ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — City officials in St. Petersburg showed off the newly enclosed dome at Tropicana Field on Wednesday and said they are confident the ballpark will be ready for the Tampa Bay Rays‘ home opener April 6 against the Chicago Cubs following work to repair the damage caused by Hurricane Milton last year.

“We have no concern about being open or ready for Opening Day,” said Beth Herendeen, managing director of City Development Administration. “We hope we keep it that way.”

Some seam work remains on the final panels to close small gaps at the top, and interior repairs are well underway.

Tropicana Field sustained extensive damage on Oct. 9, 2024. High winds ripped sections of the original roof, allowing rain to fall into the stadium bowl for months. Water caused mold and damage to electrical, sound and broadcast systems.

The city contracted ETS, AECOM Hunt and Hennessy Construction to lead the repairs and brought back Geiger Engineering, the dome’s original designer, to help reengineer the roof. The synthetic membranes of Polytetrafluoroethylene are thicker and built to current wind-load codes.

“The roof that was replaced had to be designed to today’s codes,” city architect Raul Quintana said. “It’s a much stronger material than it was 35 years ago, and it’s going to last.”

The Rays played 2025 home games across the bay in Tampa at Steinbrenner Field, the spring training home of the New York Yankees.

Installation of the new roof began in August, and the final panel was put in place Nov. 21. Some triangular panels still show color variation, with newer pieces beige and earlier ones already bleached white, but Quintana said they will eventually match.

“It took about three months to bleach out the ones that were first installed,” he said.

The air-conditioning system has been reactivated, and contractors are focused on electrical work, seating and sound equipment. The team is upgrading the luxury suites and stadium videoboard.

“Drywall is being hung, seats are being painted, and the catwalk electric is being installed,” Herendeen said. “The new stadium sound system will be installed this month and tested in January.”

New artificial turf is scheduled to arrive in mid-January. Other final updates include new home plate club seats, clubhouse carpet and lockers, and flooring on the outfield deck.

Tampa Bay starts the season with a nine-game trip to St. Louis, Milwaukee and Minnesota.

Left-hander Anthony Kay and the Chicago White Sox are in agreement on a two-year, $12 million contract with a club option for a third season, sources told ESPN on Wednesday, bringing the veteran back to Major League Baseball after a successful two-year run in Japan.

Kay, 30, posted a 1.74 ERA over 155 innings for the Yokohama BayStars this year, featuring a new cutter, an improved changeup and a fastball that still sits at 95 mph years after he was one of the game’s best pitching prospects.

The White Sox are aiming to replicate their success with domestic pitchers returning from Asia two years after signing Erick Fedde to a two-year, $15 million deal.

Kay’s deal will pay him $5 million each of the next two seasons and will include a $10 million club option for 2028 with a $2 million buyout, sources said. He can earn another $1.5 million in incentives.

He will slot into a White Sox rotation that includes young right-handers Shane Smith, Davis Martin and Sean Burke. Chicago used 18 starters this year, when it went 60-102 — a 19-game improvement over 2024, when the White Sox set a major league record with 121 losses.

Kay’s return comes after a five-year major league career in which he posted a 5.67 ERA in 85⅔ innings with the Toronto Blue Jays, Chicago Cubs and New York Mets, who took him in the first round of the 2016 draft out of UConn. Kay cruised through the minor leagues and was dealt to the Blue Jays along with Simeon Woods Richardson for Marcus Stroman at the 2019 trade deadline.

Following a return to the Mets in 2023, Kay departed for Yokohama, where he threw 136⅔ innings of 3.42 ERA ball in his first season.

While Nippon Professional Baseball features a depressed offensive environment, Kay still ranked fifth in the league this year in ERA and allowed only eight home runs in 155 innings while striking out 130 and walking 41.

The Colorado Rockies brought in Josh Byrnes from the World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers to become their general manager and turn around a floundering franchise.

Byrnes will team again with Paul DePodesta, who was hired Nov. 7 as the Rockies’ president of baseball operations. The two joined forces in Cleveland in the 1990s, before DePodesta went to the Oakland Athletics and Byrnes joined the Rockies to work with then-GM Dan O’Dowd.

“I’m incredibly excited to be able to bring Josh into our group,” DePodesta said in a statement Wednesday. “Few executives in baseball share his combination of intellectual curiosity, breadth of experience, and on-field successes. We are extremely fortunate to add him, as he immediately strengthens our entire baseball operation.”

Byrnes joins a team coming off a third straight 100-loss season. He’s fresh off winning a World Series with the Dodgers for a second straight season. He also was with the Dodgers when they won in 2020.

The 55-year-old Byrnes takes over for Bill Schmidt, who stepped down after the season and following a long tenure with the team in a variety of roles.

“I’m thrilled to be returning to the Rockies organization, especially at such an exciting time for the future of the franchise,” Byrnes said. “Working alongside Paul again is an incredible opportunity and I’m eager to join him and the rest of the group as we work to bring championship caliber baseball to the Rockies.”

Byrnes knows the NL West well having also been in the front offices with the Arizona Diamondbacks and the San Diego Padres. He broke into the business as an advanced scout in Cleveland. Byrnes was with Boston as an assistant GM when the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004.

Colorado missed the playoffs for a seventh straight season. The Rockies finished 43-119 this year as they narrowly avoided becoming the team with the worst record since the 162-game schedule started in 1961.

Among the first moves by DePodesta was the promotion of Warren Schaeffer to full-time manager. Schaeffer assumed the role on an interim basis after the Rockies fired Bud Black – the winningest manager in franchise history – in May following a 7-33 start.

Colorado boasts a young nucleus that includes All-Star catcher Hunter Goodman and shortstop Ezequiel Tovar. The team also drafted Ethan Holliday with the No. 4 pick last summer. His father, Matt, is Rockies royalty after helping spark 2007’s “Rocktober” run that led to the franchise’s only World Series appearance, in which they were swept by Boston.

A chunk of Colorado’s payroll is tied up in the contract of often-injured slugger Kris Bryant, who’s played in only 170 big league games since signing a $182 million, seven-year deal before the 2022 season.