The Athletics announced on Thursday that Keith Lieppman will step down from his post as director of player development and transition to a role as a special adviser to the front office. He’ll be succeeded by Ed Sprague, who has been promoted after serving as Lieppman’s assistant director for the last year.
Lieppman, 70, has become something of a legend within the Athletics organization, which he has served for nearly five decades dating to the early 1970s when the team drafted him in the second round. Between his years as a player, minor league manager, and executive, Lieppman has had his hand in decades of great Athletics baseball. He requested to step away from his position in order to spend more time with his family, recommending Sprague to replace him.
Sprague has served in the player development department for the last four seasons, first as an instruction coordinator before earning the title of assistant director for the 2019 season. He has also worked as the organization’s coordinator of on-field analytics, integrating the team’s analytic systems into the player development process. A former Major League All-Star, Sprague also served as the head coach for the University of Pacific prior to joining the Athletics.
Organizational figures like Sprague and Lieppman, who operate largely behind the scenes, often go unnoticed and under-appreciated since it’s awfully hard to quantify their contributions. Still, it seems that the Athletics’ player development department has enjoyed quite a bit of success with Lieppman at the helm. The current roster boasts a wealth of homegrown talent, including stars Matt Olson and Matt Chapman, with A.J. Puk and others on the way. Sean Manaea and Jesus Luzardo, though they were drafted by other clubs, have spent the majority of their careers with Oakland. Of course, that’s only recently: the organization has also drafted and developed stars like Barry Zito, Eric Chavez, Nick Swisher, and more.
From the bay area and listen to sports radio every day and never heard of this guy
Sports Radio in the Bay Area sucks. A few of those stations need to fail. They are entirely bland and generic.
The only clear ones are spanish.
Amen!
Never heard of him. Has big shoes to fill. Athletics have been the poster child for homegrown talent. Every year it seems they turn an unknown kid into a household name.
Wonder what their secret has been.
Canseco, McGuire, and Henderson were the genesis of what we see today. I wonder if that could give us a clue as to what they’re secret is.
Did you ever see Canseco, McGuire and Henderson complain? If they did, it wasn’t often. When the A’s are good it’s because the players they roll out every day have really good work ethic and demeanor. I think that 2012-2014 core was the most loose I’ve seen an A’s team, but the clubs from 88-91, 99-04 and this latest club have been very professional on the field. They get their work done and go about their business and don’t complain much.
You haven’t heard of Ed Sprague or the writer of this article?
Ed Sprague.
Under the radar yes, but I’m sure a’s fans are interested in this … BOTH of ‘em!!!
Love this guy! Only one more A’s fan to reply for we’ll call it a wrap.
Call it a wrap. You don’t recover from a burn like that.
You can’t fix stupid and stat man owns the market in it
Stupid lasts forever and statman owns the market in it
Must have taken all of your brain cells to write this one out. BOTH of ’em!!!
Got ’em. Sit down, guy.
A’s can let all FAs walk and sign no one and be absolutely nasty next year. They have too many ready-now prospects who deserve a shot, also 2B is open season, Profar, Mateo, Neuse, Pinder, Barreto….they really should stand pat this offseason, other than maybe signing a reliever or two.
Should definitely look to sign a couple of reliable relievers and then just sit and see what happens. I like where our depth is at pretty much all around the diamond at the moment, and we have some really interesting pitching prospects that will probably be on innings limits and could see time out of the bullpen, like Kaprielian, Jefferies, Gossett, etc.
I’d be open to a reunion with Zobrist if it makes sense, but that really depends on what the team wants to do with guys like Barreto and Mateo who are out of options.
I think if you are committed to adding a guy like Zobrist, that Howie Kendrick is a better fit, just because most positions are spoken for, there’s just not that many ABs available (as Pinder saw this year) and Kendrick has proven he can mash over a full season in this limited role. At this point he’s a better hitter than Zobrist is too, imo.
I’m also not really liking this “let Treinen walk” chatter, especially after Rodney was signed for more money when he looked way worse than Treinen did, and we’ve seen constantly how fickle RPs can be, form-wise. Treinen was also injured all year. They need to keep him and let him have another shot, he looks like a very obvious bounceback candidate to me.
If the A’s could get elite-level Hendriks, Petit, Soria, Treinen, Wendelken and Trivino all at once they’d be unstoppable. Bassit might be in the pen too. Sign Will Smith. Filthy.
I’m also not a fan of letting Treinen walk. He’ll get a raise of what, a million or two? Even to the A’s that’s not a lot if he can put together a season that’s somewhere between his 2018 and 2019. He’d still be a very valuable setup man. For all of the logic nontendering Treinen makes, you might as well just nontender Hendriks as well.
I think the only reason you non tender Treinen is to re-sign him and tack on a year or two at a lower AAV and hope that he rebounds. it’s not uncommon for a reliever to have a down year and come back fine.
Id get something , anything for fowler, baretto who arent in their plans. Mateo can be the utility 26th guy due to speed, ability to play shortstop and CF. And then become fulltime shortstop in 2021 since they wont sign semien
If Semien proves he can repeat his 2019 into the start of the season I think they will. A lot of people said the same thing about Khris Davis, and they signed him to an extension, albeit for only 2 years. They’re very similar in outlook, and both like playing in Oakland. I could see a deal between the two getting done if Semien puts together a representative start to his 2020 campaign.
There is a place for guys over 30, especially those that have spent their entire major league careers with a team and embody the ideals and ethics of the organization. Not sure there has been a player since the 90’s that has been that for the A’s like Semien has. Came up, had no position, committed a disgusting amount of errors, but he put in the work to become the player he is today.
I hope they do re-up Semien but IMO it’s all a function of the stadium getting done and the incoming revenue that will generate. Hopefully the City Council has enough pressure put on them they back off or the judge throws out the suit.
The A’s, city and county should just back up and suspend the land negotiation for the Coliseum land. It has no play in the team getting it’s ballpark built at Jack London Square, and that is what they need to be concerning themselves with this and next decade. A Coliseum Development won’t even begin until probably 2025 at the earliest.
I do believe the A’s will use the revenue to pay off Howard Terminal, but that can get done without it as well. It’d just be a nice perk, like, 20 years from now.
I was just saying that if the A’s ownership doesn’t get the stadium deal done it’ll be unlikely they extend Semien. Someone earlier mentioned the MI depth the A’s have and they’ll either let that sort itself out or package it and get a SS with more control for 2021 and beyond. The rest of the team on the offensive side of the ball is set though.
Ownership getting the stadium done or not is irrelevant to signing Semien to an extension. A land deal for a new stadium at HT won’t happen until sometime next season anyways.
If you can project increased revenue from a new stadium and all that brings it makes it more likely, IMO, they open the purse strings for Semien. If you can’t project any new revenue and you’ve got several more valuable assets you could use that money to make an extension to I believe they’d do that.
At 30 years of age when he hits free agency, unless he breaks out again he won’t be worth much more than he’ll be worth in his last year of arbitration. If the A’s give him that last year of arbitration they’ll be able to afford a few more years of him after that if they seriously intend to compete after 2020. It’d be worth it.
A’s fans and never heard of him? Probably should pay more attention.
1st step, anything beyond AM radio, how about the internet?