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The Rays Won’t Win the 2025 World Series—And That’s a Relief for Rob Manfred

Originally posted on Athlon Sports | By Jake Elman | Last updated Aug 24, 2025 11:57 AM ET

Officially, Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred can’t publicly root against the Tampa Bay Rays and hope they miss the postseason.

It’s a good thing for Manfred, then, that the Rays are doing their part to spend October at home.

The 62-67 Rays enter Sunday 6 1/2 games back in the AL Wild Card race, likely ensuring that they’ll miss the postseason for the second straight year. Tampa hasn’t missed the playoffs in consecutive seasons since a five-year drought from 2014-18.

However, we get the sense that Manfred doesn’t care how long the Rays go without a playoff victory, so long as it means they’re not playing home games at Steinbrenner Field.

Rob Manfred Should Be Ecstatic if the Rays Miss the Playoffs

Rays home games have looked quite different this season, seeing as they’re actually playing in the Florida heat. Cash’s club has spent the entire year at George M. Steinbrenner Field, the New York Yankees’ spring training home, after Tropicana Field suffered extensive damage during Hurricane Milton.

Steinbrenner Field’s biggest issue is crowd size, which barely fits 11,000 people. That’s not a big deal for a random Tuesday night home game, especially not with the Rays under .500. Asking Steinbrenner Field to host a postseason game, though, would have been a massive problem for both the Rays and Major League Baseball.

The Rays’ struggles save Manfred from a difficult choice: holding playoff games at a spring training stadium, or asking the Rays to play elsewhere. Postseason berths are earned, not given, and it would have been a terrible look if the league forced Rays to play home games in Atlanta or Miami for capacity reasons.

Luckily, Manfred appears assured of not needing to worry much longer. Both the Rays and Athletics, who themselves are playing in a minor-league stadium, are almost guaranteed to miss the playoffs. Instead, we’re on track to see postseason games at traditional venues like Dodger Stadium, Fenway Park, and Wrigley Field.

For those who love chaos, it’s too bad that we won’t see a Rays-A’s ALCS this fall. One can only imagine how Manfred would have reacted if a playoff series featured two minor-league stadiums rather than the sprawling, modern ballparks.

This article first appeared on Athlon Sports and was syndicated with permission.

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