The Oakland A’s announced new long-term deals today for Executive VP of Baseball Ops Billy Beane, General Manager David Forst, and Manager Bob Melvin, per a team report.
Melvin’s deal will take him through 2021 at about $3.5MM per season, which puts him in the upper echelon of managers in terms of yearly salary, per Susan Slusser of the San Francisco chronicle, who provides some of the contract details. Forst is now signed through 2023, giving him another four years as the Oakland GM. The length of Beane’s extension is as of yet unknown, though the expectation is that he will be in Oakland for the foreseeable future.
Extensions were expected for the Oakland trio after a surprising 97-65 record took the team to the Wild Card game versus the Yankees despite fielding a team with the lowest opening day payroll in the league. Faced with those limited resources and a host of injuries, Beane, Forst and Melvin frankensteined together a pitching staff from veteran castoffs and reclamation projects like Edwin Jackson, Trevor Cahill and Brett Anderson. Together with an offense powered by a defensive third basemen and the most consistent hitter in baseball history, Oakland stormed past the Mariners to place themselves in the elite class of American League contenders. With their braintrust locked in, Oakland has achieved its primary goal of the offseason and can now turn the trio’s attention toward building on their 2018 success and staying atop a crowded AL West.
Beane was the GM of the A’s for 18 years before the promotion to his current title in 2015. He has been named Executive of the Year twice by Baseball America, twice by The Sporting News, as well as MLB.com’s Greatness in Baseball Yearly (GIBBY) award as the 2012 MLB Executive of the Year. He is most famous, of course, for launching the moneyball era of baseball sabermetrics, but he continues to hunt for and find market inefficiencies that help his Oakland A’s overcome the payroll disparity they face year in and year out. He holds an ownership stake in the A’s, so it seems he is secure in his role running the baseball ops department ad infinitum. Beane signs this new deal as he wraps up the five-year deal he signed back in 2012.
Melvin is a two-time manager of the year recipient, most recently in 2012 with Oakland. He is third in franchise history with 634 wins, and it’s certainly conceivable that he’ll pass Tony La Russa (798) for second on that list before this new deal is done. Before the extension, Melvin had inked a series of short-term arrangements, including when he and the club agreed to tack on the 2019 season as the 2017 campaign drew to a close. Amazingly, this season’s 22-win improvement is the third time Melvin has led a team to a 20-game improvement. He has been with the A’s since 2011, making the playoffs four times in that span (2012, 2013, 2014, 2018).
It’s not entirely clear how Forst’s contract situation has been handled in the past, but he has been with the Oakland organization for twenty years. He served for twelve years as the assistant general manager before his promotion to GM four years ago. He may not have as much name recognition as Billy Beane, but Forst has long been a part of the braintrust in Oakland and seems to be, like Beane, an Oakland lifer.
Hope this is just the beginning!
If this team performs as well as it did last year with some of the more exciting pieces coming up through our farm system we might see another quick extension for BoMel through 2023 as well.
Not if they keep failing in the playoffs under him, he’s getting all the credit when Christenson is the reason why they were so good this year.
Now just sure up the bullpen and pray for some healthy starters. Maybe sign a veteran OF like Jon Jay and a veteran utility guy like Freddy Galvis to play 3B SS 2B
Bullpen is actually still going to be a point of strength next season. Treinen, Trivino, Pagan, Buchter, Petit, Wendelken and maybe AJ Puk joins them if he’s healthy after TJS.
I don’t think we touch another LHH OF either. We’ve got Powell, Fowler and Martini for 5 more years, and I really don’t see us trading Fowler. As for Galvis, we already have an athletic super utility player that hits better than Galvis.
They should be all over guys like Eovaldi, Happ, maybe Sabathia, and hope that Manaea, Cotton and Graveman can come back to form next year. Some combination of them on top of Fiers and one of their cheap fill ins like Anderson or Jackson should be enough when paired with that bullpen depth and elite defense.
No on Sabathia. He is way over the hill and the A’s need innings.
And he’s a clown. Don’t need someone that complains about baseball being played the right way in our clubhouse.
Don’t worry he wouldn’t sign there anyway. Oh it’s not your clubhouse either.
