The Rays Are Going To Split Their Games Between Tampa Bay and Montreal. Here Are Some Other Great Ideas
by Boobie
The Tampa Bay Rays, the team with the MLB’s lowest payroll by over $10 million and the second worst attendance behind only their neighbors to the southeast/house-flipping project Miami Marlins, have received permission to split their home games between Tampa Bay and Montreal. While there is no timetable for the beginning of this experiment, it seems fairly clear that is is not meant to be a long-term situation, but rather the first step toward moving the team to Montreal permanently or a leverage play to get a new stadium in Tampa funded by the city rather than by the team’s owners.
While the Montreal Expos are currently remembered fondly because of Vladimir Guerrero, Pedro Martinez, the current pull of 90s nostalgia, and the inevitable warm feelings that pop up around defunct teams when they haven’t had the opportunity to establish any bad ones in other fanbases for over a decade, Montreal was not a hotbed of baseball popularity in the years before the franchise moved to Washington, DC, and with what is currently a starless team, it’s unlikely that the city will catch Rays fever even as they compete for a playoff spot in the loaded AL East.
That said, as much as it’s going to suck for players, team employees, and the small local fanbase, it’s probably going to happen. So, how is it going to work? And what other gimmicks might we expect from the team that popularized the opener once they get there?
How It’ll Work
One likely way the schedule would be split is simply in half. At the beginning of the MLB’s season, the weather is often pretty cold, which suppresses offense and attendance. Obviously, this would be more of an issue in Montreal than Tampa Bay, so the team could play a Tampa-heavy schedule in the opening months of the season, and a Montreal-heavy schedule during the dog days of summer, when the northern climate could provide some relief from the heat and humidity of Tampa Bay in July and August. The split schedule would also, presumably, increase demand for each game in each market due to the reduced number of games, although the fact that this split is an extreme “fuck you” to both fanbses might mitigate this effect.
However, if we’re getting weird, there are other ways this could be done as well. Teams could split their squads like they do during spring training, play games in Tampa and Montreal simultaneously, then flip a coin after both are completed to determine which game’s outcome will count for the standings. This would provide great developmental reps for teams with young players who are on the cusp of being major-league ready, and attendance money from two gates. The downsides would be a diluted product for fans and additional strain for veteran players for often-meaningless games, but clearly the players and fans aren’t being considered at all with this move, so there’s really no downside at all.
Another non-traditional scheduling idea that should be on the table: the morning of the first game of every series, the MLB could webcast a stingray choosing between a replica of the stadium in each city, similar to the way Paul the Psychic Octopus predicted the winner of soccer matches. The teams would then fly to the city the stingray picked. People love when animals pick stuff.
How To Draw Fans
Part of the reason for this decision, aside from the aforementioned leverage play, is that the Rays simply do not draw fans. This is not surprising given the way ownership skimps on payroll, but that’s not going to stop, so the team will need to take other measures to pack the stadium.
One solution could combine two past Rays gimmicks: the opener and the ope tryouts that resulted in the 2002 film the Rookie, starring Dennis Quaid. Rather than using a relief pitcher to pitch the first inning or two of games before handing the rest of the innings over to a series of relievers, the team could select three fans at random, bring them on the field to throw the first pitch, and based on their accuracy and the radar gun reading, use that fan as the opener. Aside from bringing in local fans who want to share the field with their favorite players (likely players on the visiting team, but still), this would encourage good baseball players to move to the area and start attending games in hopes of getting picked and pitching so well that they start a movie-inspiring career of their own.
Another fun gimmick: allow fighting. They love that stuff in Canada. If a player homers off a pitcher and bat flips or shows him up on the basepaths, let the pitcher fight him, then sit out a couple batters while a poisition player pitches (similar to a power play) before coming back. It’s much less dangerous than throwing at the guy later in the game, way more cathartic than listening to a pitcher talk about how he’s old school and didn’t appreciate how the guy who beat him, and would give the offense an advantage, making the games more fun to watch.
The best way to inject local flavor, though: flood the field, turn it into an ice rink, and have the teams play on skates. Not only would this make Montreal fans more comfortable, it would make pitching, hitting for power, and infield defense more difficult, resulting in more balls in play, reversing the Three True Outcomes trend that many fans believe makes the game less exciting. Another upside of this idea: the mascot races would probably be far more exciting as speedskating races.
The MLB is experimenting with rule changes in the Atlantic League, changes meant to make the game more offense-friendly and interesting for potential fans. Since the Rays owners clearly don’t care about their own fans, players, or winning, the games they play in Montreal could serve a similar purpose for more extreme measures. If it fails, so what? The Rays have already mostly failed in Tampa, and the Expos failed in Montreal. This would just be more of the same, and more of the same is historically right in Major League Baseball’s wheelhouse
