The whole Rays split-city thing was a plan that never really made a lot of sense when you subjected it to the tiniest bit of scrutiny, and instead always sounded like an effort to leverage one city against the other in a battle to pony up for a full-time team.
And now it’s dead:
BREAKING: #Rays season-sharing plan with Montreal killed by MLB, search back on for a full-time home https://t.co/pH2pAHBUf0
— Marc Topkin (@TBTimes_Rays) January 20, 2022
Reason has prevailed. I get that there are serious issues with the current Rays footprint, ballpark, and geography. It’s untenable in the long-term. But the solution was to find a new, full-time, all-year home, not try to offer up half of a team to two cities – in two countries! – and have your players figure out how the heck to make that work.
So now, presumably, the Rays will once again re-engage cities in the Tampa area to try to build a new stadium. If that doesn’t work out quickly, I think that’s when the permanent relocation talk will begin, probably by next offseason. I expect there will be more announcements coming soon, given that the Rays had been working on this cockamamy plan for two years now.
Stuart Sternberg confirms what @TBTimes_Rays said: MLB officials have rejected the Rays' plan to split time between Tampa Bay and Montreal. Called the news "flat-out deflating."
— Chelsea Janes (@chelsea_janes) January 20, 2022