The New York Yankees unveiled millions of dollars in upgrades Thursday to their training and spring facilities at Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, Fla.
The two-year project is separate from the upgrades being made to the 11,026-seat stadium in preparation for the Tampa Bay Rays, who will be using Steinbrenner Field as their home field during the MLB regular season. The Rays had to vacate Tropicana Field after Hurricane Milton tore off its roof last year, causing $55.7 million worth of wind and water damage.
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The Rays are hoping to return to the Trop in 2026, but considerable work by the city of St. Petersburg still has to be accomplished.
“Everything we’re looking at today, all of it is what the Yankees had planned for a long period of time,” Michael Margolis, a Yankees spokesperson, said via Zoom call Wednesday with select media members. “It so happened that the hurricane took place. They needed a place to play, and they’re going to use it as if it’s their actual ballpark.”
The Yankees renovated the home clubhouse in the spring training ballpark and added 27,000 square feet of contiguous dining areas, weight rooms and training rooms in their year-round adjacent training areas.
It was a much-needed makeover for a facility that opened in 1996 at the cost of $30 million, paid for by Hillsborough County taxpayers, said Matt Ferry, the club’s director of baseball operations under general manager Brian Cashman.
“I saw Ron Guidry this morning, and he said, ‘I need a map to get around,’” Ferry, who oversaw the construction project, said. Guidry is a former Yankees ace left-hander from the 1970s who spends every spring in Tampa as an instructor. “Just because he’s been here so long, and he’s seen every iteration. It’s a completely transformative facility now.”
The players, manager Aaron Boone and staff just began to arrive this week, and they are seeing the changes for the first time. The idea was to build state-of-the art facilities from Tampa to the Bronx. The ballpark clubhouse replicates the same design and changes done to the home clubhouse at Yankee Stadium last year. The club declined to disclose how much the renovations at both facilities cost.
“We have one of the biggest clubhouse footprints in New York,” Ferry said. “I would argue that we now have that in Tampa, too. It speaks to what we are trying to do as an organization now and into the future. It’s a manifestation of the culture we’re trying to foster here.”
Ferry said upper management sought the input of the staff and players regarding the pending improvements, including Cashman and Boone. The Yankees wanted to know what amenities they had seen around the league and would like incorporated into the Tampa facility.
“Aaron Judge had a lot of input into this,” Ferry said. “Carlos Rodon, Gerrit Cole. We didn’t just put this together randomly. There were a lot of intentional steps to make this a turn-key facility in every sense.”
The Yankees are scheduled to play 15 home spring training games, and the team will have control of all the facilities during that period. They will then turn over the keys to the home clubhouse and the ballpark to the Rays for the regular season. The Yanks visit the Rays for two series this season, and for those six games, they will be the visiting team, using the upgraded visiting clubhouse facility.
The Yanks’ Single-A club, the Tampa Tarpons, will play most of its games this season on Field 2 next to the first base side of the stadium, which will be equipped with lights, enhanced dugouts and padding on the walls surrounding the playing field, at the Rays’ expense.
The timing of the Steinbrenner Field renovation was serendipitous, given the Rays’ need of a temporary stadium for at least a year. The Rays and MLB are upgrading the ballpark to MLB standards, and the Rays will take over operation of the team store. The Rays are responsible for field maintenance, the box office, game day operations and their own ballpark branding. Legends Hospitality, the Yankees concessions provider, will continue to handle food, beverage and merchandise sales.
“When the Rays take over on opening day, this will be a Major League facility up to all of Major League Baseball’s standards, in terms of technology, tracking systems, replay,” Ferry said. “That’s all going to be ready.”
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