Exhibit A in evidence that the Arizona Diamondbacks owners are still trying to figure out exactly who they want to shake down for what in terms of stadiums:

“It’s been limited to this point just because we haven’t felt an urge or a need at this point. So, [I] see it maybe accelerating a bit in the near future, but we also have to focus on downtown, too, which we haven’t done enough of, to see if it’s a viable option to stay. There’s still a lot of work to do there. What it would look like if we were to retro or refurbish [Chase Field] and if there’s any sort of development opportunities around it. But I think the day of standalone stadiums is not nearly as popular a move or model as what we see now with mixed use and with multiple acres. We just have to see what’s out there – you know, land availability, proximity, partnership opportunities, what the abilities are downtown. There’s a lot for us to do.” —Diamondbacks CEO Derrick Hall last week

And Exhibit B:

“Once the agreement was reached — how the Diamondbacks decided what needed to be done … I just wouldn’t know the facts,” [MLB commissioner Rob] Manfred said during a spring training media event last week. “I have every confidence that Chase Field will be in condition to be a major league facility this year.”

The commissioner said he would leave it up to the Diamondbacks to comment on whether the team has begun talks for a new stadium site.

“It really is a local matter,” he said.

“It’s a local matter” is what commissioners say when nobody is asking them to use their muscle to extract stadium concessions — or when the league as a whole is cutting loose an unfavored owner to drift in the wind, but given that Manfred already used his bully pulpit on this subject two years ago when he said the team’s current stadium wouldn’t remain “major league-quality” without significant upgrades, that’s clearly not the case here.

What seems to be going on is that now that Diamondbacks owner Ken Kendrick has successfully used the threat of a lawsuit over stadium maintenance to get out of his lease five years early, he’s now taking his time figuring out what his next move should be. The key phrase in Hall’s statement then becomes “We just have to see what’s out there” — there are a bunch of municipalities in the Phoenix area that team execs could try to play off against each other, as well as deciding whether to try to leverage the lease expiration to get a whole new stadium or maybe a renovated one with new development rights or whatever. Being a kid in a candy store is fun, but if you can only choose one multi-hundred-million-dollar jumbo box, you’re going to want to think carefully about your decision.

Reminder: All this is about replacing or upgrading a stadium that just turned 20 years old last year. Please, everybody, stop asking me if the stadium shakedown business is fated to slow down soon now that “everyone already has a new stadium.” Rod Fort’s old observation remains astute: There’s no reason for a sports team owner not to want a new stadium every year, so long as he’s not the one paying for it.

My first thought yesterday when I saw the news about an agreement between Maricopa County and the Arizona Diamondbacks and read it the way people do nowadays — look at the headline and first paragraph, then let your eyes lightly graze the rest — was “Let the Diamondbacks break their lease early just in exchange for dropping a lawsuit that the team owners were almost certain to lose? What a bunch of saps!”

Actually reading the details, though, it appears to be … “a good deal” would be overstating it massively, but certainly a reasonable decision by the county under the circumstances, albeit one that opens the door for some immediate stadium subsidy shakedown shenanigans.

The story so far: Diamondbacks owner Ken Kendrick sued the county a little over a year ago, claiming it owed him $187 million in repairs and upgrades to Chase Field. The county responded by pointing out that most of that money — which was projected costs contained in a 2013 report — was for things that the team’s lease specifically said were the team’s responsibility. Eventually a judge ordered the two sides to go to arbitration, which is where things stood until yesterday’s agreement.

Under that deal, which still needs to be approved by the full county board, Kendrick will drop his lawsuit and his $187 million upgrade demand, though he could still eventually get $20 million in county money as reimbursement for some repairs. In exchange, the team owner will get to start looking for a new home effective immediately, and will be able to leave Chase Field without penalty starting in 2022 if it’s for another stadium within the county — and leave the county altogether with just minor penalties of $5 million to $25 million.

