There is a chance that this will be longtime manager Bob Melvin’s last season at the helm of the Athletics. This is the final guaranteed year of Melvin’s contract, which includes a team option for 2022, and he and general manager David Forst have publicly addressed his status this week.
“His option at this point is more a function of what he wants to do rather than what we want,” Forst said Wednesday, per Matt Kawahara of the San Francisco Chronicle. “He’s earned that right. So that will be the conversation we have going forward.”
Melvin, however, wants to stay in Oakland. The Bay Area native said Friday (via Kawahara): “I have no desire to go anywhere else. I’m perfectly happy here and my bosses have taken good care of me here. So that’s where I stand on it.”
At this point, it’s hard to imagine the Athletics wanting to cut ties with Melvin, who has held the reins since 2011 and led the small-budget team to a 767-689 regular-season record with six playoff berths. Melvin, previously a skipper with the Mariners and Diamondbacks, has won Manager of the Year honors three times – including with Oakland in 2012 and ’18.
Good career and great manager
Hope he’s not the next Mets mgr
Hi Al
✌️How’s life in the FREE world
Yeah, I’ve heard him often say he loves the Queens weather much more than the Bay Area. He’s stoked for the Mets job!
I love sarcasm, but remember money talks, it makes people not care about the weather and such things. My absolutely wish would’ve for Buck Showalter but Bob Melvin would do as well, either way I have a feeling if we dont go deep this year, uncle Stevie will have someone else running the dugout.
Buck Showalter should be the next Mets Mgr.
@Unicorndog- lol. Hearing if the A’s sign Yoenis Cespedes, Melvin will re-sign for 10 more years to manage in Oakland? Wherever Melvin goes Yoenis will be there.
I don’t want Buck Showalter near the Mets. He’s an ass and does a lot of complaining on the field.
Man Ive been wondering where Dutch went, aren’t you like 200+ yrs old by now??
Hey at least I’m better looking than John Marston.
Bob Melvin is one of the best managers in the sport and I couldn’t be happier that he is our head coach. He’s been the perfect guy for us since he came in 2011. I’m not looking forward to the days he’s not our head coach.
Head coach?
Head coach, manager, same difference.
Bob Melvin also coaches the Raiders.
A reunion with Seattle would be nice.
Not really.
Come to SF in two years
Why so he can helm another low budget team?
The Giants are a low-budget team?
Giants are gonna stay a lower budget team for the next five years while the Padres and Dodgers dominate prove me wrong everyone! Doesn’t matter if they make money if they choose not to spend it (right now) I’ll call them a low budget team until they start again and wanna be in the top 15 payrolls
Giants are hardly a low budget team my friend.
High budget, low talent.
Um..how many rings does your team have since 2010?
How many rings does your team have since 2014?
How many World Series games have the Padres won in their entire history?
Hint: It’s more than zero but less than two.
How clever. Back to reality you guys will be afraid to financially try and contend for the next decade with two teams in your division established as the best right now so hope you enjoyed
Bob Melvin is the man
Sure would love to see him in queens.
There is never any expectations to make the playoffs. What better gig could he get???
A time with payroll flexibility
He’s a class act.
Couldn’t agree more
one postseason series win during his tenure and it was a 3 game series…
Not much different then the A’s managers that came before him in the Billy Beane era.
Even Beane admitted that Moneyball didn’t work well in the Post-Season. Can help some, but baseball is baseball – the players on winning teams play quality fundaments in the post-season. At turning points in games is when batters get the big hits and/or pitchers make the big pitches. That and some luck. The way it’s always been.
A sportswriter acquaintance that has been coving a ML team for over 35 years through multiple mangers and coaches that have won in his city and elsewhere say the same thing. The kids that tell us: “There’s no such thing as clutch” only do so because the reality is that a computer algorithm can’t find it. Doesn’t mean it’s not true. Which is why WATCHING games is so rewarding!
It’s not that there isn’t “clutch”. It’s that it’s not static. Just because a guy is/was clutch in one year, or multiple years, doesn’t mean he will be all the time. Sometimes the very psychological factors that make a player have a “slow heart beat” or whatever it takes to slow things down when pressure is highest, sees that edge go away. Tom Watson, one of the greatest champion golfers of all time got the yips. Derek Jeter, universally acclaimed as one of the best clutch performers ever, had no less than 10 playoff series where his OPS didn’t even crack .600 .
bbref.com/pi/shareit/TGltt
High drama, high leverage, clutch performances have meaning and resonate with all of us fans. Just know that it’s not static. A hero today can be a bum tomorrow, and redeem himself again later. It happens all the time. Just don’t try to predict it. you’ll fail.
shoewizard, Corey Seager was terrible in the post-season until last year. After 2019, fans on some Dodger sites were demanding the team upgrade at SS by dumping Seager and trading for Lindor. Now, these same people want Seager to remain a Dodger for life.
@ceyhey kershaw had the same problem for most of his postseason career, thou i think a lot of his poor performance in oct was he was burnt out by oct. iirc during kershaw’s prime he either had a staff of 4’s around him (grenkie being the exception) or no pen to hand it over.
Yup.
