Rob Manfred's Update on A's Ballpark(s) Seems Indirect

Earlier this week, Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle posted a quick update she received from MLB commissioner Rob Manfred on the A's ballparks in both Sacramento and Las Vegas. On the surface, the updates seem great, but he also doesn't directly say much of anything.

Rob Manfred says Sutter Health Park will be “as close to” a big league facility as possible when I asked him his impressions of his visit there. He says A’s stadium in Las Vegas still on track to be open by 2028. Doesn’t answer when shovels will be in the ground.
— Susan Slusser (@susanslusser) February 18, 2025

The tweet reads, "Rob Manfred says Sutter Health Park will be “as close to” a big league facility as possible when I asked him his impressions of his visit there. He says A’s stadium in Las Vegas still on track to be open by 2028. Doesn’t answer when shovels will be in the ground."

Let's take this one location at a time.

First up, Sacramento, where the A's will be playing their home games for at least the next three seasons as preparations are made for their proposed ballpark in Las Vegas. When asked how he liked the tour of Sutter Health Park that he visited recently, he said it's going to be as close to a big league facility as possible.

Alarm bells immediately go off with that response. What is stopping it from being essentially a big league facility? Is it the seating? That would be a perfectly acceptable take if that's the case, since the park can only fit 14,000 patrons, which includes lawn seating.

Or is he talking about the time constraints they've had to deal with? With the Sacramento River Cats' home schedule wrapping up on September 22, that limits how much work could be done.

There is also the weather to contend with during the winter. Makes sense!

Or is this a money issue? There was only so much spending that could be done, so they did their best. Honestly, his answer could be a combination of all three, and Manfred has never been one to divulge extra details.

Slusser later included the full quote in her article in the Chronicle, which shed some extra light. "I think the owners of the River Cats and the owners of the A’s have worked very hard together to make sure that, for our players, it is as close to a major league experience as it can possibly be. There’s a lot of investment that was done in facilities … and the ballpark is charming."

So it would sound as though it was more of a ballpark capacity issue here, rather than an effort or financial shortfall.

This brings us to the second part of Slusser's tweet, in reference to the Las Vegas ballpark. According to Manfred, everything is going great and they are on track to open in 2028. When asked when shovels will hit the ground in Sin City, he just doesn't respond.

That's...not great?

Given his role, he has to have a certain amount of credibility with the public, so rather than lying or misspeaking, he just disregarded the question. But if he's so confident that everything is on schedule, then why not give a boiler plate answer like "sometime in June" which is the most recent update that has been put out to the public? That's the answer that Slusser's sources gave her.

That's also when the second quarter of 2025 ends, and missing that deadline would put the project on a tight time crunch to be ready in time for Opening Day 2028.

The big question that still remains will be whether A's owner John Fisher will actually be willing to commit over $1 billion of his own money in order to build this proposed ballpark in Las Vegas. Given his track record in Oakland, it's hard to take him at his word. Then again, he's having a great time just throwing extensions at people of late.

Some will point to the A's "spending spree" this offseason and say that times have changed, but the A's payroll, which is projected at just above $106 million, is barely over the $105 million that they needed to spend to avoid a grievance from the MLBPA for not spending enough of their revenue sharing dollars on payroll.

The A's are reportedly set to receive in the ballpark of $70 million from other owners as part of that program for the 2025 season, so in that light, have things really changed?

Then you throw in the recent shortfall of parking spaces for their Vegas ballpark, which didn't incorporate enough spots to adhere to the Clark County code. They weren't off by just a few, either. Fisher did this same sort of thing when he started getting cold feet in Oakland--moving the goal posts to get in the way of getting a deal done.

That is why many in the media keep on repeating that until Fisher starts forking over his own money and shovels are in the ground, then this project still earns the "proposed ballpark" moniker. Without a partner to help offset the costs in Vegas, the financial burden may be too great for Fisher to make it happen.

If shovels are in the ground in June, then maybe things will have actually changed.