That sounds terrible — except that the Diamondbacks’ lease was up in 2027 anyway, at which point the team could have left without penalty. So really this is just giving up five years of the team being guaranteed to stay put in exchange for the small but real risk that an arbitrator would require the county to cough up a bunch of renovation money, which at the going rate for lease extensions isn’t a terrible tradeoff.

The problem now, of course, is that Kendrick is certain to start shopping around for a new home — or, rather, shopping around for somebody else to pay him to build a new home, since he wasn’t even willing to pay to fix the “old” one that’s just 20 years old — and the Phoenix area is potentially a great place to do so, since it’s full of independent cities (and Native American reservations) that can be played off against each other. Sure, that’s going staggeringly poorly for the Arizona Coyotes, but then nobody really cares about the Coyotes — nobody visible to the naked eye, at least — whereas the Diamondbacks are fairly popular.

And then there’s the possibility that Kendrick could threaten to move the team out of Arizona entirely — something that would be incredibly stupid to actually follow through with, since it’s by far the largest TV market still available, but not necessarily stupid to threaten in order to scare some cash out of local legislators. After all, the team’s lawyers already threaten to do so once — or rather, threatened to have the league threaten to order them to — and one particular clause they insisted on putting in the new deal sure makes it sound like they’re considering that leverage option again:

An even broader “out” clause is included, which county leaders said they agreed to reluctantly.

“In the event the MLB requires the Team to leave Arizona because of the condition of the stadium, the Team may do so without penalty or other payments if all parties have acted in good faith,” the agreement reads.

Maricopa County Board Chairman Steve Chucri, R-Paradise Valley, said he does not believe the league would move the team. He said the county would sue if it did.

“It’s a risk. But it’s incredibly unlikely,” he said. “There are far worse stadiums” that the MLB hasn’t required teams to leave, he said, so yanking the Diamondbacks would be bad faith.

On the one hand: Oh, man, you seriously want to go into court to try to argue that something MLB is doing is in worse faith than typical MLB practice? Good luck with that. On the other: Enh, the most it will cost the county is $25 million in lost penalties anyway.

This is likely to be a long, ugly battle, and will be a significant test of whether stadium subsidy demands are really starting to fall on deaf ears, or just resting after a prolonged squawk. Check back here in about five years, and we should have the answer.

After the Arizona Diamondbacks lawyer’s statement in court this week that the team could be forced to move out of Arizona if the county won’t pay to fix leaky air conditioners was met with derision and people pointing out there aren’t exactly any better markets to move to, team CEO Derrick Hall attempted to walk the threat back yesterday. It was exactly as hilarious as you would expect:

“Over a month ago, we had a huge power outage with the heat downtown and, when the power came back on a Sunday before a day game, our chill system, our air-conditioning system, went down and we had huge gushing and rushing water leaks throughout the entire ballpark in major spots,” Derrick Hall told Doug and Wolf on 98.7 FM, Arizona’s Sports Station on Thursday.

Hall said the team was able to open the park and play that day, but it was a close call.

“That’s near-catastrophic and if we did not have air conditioning that day, we can’t play baseball,” he said…

The league’s plan could involve moving the team, but Hall said that would only be temporary.

“There’s nowhere to play in the marketplace if something like that happens indoors and in the summer, so I think Major League Baseball is talking about an emergency or a contingency plan and, again, they do have the ultimate authority,” he said.

Okay, so if the a/c didn’t work, the D-Backs might have had to postpone a game — something that only happens dozens of times over a typical season already. But supposedly MLB needs to have a “contingency plan” so that if the a/c doesn’t work on some future date, it would immediately fly the teams to another city and … yeah, this doesn’t make any sense at all. Just admit that your lawyer was trying to levy a ridiculous threat that the team would leave town without a county-renovated stadium and be done with it, okay?

“Obviously, [owner] Ken (Kendrick) and I would never want to leave Arizona. This is our home,” he said. “This is where we want to be.”

Sure, close enough. That’s the traditional paratrooper gambit, anyway.