Randy Johnson was 2-6, with a 3.71 ERA in the post season before 2001
In 2001 went 5-1 in post seasoin threw 41 IP, 1.52 ERA, and won W.S. CO MVP with Schilling
Had a 7.11 ERA in the final 4 post season games of his career, including a real clunker against the Cards in the 2002 divisional coming off another cy young season.
bbref.com/pi/shareit/WAwuZ
Bob Melvin I believe is a boarder line HOF Manager. Especially if he has a few more winning seasons and if the A’s spent more $$, some success in the PO’s
Sorry but Melvin isn’t anywhere near a HOF manager. He has gotten the A’s to overachieve but once in the postseason reality sets in and they are overmatched.
@amk what qualifies as a HoF manager in your opinion?
Rings
At least 1 World Series title. You can’t put a manager in the HoF for making the playoffs a few times he shouldn’t have.
Tom Kelly has two rings and nobody considers him HOF worthy. Tommy Lasorda has two rings as is in. This opinion is unpopular with my fellow Dodger fans, but I don’t feel Lasorda really belongs.
He has no reason to leave that prime spot. Ownership loves him. Management loves him. The players and fans love him. The media adores him for the most part. I bet the janitor and service team leave a mint on his chair.
Not everybody is satisfied with comfort; particularly when they just haven’t had the finances to push them into the top tier. I’m not saying its impossible, but winning a championship in Oakland is tougher than other places when you lose out on all the best players, both in your organization and elsewhere, to free agency.
Harder in Oak than TB?
TB has never won a chip either lol
Melvin will pass Tony LaRussa for second all time in wins with the A’s this season and has had the team mostly competitive during his time in Oakland. I don’t really see him leaving unless he really wants to. We know Cashman tried to buy him back in 2018 before they hired Aaron Boone and i wonder if the Yankees would be interested again if they can just sign him outright
Bob Melvin a genius
Rob Manfred a dolt
You got a real vendetta going.
You’re right . It’s Good Friday
Forgive Manfred, for he knows not what he does.
Happy Easter all!
I wounder how he would fare with a team that had some money to spend..
they do have money to spend, they just dont spend said money.
Bob Melvin deserves every compliment there is for the job he has done. He is an excellent baseball guy, and a great person. He was a terrific teammate as well. He played under Humm Baby’s Giants and was admired back then.
I wish the Giants could scoop him up someday!
I think this is awesome! Imagine having your MLB organization’s executives publicly state your managerial job is in your hands after this season? MLB manager jobs never go this way, as you all well know. This speaks volumes as to the job he’s done inside the organization. I don’t follow him too closely, although he seems solid, but this is pretty incredible in today’s cutthroat business climate.
Good job, Bob Melvin! And nice job Oakland A’s. Bonus points for being open and genuine for a guy who’s done well, instead of the ubiquitous circuitous narrative that pervades walk-year press statements……
A’s Bob Melvin is absolutely the best man for the job. Billy Beane and co just need more financial means from owner Fisher to go and win a World Series long overdue…
If he doesn’t retire I’d love for the Yankees to hire him and move on from Boone. There were reports Cashman tried engaging Melvin after moving on from Girardi but the A’s wouldn’t allow them to speak. Wonder if there’s still interest
He had the misfortune of following Lou Pinella as Mariners manager. He couldn’t get them into the playoffs. He may be a good manager now, but can’t see how’d he’d be HOF material.
If Bob Melvin does decide to leave his position as Manager in Oakland it would be because the current ownership here won’t commit to fielding a competitive team. The frustration of being handicapped from ownership might be too much for Melvin to accept anymore. One consistency in Oakland is that you can be assured that this team will be in the bottom third in MLB team total payroll year after year.
Melvin has done a very good job with what he’s been given to work with while in Oakland. The A’s have overachieved for many seasons. That run can catch up to them at some point in time and possibly even this season. Ownership let their best hitter and closer from last season walk away over contracts. Another sign of lack of commitment to winning. Their desperation moves to replace the shortstop position with Andrus is underwhelming at best. Bringing back retread Lowrie to play second base gives the A’s their worst up the middle defense they’ve had in many seasons.
If this ownership doesn’t show the fan base something by offering Melvin an extension this season then that is another sign of the lack of commitment and concern to be competitive.
Every Oakland Athletics fan should be questioning themselves why they would want to attend and support Fisher. Don’t wait until they trade Chapman and Olson for prospects. You know that is coming in the future. The odds are against Fisher making a financial commitment to either of these players. The excuse of a being a small market team blah,blah,blah. Same old story here in Oakland.
Don’t think that a shiny new toy like a new stadium is going to change the way this ownership operates. Once Fisher gets his new toy, stadium, things will be the same as they’ve always been in Oakland. It will just be another excuse for why they can’t afford free agents and current players.
Fisher’s only commitment is to his profit margin bottom line.
The hardest thing to do will be to avoid attending games. Something I’ve done for years and will miss very much. If this ownership makes no effort to compete, has one of the lowest payrolls in MLB, lacks signing any star free agents, won’t re-sign their current stars then there’s no reason for me make Fisher more rich than he already is. Don’t support Fishers bad behavior as an owner. I won’t enable this scumbag to continue to operate as a perennial loser and take advantage of a decent loyal fan base.
What should happen is the MLB commissioner should force this chump out of his ownership and do Oakland a huge favor.