Modesto will be losing its minor league franchise following the season.
Major League Baseball has struck again and will be abandoning the Modesto, California market. The Modesto Nuts franchise, a business that is owned by the Seattle Mariners’ ownership group, will not exist once the 2024 season ends because the Mariners’ ownership and Modesto elected officials could not come up with a deal that would have seen the city build a new stadium for the team. The problem? Major League Baseball is in total control of Minor League Baseball and MLB wants all Minor League Baseball venues fixed up to whatever standards MLB wants. The 69-year-old stadium just did not cut it anymore. The stadium was renovated in 1997 when the city poured money into the ballpark to get it up to Major League Baseball stadiums. The cost to the city? Nearly four million dollars. Modesto has had a minor league team since 1946.
The Modesto stadium needs an awful lot of work to get up to Major League Baseball’s 2025 standards. A proposal for a new Modesto stadium in 2021 went nowhere. The Mariners-Nuts ownership wanted a 5,000-seat stadium that would have cost about $117 million to build. MLB has been telling cities for about three years to get your stadiums into shape or we are going to get rid of you. Modesto City Council Member Chris Ricci wrote in a Facebook post, “Major League Baseball was requesting facilities improvement estimated to cost more than $32 million. Cities were warned that facilities must fully be compliant with upgraded facility standards”. Municipally owned stadiums must have fewer than 10 points on a grading standard. The “must-haves” include locker room facilities for female staff, two covered batting and pitching tunnels, suitable locker room dimensions and lighting standards. Modesto is not an isolated situation. Eugene, Oregon is losing its team for the same reason and Visalia, California has the same problem.
Modesto Nuts
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