Rangers Have Lease Deal In Place With Kinston

SEE ALSO: High Desert Agreement Terminated

Carolina League franchises are just waiting for the first California League domino to fall. The city of Kinston even has a signed lease in place with the Texas Rangers.

All they need now is a franchise.

Houston Astros officials rekindled talk of a minor league franchise shift last week with news that they were touring Fayetteville, N.C., with local officials there, who confirmed the team was interested in bringing a “high Class A franchise” to the city.

The Rangers were already known to be interested in moving to Kinston, N.C., after being stuck in High Desert in the Cal League for the past two seasons. What is not as widely known is that the Rangers and the city of Kinston already have a lease agreement in place.

“Since (July 2015) we’ve had a signed contract with the Texas Rangers for a lease agreement on our historic Grainger Stadium,” Kinston city manager Tony Sears said. “So we have a signed lease agreement. That agreement says they had two years to bring baseball to Kinston before the start of the 2017 season.”

The Kinston city council approved the agreement on July 21, 2015, when it looked like the Rangers were going to buy the Wilmington Blue Rocks Carolina League franchise. In that deal, the Binghamton Mets Eastern League franchise was going to move from New York to Wilmington, Del., with the Carolina League franchise sliding to Kinston. That deal fell through, however.

But the lease agreement between Kinston and the Rangers gives the club until the beginning of the 2017 season to bring a team to Kinston. The Rangers desperately want out of their California League situation, and with no obvious openings coming up in the Carolina League, moving a team looks like the best bet. If it doesn’t work out, both sides walk away and Grainger Stadium remains vacant. If an agreement is finalized, however, the deal will keep the Rangers in Kinston for 12 seasons.

It’s worth noting that the owner of the Rangers’ current affiliate, Main Street Baseball, also owns the Blue Rocks, so the Rangers and Main Street are familiar with each other. And there can be little doubt that both parties share a desire to move out of High Desert. Main Street is currently locked in a legal dispute with the city of Adelanto, Calif., which essentially tried to lock the team out of the ballpark in the offseason.

Kinston and the Rangers, meanwhile, have a plan to commit $1.625 million to renovating the stadium. Part of that money would go toward updating the lights to something more modern. The money would also go toward adding padding to the outfield walls.

There are no plans to build a new ballpark in the small eastern North Carolina town, which had a Carolina League franchise from 1978-2011. There are plans to try to attract new businesses around Grainger Stadium, which was built in 1949, but the ballpark itself would remain as historic as ever, save for the required fixes specified in the lease.

“When the . . . Red Sox find they want to start talking about replacing Fenway and the Green Monster, we’ll start considering it too,” Sears said. “Other people are doing it for other things, but we think there’s other things that we can do to enhance that as part of a downtown revitalization by attempting to acquire satellite parcels around and adjacent to the park for a better game day experience.

“Right now our community prefers the feel of that, and if we can have economic development around that stadium to do what those other new ballparks are doing, that’s definitely what we want to look at. But we also understand that we have something that’s unique.”

Kinston, as it was when it was in the Carolina League, would be one of the smallest markets in the full-season minors. The city of Kinston has a population of about 21,000, and Lenoir County’s population is about 60,000. But the region’s support of the team was steadfast, and the city has seen a bit of a downtown rebirth thanks in large part to the Chef and the Farmer restaurant. The restaurant became regionally notable for the quality of its cuisine, then gained national renown with the PBS television series, “A Chef’s Life.” Chef and the Farmer is less than a mile from Grainger Stadium.

And frankly just about any situation would be better than what the Rangers have seen in High Desert. The situation between the team and the city of Adelanto has become heated over the past year or so. The city council voted to evict the team from Mavericks Stadium because of what it viewed as unfavorable lease terms that made the document illegal, but the team won an injunction in March to stay through the season.

The Rangers were the last team standing in the affiliation shuffle that took place after the 2014 season, so they have been looking for alternatives essentially ever since.

Sears said “about nine” Rangers officials have come out to look at the ballpark and surrounding area.

“When we contacted them,” he said, “they said that they are still actively working on trying to relocate a team or find a team for Kinston. They’ve been steadfast since day one and I have complete confidence in them and their ability to do that.”

Rangers farm director Mike Daly did not offer any comment on the situation. “The Texas Rangers are continuing to explore options as it pertains to the future of a high Class A affiliate,” he said. “The team has no other comment at this time.”

The other Cal League franchise in play would be the Bakersfield Blaze. Elmore Sports Group owns the Blaze (and the Inland Empire 66ers) but presumably has no strong desire to keep it, having taken the franchise over after the previous owners were unable to work out a deal for a new stadium and wanted out. Technically no one can own two teams in the same league, but to get around that, Dave Elmore owns the Inland Empire team, while his son owns Bakersfield.

While Bakersfield itself is a fine market, Sam Lynn Stadium grades out as one of the worst ballparks in the minor leagues and regularly receives waivers from Minor League Baseball to operate below Professional Baseball Agreement standards.

The problem up to now has been finding a second market in the Carolina League, but if things work out in Fayetteville, it looks like the people of Kinston might finally get their team back.

“When we talk with our citizens here in Kinston, it honestly is a No. 1 issue,” Sears said. “It ranks in our top three consistently in the four years since the Indians have left. Even we announced a year ago that we had this signed lease, it was unbelievable the amount of people we had calling the city wanting contact information so they could buy season tickets.”