As the early days of the 2025 regular season continue, here are three things we’ll be keeping an eye on around the baseball world today:
1. Campbell, Red Sox nearing agreement?
Over the weekend, it was reported that the Red Sox and star prospect Kristian Campbell were “deep” into talks regarding a contract extension. If a deal were to be finalized, it would guarantee the 22-year-old a life-changing sum while allowing Boston to keep a potential star beyond his years under team control, which are currently slated to expire following the 2030 campaign. Campbell himself briefly commented on the report following Saturday night’s game, confirming to reporters that his camp has been discussing a contract with Red Sox brass but declining to say whether he considered the sides close to a deal.
2. Twins roster move incoming:
Yesterday, it was reported that right-hander Randy Dobnak is set to be designated for assignment by the Twins as the club looks to freshen up its bullpen prior to today’s game against the White Sox in Chicago. It’s not yet known which player will be joining the club’s roster in Dobnak’s stead. Southpaw Kody Funderburk is the only pure reliever on the 40-man roster in the minors right now, but it’s possible Minnesota will instead opt to carry a non-roster pitcher like Alex Speas or Scott Blewett given the 40-man roster spot Dobnak’s DFA will open. Starters like David Festa and Zebby Matthews could also be called up to offer the Twins some length out of the bullpen.
The decision to DFA Dobnak isn’t exactly a shocking one. The right-hander lacks the requisite service time to reject an outright assignment while still being paid the remaining $4MM on his contract. That salary makes Dobnak unlikely to be plucked off of waivers by a rival club and makes Dobnak himself highly unlikely to reject an outright assignment, meaning that despite a lack of minor league options, the Twins can shuttle him between Triple-A and the majors via DFA without much risk of losing him.
3. A’s hosting first home opener in West Sacramento:
The Athletics and Cubs are set to play the first home game of the former’s season tonight at 7:05pm local time. For the first time in decades, said home opener will not occur in Oakland. Instead, tonight will officially kick off the era of Major League Baseball in West Sacramento as the A’s call Sutter Health Park their home for the next three seasons before they can move into their planned long-term home in Las Vegas.
Some visiting players (including Cubs reliever Ryan Brasier) have voiced discomfort and frustration with the situation, as noted by USA Today’s Bob Nightengale, who writes that the visiting clubhouse has drawn particular ire for its cramped accommodations that don’t measure up to the typical major league standard. Regardless, big league games will be played at the Triple-A ballpark for at least the next three seasons. That starts tonight, when Cubs right-hander Ben Brown (3.58 ERA in 2024) takes on A’s righty Joey Estes (5.01 ERA in 2024).
Kristian Is gonna be a force in the league for a while, cant wait to see him play.
Unless he’s not.
Look, I wish the kid all the success in the world. It’s just that no one can predict what a player’s long-term outcome will be.
@coop
that’s fair, but I choose to stay positive.
Life must be so difficult to suffer such an inconvenience.
The visiting players need to grow a pair and not behave like spoiled 5 year old girls.
@Jim
How is he acting spoiled?
All he’s doing is showing displeasure, rightfully so.
Have a disappointment. Keep it inside. Get a perspective.
The cubs should get some perspective. I think they’ll survive three games a year in such horrid conditions. They might stop whining about it when they get to hit in a smaller ball park.
Have the A’s tried to revamp the clubhouse and is it possible? We’re not inside it to determine what is unreasonable but there are minimum standards that should have been addressed before approving the facility.
Wrigley Field can’t be too much better, although I ugh they have remolded it and made it.larger.over the years.
And how many people are struggle to make ends meet and they read about some athlete who has to spend 3 days in a substandard visitor’s clubhouse? O the torture.
@lizards you really struggled to get that sentence out, didn’t ya
They play in Williamsport Pa. for one game and it’s a Double A stadium I believe, I bet the clubhouse is not MLB standard. But yet you don’t hear the teams that play in the game complain; they deal with it. This Cubs player needs to just chill a little your only there three games not 81 games. I would understand if he’s there for the season, but not just three games. C’mon Man.
Explain “rightfully so”. I have no idea of what the locker room looks like, but how hard is it to put up with a small locker room for TWO WHOLE DAYS a year?
Heck, he doesn’t even have to shower there. Change your clothes and take a shower in the $400 a night hotel room you stay in.
I’d like to see some of you guys tell Ryan Brasier or any major league baseball player these things directly…
I would tell Ryan Brasier that to his face.
I would add on commentary about Brasier’s poor performance with the Red Sox, as well. He can have my home address and pull up at his convenience.
