{"id":135785,"date":"2025-09-11T09:14:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-11T09:14:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/135785\/"},"modified":"2025-09-11T09:14:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T09:14:11","slug":"rays-notes-ownership-pepiot-aranda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/135785\/","title":{"rendered":"Rays Notes: Ownership, Pepiot, Aranda"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Rays are set to change hands<\/a> any day now, as current owner Stuart Sternberg has agreed to a sell the franchise to a group led by Patrick Zalupski in a deal that\u2019s expected to be finalized at some point this month. Since the announcement of that deal back in July, additional details about the deal have trickled out. One such detail is that Sternberg and other current members of his ownership group will retain a stake<\/a> in the Rays for the time being after the sale.<\/p>\n

Another emerged today when Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times<\/a> reported that Rick Workman has joined Zalupski\u2019s prospective ownership group. Topkin writes that Workman\u2019s move to purchase a stake in the Rays is both a significant shock and a major blow to the Orlando Dreamers group, which is committed to luring an expansion franchise to Orlando. Topkin suggests that Workman was viewed as an \u201canchor\u201d investor for the group\u2019s efforts to bring MLB to the city who would have been a candidate to serve as the controlling partner of a hypothetical Orlando MLB franchise. John Morgan, the group\u2019s second-largest investor, has also departed the effort now that it appears likely that the Rays will remain in Tampa.<\/p>\n

According to a statement MLB Hall of Famer Barry Larkin, who serves as an MLB ambassador for the Dreamers, the organization was \u201csurprised\u201d\u00a0when Workman conveyed that he plans to invest in the Rays, but emphasized that Workman \u201cdid not in any way suggest concerns\u201d regarding the Dreamers initiative. Dreamers co-founder Jim Schnorf goes on to suggest that the 70-year-old Workman may have had a change of heart about waiting for the lengthy process of getting a team to Orlando, which would likely take years now that the Rays figure to stay in Tampa, and instead chose the more immediate option of joining Zalupski\u2019s group.<\/p>\n

Between the loss of multiple major investors and the likelihood that the Rays remain in Tampa, it\u2019s becoming harder to imagine a team coming to Orlando any time soon. With that said, Schnorf noted that there are \u201cmultiple\u201d\u00a0other candidates to serve as control person of a hypothetical Dreamers franchise and that the initiative has no shortage of funding.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo competing city can come close to matching our attributes in regards to stadium location, market size, population growth, tourism numbers, tourist development taxes, and strength and growth of the local economy,\u201d Schnorf said. \u201cOrlando remains the only fully-ready solution for any MLB situation in need, whether via relocation of an existing franchise, or one of the planned expansion slots.\u201d<\/p>\n

Turning to on-the-field news, Rays right-hander Ryan Pepiot<\/a> was scratched from his scheduled start today with what the club referred to as\u00a0\u201cgeneral fatigue.\u201d\u00a0Pepiot, 28, has thrown 163 innings across 29 starts this year. That\u2019s roughly 30 innings more than his previous career high, which was set last year and was itself 30 innings more than his career high before that. With the righty in uncharted territory innings-wise and Tampa\u2019s playoff hopes all but scuttled, it might seem reasonable to expect Pepiot to sit the rest of the season out. That\u2019s not necessarily the case, however, as MLB.com\u2019s Joey Pollizze<\/a> relays that Pepiot told reporters he expects to pitch again this year. The Rays went with a bullpen game to fill Pepiot\u2019s spot in the rotation today, with Ian Seymour<\/a>, Shane Baz<\/a>, Drew Rasmussen<\/a>, and Adrian Houser<\/a> set to go the next four days, so the club won\u2019t have to make a decision on Pepiot until their September 15 game against Toronto.<\/p>\n

Turning to the lineup, Topkin relays<\/a> that (according to manager Kevin Cash<\/a>) first baseman Jonathan Aranda<\/a> went for a checkup today as he nurses the fractured wrist<\/a> that sent him to the injured list on August 1. Aranda is progressing well, according to Cash, and has already begun hitting off a tee and playing catch as he starts to rehab his ailing wrist. It\u2019s still not clear if Aranda will have time to return before the end of the season, but the update is nonetheless encouraging about his ability to put together a normal offseason and enter Spring Training in a strong position for 2026. The 27-year-old Aranda enjoyed a breakout season at this dish this year and slashed .316\/.394\/.478 across 103 games while splitting time between first base and DH. It was a strong enough performance to earn Aranda the first All-Star nod of his career, and he figures to be a major contributor to the Rays for years to come given that he won\u2019t be eligible for arbitration until the 2027 season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Rays are set to change hands any day now, as current owner Stuart Sternberg has agreed to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":135786,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,476,462,33108,82],"class_list":["post-135785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-jonathan-aranda","tag-mlb","tag-ryan-pepiot","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135785\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}