Fisher and MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred should be ashamed for how this all played out. But super rich white guys don’t feel shame. They just go about their business of trying to turn their large sums of cash into larger sums of cash and whatever happens happens. Who cares about the fans? Who cares about screwing over one of the most ethnically and racially-diverse cities in the country?

About the only silver lining in this mess is that an MLB franchise will be playing their next three seasons in a city that just declared itself a sanctuary city for transgender people. 

Week 1 highs and lows

The A’s have started the season 1-6. Not great, but not far off from expectations. Same for the Colorado Rockies.

That’s still not as bad as the Marlins, who are 0-7. You might not remember, but the Marlins made the postseason last year as a Wild Card. During the broadcast of the Mets game today (the first of two in a makeup doubleheader), Mets play-by-play announcer Gary Cohen said that the Marlins are the first team in MLB history to make the postseason one season and start the next season 0-7.

And things went from bad to worse for the Marlins when they announced that their young starter Eury Perez would under Tommy John surgery and miss the season.

The Mets are also winless so far this season with a record of 0-5. Two of the Mets’ five losses came in extra innings when the bullpen melted down. But the Mets have scored only 11 runs in those five games. Eleven! Catcher Francisco Alvarez is the only Mets hitter doing anything consistently so far in the season with a .421/.450/.737 slash.

Folks are already talking about a Marlins sell-off sooner rather than later, but if the Mets don’t turn things around quickly, I’d expect David Stearns, the new President of Baseball Operations, to start clearing the decks as well. Pete Alonso will be a free agent at the end of 2024 and will be looking for a huge deal the Mets are unlikely to give him. He’ll be number one of the trading blocks in Queens.

The Giants and the Astros—two teams expected to contend this season—are both 2-5 to start the year. But I’m more inclined to see those records as the result of tough early schedules—the Astros lost 4 straight to the Yankees and the Giants got swept by the Dodgers in LA. The Giants and Astros are both hitting pretty well. Houston has 12 home runs so far this season; the Giants have 10. Both teams have to work out kinks in the bullpen.

Now for the high points.

Congrats Dodgers fans! You won the offseason and the team looks ready to pulverize every team in its path, save for maybe the Braves and Yankees.

Mookie Betts leads the majors in home runs (5) and on-base average (.595)—numbers which look low to me after watching the Dodgers sweep the Giants. Betts-Ohtani-Freeman at the top of the Dodgers order is every bit as scary as it sounded—and Ohtani isn’t even hitting all that well. Yet. Then you have to deal with catcher Will Smith, who’s batting .406. Free-agent pick up Teoscar Hernandez’s hit 4 home runs—two more than the Minnesota Twins.

The Dodgers look unbeatable right now.

We’ll see what happens when the calendar flips to October.