LMAO they’re baseball players not MMA fighters and doubt many would be afraid to tell them face to face
I think the players have every right to complain. Both the A’s and Rays are playing in substandard parks this year because of poor management from their respective ownerships.
This is supposed to be the highest level of professional baseball in the world. They should not be playing in minor league facilities.
Not justifying Rays ownership but they’re playing elsewhere because of a hurricane. That’s on Mother Nature not Sternberg.
Their roof was past expiry by a decade. The ownership was too cheap/unmotivated to replace it properly and it gave out under the storms pressure. A new roof may wall have survived the storm. It’s still in the Rays management/ownership.
Guess the people who lost not only their roofs but their entire house were too cheap/unmotivated too.
@RotiniRick
This topic has nothing to do with homeowners.
Good management is proactive, identifying potential issues and addressing them before they become a problem.
Poor management is reactionary, waiting for predictable problems to happen and then scrambling afterwards to fix things.
The Rays had a super old fabric roof in a state that gets regular high winds and hurricanes.
Prudent management would have recognized the problem and gotten a proper new roof installed, one that might have withstood the storm.
If they had got a new roof installed and the hurricane still blew it in, that would have been on nature and management would have been faultless. Failure to replace an old roof, thereby guaranteeing failure is on management/ownership.
Canuckleball
Their roof was past expiry by a decade.
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My understanding is that they don’t own the park. I mean, if you want to rent out my joint, and replace the roof for me, let me know.
Was it the team or the Municipality that didn’t want to replace the roof?
Team management would’ve at least let the city know to have the roof fixed, maybe even not at a cost either. Maybe real estate should be a proper career path instead of being a stock trader…
I guess in your world you need to prepare for direct hits by category 4 hurricanes. California, and Florida have more extreme building codes due to the possibility of natural disasters. Being a public arena, safety inspections are automatic. They passed. Just like a direct hit from a hurricane took out the Tampa Bay stadium, you can bet a level 10 earthquake would take out Dodger Stadium. That wouldn’t be Dodger Management fault either. Also, the Team was leasing. That work you think would have made a difference, was the responsibility of the landlord!
Actually, I’ve read that the Rays were shocked with how good the clubhouse and training areas were…better than the Trop. A lot of money was spent bringing it to major league level.
That’s what the Player’s Assn is for. But get a perspective
BCanuckleball
because of poor management from their respective ownerships.
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Because a hurricane blew the roof off?
And because of poor ownership and management.
“Growing a pair” and “5 year old girls”… Jimmy, you okay?
The modern era has done that. Every player, whether an All-Star or a .143 hitter, demands the clubhouses be five-star hotels.
@let
you would want that over a cheap motel. lmao
Brasier didn’t just limit his displeasure with Sacramento. He also went all scorched earth calling out Steinbrenner Field as “a nightmare”.
Yep—pretty strong words from a guy that is on the IL and won’t be playing there any way. And–they Cubs play also Tampa in Chicago this season.
And if anyone ever saw the Cubs clubhouse or visiting (major league) before 2016, there’s a very small chance that this clubhouse in Sacramento is any smaller.
Maybe dude should focus on stabilizing his middling career rather than complain about what likely everyone else knows about.
A’s ownership combines sleaze with utter incompetence. They’re only in Sacramento because management is so useless they couldn’t adequately plan for the move they insisted on. One major league team playing in a minor league stadium can be attributed to a highly foreseeable weather event. The other is sheer brainlessness. Major League Baseball needs to temporarily change its name to Major and Less-than-Major League Baseball. Manfred is taking the sport down the path of corruption blazed by FIFA and the IOC, with tapeworm suits infesting beautiful sport.
Grady: Anyone expecting Manfred to do anything for the good of the game will be waiting a good, long time.
Manfred’s job is to implement the owners wishes. He is the commissioner of Major League Baseball, a business with 30 owners who employ him.
His job has very little to do with “The Game of Baseball”. It has everything to to do with the business of baseball.
He doesn’t represent the fans, sadly. Nobody does.
His job has everything to do with the game. The commissioner office has carte blanche for rule changes(extra innings, spider tack, pitch clock, size of bases, pick offs, shift ban, extra bouncy balls and soon an automatic strike zone)
Yeah, he is the commissioner, but what is they’re favorite saying when it effects the league as a whole
Manfred could have told the A’s ownership that the move to Sacramento is not a good move for the league. Either stay in Oakland until the Vegas stadium is ready or move to Vegas now and play in the AAA stadium there.
Canuckleball: Manfred isn’t the commissioner of baseball. He’s the commissioner of the owners.
