Rusney Castillo is one of the few mega-millionaires I actually kind of felt bad for over the years. The Red Sox signed him to a gigantic contract based off of a And1 Mixtape workout video (which seems to have been scrubbed from the internet) and he shockingly never really lived up to the hype. Well because of their seemingly never ending luxury tax issues, the Sox stashed Castillo in Pawtucket for the last 4 years. The reason John Henry is fine paying Castillo $11 million a year to play in the Ocean State? Because AAA player salaries don’t count against the major league payroll of course! So rather than maybe work his way into a 4th outfielder role, Castillo has been stuck in Pawtucket so the Sox can hide his money like it’s an offshore bank account. He’s been pretty good too with a minor league career batting avg of .293 in 467 games and he even hit 17 dingers in 2019.
And if you enjoy players sticking it to owners, it’s impossible not to laugh at Castillo forgoing free agency and the opportunity to play in the majors somewhere. Nope, he had a player option for $13.5 million in 2020 that he happily opted into knowing he’ll most certainly remain in AAA.
After slashing $59 million off the 2020 payroll with the salary dumps of Mookie Betts and David Price, there’s suddenly some breathing room under the luxury tax. So maybe 2020 is the year we finally see Rusney Castillo for a full season? Why the hell not.
98.5 – It’s official: call them the “WooSox.” The Triple-A affiliate of the Boston Red Sox will keep the Red Sox nickname as they move from Pawtucket to Worcester in 2021. The team made the announcement Monday night and will brand themselves as the WooSox for short.
A bit anticlimactic, no?
After all the buzz and hundreds of suggestions from fans they ended up teasing this whole big announcement…only to keep the same exact name. Okay.
It was never a realistic option for the team to go away from the iconic brand that is the Red Sox. Would something cheeky like the Hartford Yard Goats or the Binghamton Rumble Ponies been cool? Yes, but this is a minor league franchise betting $100 Million on the fact that people will come to their games in Worcester. So sticking with the clear association to the Red Sox is no surprise.
What is surprising though is that odd smiley face logo wearing actual Red Sox.
I didn’t realize one person could take credit for something so omnipresent in American culture. Its like Mugatu taking credit for inventing the piano key neck tie.
Ya learn something new every day on this blog. Not sure if I’m dying to buy a smiley face Sox hat (I probably will), but I am psyched to see this new ballpark. As we’ve detailed here in the past, Larry Lucchino is building his magnum opus in this Triple-A ballpark in Worcester. This place is going to be sick.
Just a damn shame that friend of the blog Rusney Castillo, probably the most infamous PawSox player of all time, won’t be around to bear the fruit of his labor since his contract ends in 2020.
Boston.com – “We want a ballpark that really looks like Worcester, tastes like Worcester, smells like Worcester — a ballpark that is really representative of its home town,” Rea, the executive vice president of real estate development and business affairs for the Pawtucket Red Sox, recently told Boston.com in an interview.
Over the last month, PawSox officials have begun to reveal what that exactly could mean.
Rea says they’re currently “knee deep” in the planning efforts for the future home of the Red Sox Triple-A affiliate, who will begin playing in Worcester in 2021. The team announced the move last August, along with plans to build a 10,000-seat stadium in Worcester’s Canal District as part of a development project that includes restaurants, apartments, and a hotel overlooking the ballpark…
…has partnered with Worcester-based craft brewer Wormtown Brewery and beverage distributor Atlas to curate a locally inspired beer menu.
“We want people to be able to have Coors and Miller and Bud, but also have the local flare that I think the Worcester and Central Mass. area is becoming known for,” Rea said.
Welcome to Worcester. Dollar Twenty Five.
Larry Lucchino is most famous for three things: 1.) Designing the beautiful Camden Yards ballpark in Baltimore 2.) Leading the revival and renovations of the modern day Fenway Park and 3.) Running Theo Epstein out of town over a pissing contest. Obviously No. 3 is not ideal, but No. 1 and No. 2 are great legacies, which is why I have faith in Larry building something awesome in Worcester.
At first glance Polar Park seems like just another licensing rights sell out that means nothing. Whether intentional or not, it actually works really well because (at least for the Pawtucket Red Sox) the Triple-A team’s mascot currently is…
Yup, a polar bear. Or “Osos Polares de Pawtucket” if you happened to grab the fire flames hispanic themed hat like myself.
Larry’s even brought in the same architects to design the new park that have been leading the Fenway renovations for the last two decades.
It sounds like they’re being pretty creative with the entrances too, which is great not only for designing a unique experience but also helps with the bottle neck problem so many parks have.
Similar to Fenway, team officials are planning to have entrances all around Polar Park, so that fans can enter from different angles and the “full circumference of the venue is busy and activated,” Rea said. The park will also be built into a hill. So while fans entering the home-plate side on Madison Street would come in on street level, those coming from the direction of Worcester’s lively Green Street restaurant and bar scene would actually walk down into the stadium from center and right field (think Baltimore’s Camden Yards with a Jersey Street-type scene above the outfield seats).
I can’t tell you how many times theres been a massive line at Fenway right when you cross over the bridge to only just bomb down around to the Ted Williams statue and just double back to save a few minutes.
“I think there will be some unique outfield geometry and architecture,” he said. “We’re still putting those final pieces in place. But I think there will be some unique Fenway-esque architecture, if not identical dimensions and identical height walls. But some things will certainly have that sort of feel to it — not just some generic, perfectly symmetrical outfield.”
Fenway-esque architecture? Hell if I know what that means. I would think as the Triple-A team you would want players to get used to the same dimensions that the parent club is using in their home ballpark so that would make sense, but who knows.
Anddd its gonna be pricey!
According to the Worcester Business Journal, it will be the fourth-most expensive minor league park ever built when adjusted for inflation.
“We want a ballpark that has Fenway charm, but with the modern amenities that you expect from a 21st century ballpark,” Rea said.
The “flexible seating and social areas” are a great idea because sometimes you just want to grab a sausage and a couple beers and shoot the shit with your buds.
Around 7,200 to 7,500 of the park’s 10,000-person capacity will be traditional, fixed ballpark seats, Steinberg said at a fan preview night in Pawtucket last month. The rest will be flexible seating and social areas catering toward younger fans and families. Rea thinks such gathering spaces will be key for attracting students from the 13 colleges in the Worcester area, who have reportedly complained about not having anywhere to mingle with each other.
I’ve done this at plenty of Sox games when I stumble onto $10 tickets and its a blowout. The roof deck down the first base line is one of my favorite spots in Fenway. It also reminds me of the open local brewery and picnic table areas I raved about in our Portland SeaDogs ballpark review.
We’ll be heading back to Portland in August for another SeaDogs game and I’ll probably hit Pawtucket again for the seasons over. Needless to say I am a huge fan of minor league ballparks, whether its Pawtucket or Portland or the NH Fisher Cats or even some Brockton Rox games back in the day. Still need to make it to the Hartford Yard Goats who apparently have a sick brand new stadium downtown, but I will 100% be checking out the Worcester stadium once the PawSox move their in 2021.
Until then, please please just don’t ruin the team name with some gimmicky mascot. As Frank Lucas once said, “thats a brand name.”
The 300s 