A's Feeling the Heat in Sacramento

Jason Burke | Jul 14, 2024

Jun 21, 2017; Kansas City, MO, USA; Major League Baseball Player Association executive director Tony Clark speaks during a presentation at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. Mandatory Credit: Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports / Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports

With the Oakland A's scheduled to move to Sacramento for the 2025 season, and then stay in the River Cats' Triple-A park for at least three seasons while they await their desert oasis ballpark--The Armadillo Dome--there are going to be complications to making a minor-league facility big-league ready.

The heat is the one factor that is being discussed quite a bit of late.

With so few answers at the ready, everyone has been curious where the MLBPA has been throughout this entire process. Well, head of the PA Tony Clark spoke with the L.A. Times on Saturday from Arlington, Texas ahead of All Star festivities, and he didn't exactly seem thrilled with the process that the A's are dragging everyone through.

From Bill Shaikin, "Clark said discussions with the league are “ongoing” but expressed frustration that the logistics for the Sacramento move have not been finalized." Clark continued, "It’s important to have as much runway as possible,” he said. “These decisions needed to be made yesterday, as a result of where we are in the calendar and the adjustments and considerations that players and their families are going to have to make."

If there has been one constant throughout this entire process for the A's, it has been their disdain for deadlines--except when a process will "take too long" and forces them to leave Oakland. The only deadline that matters is whichever one owner John Fisher and president Dave Kaval choose to adhere to.

ESPN's Jeff Passan broke the news in January that the A's were supposed to have decided on where they'd be playing in 2025 by the end of December. They officially announced Sacramento as their landing spot in early April, missing at least a couple of deadlines in the process.

The MLB schedule for the following season typically comes out in July, but according to a report in the San Francisco Chronicle just a few days ago, that schedule doesn't appear to be finished yet as the team, the league, and the MLBPA try to figure out how to schedule games during the summer while the A's play on a turf field without a roof.

In the Times article, the suggestion of morning games has been made, which is what the Yolo High Wheelers of the Pioneer League had to do a couple of weeks ago, moving their 7 p.m. start times to 10 a.m. to avoid the triple-digit heat as much as possible.

That seems like an obvious answer, but TV money is a big factor here, too. The A's will be getting a decent payout from NBC Sports California while in Sacramento, but 10 a.m. games may not exactly be what they had in mind. For folks on the east coast, an early start time may work out alright when the Yankees or Red Sox come to visit, giving them some afternoon baseball due to the three hour time difference. Their TV stations may feel differently.

As is always the case, this entire process is just one big mess. Now that the A's lack of planning is impacting other clubs, and potentially other owner's revenues, we may actually see just how long their patience with this process will last moving forward.