@ohyeadam Manfred makes a $25M annual salary and he’s not making autonomous decisions. His job involves coming up with ideas and executing them upon approval to increase revenues from the owners who pay him really well. He has 30 billionaires’ indivdual egos to manage and keep in harmony.
A’s ownership combines sleaze with utter incompetence.
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A’s ownership just got LV to pay for a new stadium and will probably double in value. I’m not sure I would describe that as ‘incompetent’.
Bootlicking again, JoeBrady? The past 20 years of A’s ownership has been sleazy and utterly incompetent.
A’s ownership just got the state of Nevada and Clark County to kick in $380 million for a $1.75 billion stadium. The rest will be paid by A’s ownership, including the inevitable cost overruns.
Oh, jeeze. Now I won’t be able to sleep worrying about the visitor’s clubhouse in Sacramento.
Can make a pretty good guess that the home clubhouse is no palace either.
The A’s have made a decision that is not going to work for the good of the MLB. Having a franchise play in a city that is not even on the MLB radar for a franchise. Manfred and the MLB higher ups should have put there foot down for the good of league and had the A’s ownership to have the A’s play in a city like Nashville or Salt Lake City or even Vegas. So, Sacramento gets three years of MLB and then gets the rug pulled out from under them, by saying the A’s are moving to Vegas for sure when they have not even started construction on a venue for the A’s yet. Just poor PR by MLB.
The NFL’s Los Angeles Chargers left San Diego and played in a soccer stadium for 3 seasons before moving to the purpose-built SoFi Stadium. Did the city of Carson get the rug pulled?
A professional soccer team by the name of “Los Angeles Galaxy” who also recently won the MLS Cup and has been a perennially great MLS team plays in that stadium in Carson. The A’s are playing in the Giants’ minor league affiliate’s ballpark.
No, just the city of San Diego.
But the point is either play in the city (Vegas which has a triple A team) and is your future home and build up your new fan base or play in a real future city that has been talked about as an expansion team in MLB.
Why did they pick Sacramento? Could it be they wanted to keep their Oakland fan base happy? and they would travel to Sacramento. Then why not just stay in Oakland for the next three seasons.
MLB could have put the same amount money into the Vegas AAA stadium as well as they could of Sacramento to bring it up to MLB stadium standards.
desertdawg: If I had my team pulled out from under me after decades, I doubt I would still support them. You’re right, though. The A’s should’ve picked the AAA team in Vegas to start building a fan base. I mean, how much worse can the clubhouse be for all the whiney players who play 3-7 games a year there?
The A’s picked Sacramento in order to keep a good portion of the TV money from their existing deal.
And Vivek is letting them stay there for free
Nobody involved with the construction of the A’s new stadium has ever said construction would have begun by now. It’s always been stated as intending to start in the second quarter of this year. The reason is that there is a defined process that has to be followed. They have all the required approvals and signed contracts with the Las Vegas Stadium Authority. The remaining steps are the approvals from Clark County. The A’s have filed permit applications for excavation work and for foundation and deep utility work. The County is reviewing the applications.
Toronto played in Buffalo temporarily during Covid, for the good of MLB. This will be longer, but essentially the same thing. Get over it. The League and the players union are fine with it, and gave approval.
Only 4 gms but what a start for kristian! Early ROY favorite. Looks like a chourio/merrill type of 1st yr in store for him
@chandler
I would say more like chourio, Merrill’s rookie season was on another level, he lead his team one step away from the world series, that’s gonna be very hard for campbell to do.
Russian: I’m glad Skenes won ROY last season because he wasn’t gonna win the Cy Young. I was just surprised at his margin of victory over Merrill, who was sensational.
i thought tms earn PPI pick if player finishes 2nd in ROY but i looked it up it says “Players who earn second or third in Rookie of the Year voting earn their teams a pick in the international draft if they ever have one. ”
international draft??
merrill can still earn SD a ppi pick if he finishes top 3 in mvp in 2025 or 26
Come on Brais… even the president of you fan club is shaking his head… it might not be Wrigley but a nail and hook to hang up your clothes ain’t that bad .. for 3 games no less… and your not playing… first time your in town we need to talk at pizzeria uno and discuss appropriate conduct in Chicago…
It’s like the part time temp worker who complains about the break room they spend all day in
Cubs bullpen probably needs to stay focused on the cramped conditions opposing teams put them in on the mound. And less on where they’re putting on those bomb squad uniforms.
FJF
Breaking News; Brasier traded to A’s
West Sacramento is a proving ground for MLB’s next era of expansion and team movement, and few are realizing it yet.