Yes he would sign in a heart beat if they offered him a contract.
He grew up an A’s fan and his family all root for the A’s so why wouldn’t he sign there ?
Why would we WANT him to sign there? He spent so much of last season complaining about bunts and having to field his position. That’s not what the A’s want on their team following a year where our first baseman, second baseman, third baseman and shortstop are all gold glove finalists.
I’d argue that having an all-gold glove level INF is all the more reason to sign a pitcher who isn’t good on defense. CC was lowkey complaining about how crappy Andujar is on defense (facts).
With the news that Shields is out in Chicago, he would seem like a decent pickup– not going to cost a lot, but can potentially provide a lot of innings at reasonable levels of performance.
I think Cahill comes back, too; the team clearly values him given that they pursued a reunion years after trading him.
Shields is a big no. Beane just said the payroll is going up and he’s targeting SPs. Hoping that means Eovaldi but who knows what Beane’s up to.
At this point why not just give Beane a lifetime contract?
That already happened when he turned down the opportunity to be the General Manager of the Red Sox.
^^^
Ownership stake is basically the same thing
Billy Beane with that sterling 1-9 playoff series record in 20 seasons.
Most GM’s wish they could get their teams to the playoffs 10 times during their tenure.
Most GMs wish they could get 20 years to get a ring.
Man you butchered that attempt.
Poor baby doesn’t have any facts to back up their opinion?
1 ALCS appearance (a sweep) in 20 seasons is not good results. Period.
Most overrated executive in all of sports.
It’s more about what he’s done with the resources he has, what is the biggest contract he’s ever signed a guy to? Cespedes?
Could be worse they could be the mariners or numerous other teams that never make it to the world series. Beane’s problem has always been bad decision making up for lack of payroll. No back up catcher in the KC wild card cost them once their catcher got hurt. Starting a reliever in the last WC was a big mistake. If the A’s can develop a Ace starter they could go further in the playoffs. You can’t win in the playoffs with middle of rotation starters.
When did the A’s make it to the World Series under Beane? The Las Vegas Slots..has a ring to it.
When did your team win anything? Never had but you come talking about the A’s so you do care about the A’s.
The AL Wild Card this year over those A’s..bub
Aww poor baby Yankees fan can’t deal with the fact Boston won it all.
Good luck winning the division next year, you’re going to need it XD
4 times the amount of payroll and just to get knocked around by the red sox. If Beane had 4 x the payroll the A’s would have easily beat the spankies.
If if’s and but’s were candy and nuts we’d all have a merry Christmas.
Nah, there’s a mountain of Blue Jays GMs who we all had to sit back and hear what geniuses they are. Preller too. Beane at least makes the playoffs basically 50% of the time, that’s good. Dipoto is more overrated than Beane too.
Do you do admit that it would be true Slevin?
Underdrive…the geniuses were just JP Ricciardi, a Billy Bean disciple, and Anthopoulos who was average. Wouldn’t call 2 guys “mountain”. Although if you include Pat Gillick, well, he’s in the Hall of Fame.
Nobody is calling Atkins and genius. Not yet anyway.
@arc89 but he doesn’t and he didn’t. Yanks eliminate A’s where have I heard that before?
Honestly would love to see the Brewers sign Brett Anderson and resign Wade Miley then go after any of the higher priced starting pitchers
Brewers need to set their sights higher than Brett Anderson. No disrespect to Anderson, but the Brewers need to be looking for guys that will put them over the top.
Surprised Oakland can afford to pay Melvin that kind of money. How many vending machines did they have to sell to cover that contract?
Always take care of your front office personnel, especially if you can’t afford to pay big bucks to players. The $700k or whatever Melvin gets a year is worth quite a bit more than $6M to some mediocre starter.
It was sarcasm. Beane doesn’t want to break in another guy to follow his game plan.
He already has a guy broken in to follow his game plan. Christenson was a pretty valuable backup. Reason they didn’t have him manage Triple A again was to get him valuable experience at the big league level.
The players have to drink Shasta cola for the next five years.
BC Cola actually.
