Want the latest Bay Area sports news delivered to your inbox? Sign up here to receive regular email newsletters, including “The Dime.”
ATLANTA – Philadelphia’s Zack Wheeler was critical of the mound. Minnesota’s Carlos Correa spoke negatively about the batter’s box. A’s ace Luis Severino repeatedly expressed concerns with clubhouse access.
Other Major League Baseball players have popped off about the inadequacies of the ballpark in West Sacramento that houses the A’s, who left a major-league stadium in Oakland this season for a minor-league interim home as they prepare to relocate to Las Vegas.
“It’s less than ideal, to say the least,” union chief Tony Clark said at the annual Baseball Writers’ Association of America luncheon in advance of Tuesday night’s All-Star Game.
After Clark, commissioner Rob Manfred addressed the baseball writers and said that, despite the many pitfalls, the plan is to remain at Sutter Health Park through 2027. There’s an option for a fourth season in 2028.
Subscribe to The Dime
News, gossip, and inside-the-locker-room access for Bay Area sports fans, every Friday and Monday.
“Three or four years is a long time in terms of making predictions,” Manfred said. “Right now, it is my expectation that they will play in Sacramento until they move to Las Vegas.”
For the first time since 1967, the Bay Area is a one-team market, with the Giants the lone big-league option for fans. The A’s occupied the Coliseum from 1968 through 2024 before owner John Fisher pulled the team out of Oakland for a bigger payday on the Strip.
Asked specifically if MLB would consider an expansion team for the Bay Area — whether it’s returning to the East Bay or revisiting dialogue in San Jose, where the Giants insist they claim territorial rights — Manfred said he’s not ruling out anything.
“In terms of expansion,” he said, “open book. You know what? People who want baseball should participate in the expansion process when we start that process, and I think by being wide open, with no predeterminations as to where it’s going, we’re going to end up with the best locations if we want to expand.”
Manfred and Fisher had tumultuous relationships with East Bay politicians over the future of the franchise, including with Fisher’s long-shot proposal to build at Howard Terminal. Manfred suggested those relationships wouldn’t damper future discussions in the region.
“Honestly, I had a great relationship with Libby Schaaf,” Manfred said of the former Oakland mayor. “I had worked very hard with her to try to make it work in Oakland. I don’t have any problem with any government official in Oakland. I thought Mayor [Sheng] Thao was not particularly helpful when we got down to brass tacks, but I don’t think I’m going to have to deal with her going forward.”
Oakland voters ousted Thao in a November recall election and in April elected Barbara Lee as mayor.
Meantime, the A’s remain in West Sacramento, where temperatures are expected to soar in the coming weeks to uncomfortable levels for players and fans, putting further stress on a field that’s used by both the A’s and the Triple-A River Cats.
“We are getting continual feedback on Sacramento and are doing our very best to address each of those pieces of feedback in real time,” Manfred said. “If I had a brand-new gleaming stadium to move them into, we would’ve done that.”
Two of MLB’s 30 teams are in facilities not up to league standards, including the Rays, who are playing at Steinbrenner Field in Tampa – the Yankees’ spring training home – because their main ballpark, Tropicana Field, was destroyed by Hurricane Milton.
“One was an act of God,” Clark said. “One was a decision.”
Manfred sounded positive that Tropicana Field will be ready by 2026, but the A’s seem determined to stick with Sacramento.
“As opposed to Tampa and the idea that there’s going to be a move hopefully in the not-too-distance future back to a major-league park,” Clark said, “this one, at least at this point, doesn’t appear to be changing anytime soon. There’s still a little hope that something may come to fruition before 2028.”