The Rays won’t be able to play at Tropicana Field in 2025. So where will they go?

This is a question that has to be answered… and soon.

The roof at Tropicana Field, home of the Tampa Bay Rays, was destroyed by Hurricane Milton last week, as shown in the photo above. Here’s video of the aftermath:

In this detailed article by Marc Topkin in the Tampa Bay Times, the first thing noted is that the Rays are going to have to find another home for 2025 — and likely beyond:

About the only thing that seems certain is that the team won’t be able to open the 2025 Major League Baseball season at home as planned on March 27.

It has yet to be determined how much it would cost to replace the Teflon fabric roof that was destroyed, but any replacement cost is complicated by the fact that the Rays are planning a new stadium, essentially on the same site, to open in 2028. So why spend money on a temporary repair? Here’s one rumor of the possible cost:

So the Rays will likely have to play home games somewhere else in 2025. Several possible locations are Spring Training parks in Florida. Topkin points out the advantages of doing that:

The idea of playing in one of the nearby minor-league/spring stadiums could be appealing for several reasons. Most notably that fans could still attend. Plus players and staff can live in their usual homes, and there potentially could be jobs for their game-day employees.

Several facilities are at least worth exploring, including St. Petersburg’s Al Lang Stadium, Clearwater’s BayCare Ballpark (used by the Phillies), Dunedin’s TD Ballpark (Blue Jays) and Tampa’s Steinbrenner Field (Yankees).

But then there’s this:

But none has a roof, leading to frequent weather delays and pre-game work disruptions during the summer. And all would require upgrades to host regular-season games.

The weather disruptions are a big deal. The MLB schedule is not built to have that number of potential postponements. You might recall the Cubs had a High-A team in the Florida State League in Daytona, from 1993 to 2014. One of the reasons they moved out of that league to the Carolina League and Myrtle Beach (now a Low-A team) is the frequent rainouts, sometimes as many as a dozen a year. Most of those games were simply cancelled and not made up. That’s not an option for a MLB team.

Then there’s the idea of playing in Marlins Park, a MLB ballpark that has a roof. But:

… players and staff would be relocated, and there would be serious scheduling problems, as the Rays and Marlins currently have 49 conflicting home dates. MLB could make some adjustments, but there would be a need for some odd doubleheaders.

Here are some other suggestions from Topkin’s article. All of them have both pluses and minuses:

Expect to hear suggestions that include Durham, North Carolina, home of their Triple-A team, and near Raleigh, which is hot for an expansion team; Nashville and Charlotte, which have Triple-A teams and expansion aspirations; and San Juan, Puerto Rico, which has hosted big-league games. (Las Vegas appears to be off the table given the Athletics’ plans to move there in 2028.)

Maybe, in what would be an ironic twist, even Olympic Stadium in Montreal, where the Rays previous explored playing split seasons, though in a new outdoor ballpark.

The largest stadium in the United States without a major-league team is Charles Schwab Field in Omaha, Nebraska, the 24,000-seat home of the College World Series.

Montreal would probably be the ultimate irony, given that split-season proposal, which was never workable. Any of the places mentioned above are far from the Rays fanbase in central Florida. The ballpark in Omaha is an intriguing idea given its capacity, though it’s also open to the weather, and that ballpark is nearly 1,500 miles from the Trop. There are scheduling issues there too, as that park is the home for Creighton University baseball as well as the CWS.

There is, of course, a perfectly useful MLB facility in Oakland that won’t have a team next year. That would be hilarious, and of course Rob Manfred’s MLB probably wouldn’t allow it.

The question has been raised: Well, what if the Rays just played at the Trop with the roof off? That’s not workable:

Because the stadium was designed as an enclosed, multi-purpose facility, there is no drainage system, so rain would pool and flood the field, dugouts and the seating areas. (And will do so with any additional rains until the roof is replaced.)

Adding a drainage system would seem complicated, as the stadium turf sits on a a concrete base that also includes electrical boxes and wiring and would require extensive work.

So that’s more money to be spent, and could be as costly as replacing the roof.

The whole article is an interesting read. There aren’t really many, or any, good options, and suggesting splitting the season between two or more cities/ballparks isn’t a good idea either — forcing staff and players to pack up and move multiple times just wouldn’t work at all.

So where would you have the Rays play in 2025? Marlins Park would seem to be the best idea, even if schedules had to be bent and twisted to allow two teams to play there. And it seems likely the Rays would also have to play outside the Tampa Bay area until their new park is ready in 2028.

But maybe you have a different idea. Have at it in the comments.