Beane has to be the most over-rated GM in baseball history. He constantly uses his budget as an excuse and calls winning in the post-season a “crap-shoot.” As was apparent to anyone that watched the playoffs and WS this year, the Red Sox did not win simply by luck – and they didn’t rely purely on stats and launch angles like the Dodgers seem to do. Beane has made a ton of blunders over the years and has sabotaged his team’s chances to win in the post season (trading his clean-up hitter in the middle of the season, starting a journey-man middle reliever in the WC game this year, etc). Many of his trades have backfired (Donaldson, Ethier, Cargo, etc). The movie made about his exploits failed to point out that much of the success of the team that year was due to the starting pitchers acquired by the former GM and oh by the way, they failed to advance in the playoffs that year. The only think he’s been consistently good at is churning his roster which results in constant rebuilds and a team that has consistently finished close to last in home attendance year-in and year-out.
“Most overrated” in sports history.
This is an insightful and thought-provoking comment that raises the level of discussion here. Thank you for taking the time to post this twice. It was so profound that it definitely needed to be said again.
No, the first time I didn’t include the word “history”. Thanks for your input though.
You’re right, the addition of that one word totally changes the context and meaning of your other post. Your intellect is truly stunning.
It’s a joke that he’s had the job that long.
Marlins are low payroll and won a ring in the last 20 years.
Royals are low payroll and won a ring in the last 20 years.
Padres went to the WS. Rays went to the WS.
Only other teams that haven’t won a single LCS game in the last 20 years are the Orioles, Twins and Reds, and they’ve all cycled through heads of front office multiple times in that span.
Bullseye
Twins snagged 1 game in the 2002 ALCS losing to the Angels. They can proceed with caution.
Lol I can’t believe there’s still a discussion about billy beane being overrated. Those people are clowns
How much input did Billy Beane the part owner have in extending Billy Beane the exec?
Say what you want about the A’s, there is no denying that they have the very best performance vs. dollars spent over the last 20 years. Additionally they all of a sudden have a deep and toolsy farm system. Job well done here and more likely to come..
And Billy Beane said payroll will start increasing this year. Should be an interesting offseason for us.
As a fan, who cares about performance vs dollars spent? I think most fans want wins, pure and simple. And wins in the post-season, most of all. The A’s churn and burn, turning over their roster continuously, thus creating very little attachment by the fans to their players, which in my opinion is partly responsible for their very low historic attendance figures. The other reason, I believe, is low relative fan base in the bay area.
Every team turns over their roster constantly. Out of everyone Beane moved in a trade, only Hudson and Donaldson were the gaffs, and the Donaldson one is actually looking like a win if Barreto takes over 2B next year.
The problem with the A’s isn’t Beane but Melvin. They should have never fired Ken Macha after he won a playoff series. Melvin is a career .500 manager who cant win big games or understands September baseball in the slightest. Luckily that might not matter if Beane assembles a team he can’t lose with, it just sucks watching people think he’s the reason when he’s the biggest flaw of the team. I mean his lineup creation was pathetic all season long, and he love of riding relievers grows old fast. But Ryan Christenson is the future and they need to keep him in house and hire him in 2023 or earlier.
Beane, Forst, and Melvin have been outstanding. Giants took over the market when they built their new park. . With a mediocre GM/manager combo, the A’s attendance would be so low they’d be seriously talking about Portland instead of a new stadium near downtown.. (I’m a big fan but gave up my partial season tickets because the stadium is so depressing.)
Go A’s. Billy Beane is masterful dealing with tight resources. Forst follows Beane’s school and Melvin is the perfect Manager for a team that should be extremely competitive next year…
“franksteined”
Butchering a made up word in an overwrought attempt at interesting writing, great.
Of course you gotta pay the guy that helps screw his guys out of their fair share. He makes the bottom line look good and that is his real contribution to the game. Thanks to Money Ball he is seen as a baseball guy instead of just a salary depressing number cruncher. He does just drive down salaries for the Athletics. Every contract extension he touches creates an perverse economic bonus that attracts other teams to trade for that “value” he created. Then it helps push down the arbitration figures for the rest of the guys who haven’t reached the magic number. The commish should give him a medal on behalf of the other owners.