The Las Vegas Aviators, the Triple-A affiliate of the Athletics, announced yesterday that Ramon Laureano was joining the club on a rehab assignment. He started last night’s game, batting second and playing center field. The outfielder was given an 80-game suspension in August, serving the bulk of that last year but with 27 games remaining going into the 2022 campaign. If everything goes according to plan, Laureano could finish the suspension May 8.
Since that suspension, the club underwent a fire sale in the offseason, trading away their best and most-expensive players for younger and cheaper ones. The center field duties have been largely going to Cristian Pache so far this year, acquired from the Braves in the Matt Olson trade. Pache has been living up to his glove-first reputation, playing excellent defense but hitting just .208/.222/.340, 68 wRC+.
In his time in the majors, Laureano has shown himself capable of being above average both defensively and with the bat. It’s unclear how the playing time in center will be divided up when Laureano returns, though the A’s will likely want to have both players in the lineup as much as possible. For Pache, regular at-bats will be needed for the 23-year-old to continue to develop as a hitter. For Laureano, the club will surely want him to get back into a groove after his layoff, which included core surgery in September, and re-establish himself as a trade candidate. Chad Pinder, Seth Brown, Tony Kemp, Stephen Piscotty and Billy McKinney have been rotating through the outfield corners and designated hitter slots so far this year.
Players who violate the MLB – MLBPA Joint Drug Agreement are placed on the restricted list and do not receive MLB service time for the duration of their suspension. Laureano is currently sitting on three years and 14 days, enough for him to have reached arbitration for the first time for this year. However, since he will end up missing about a month of this season, he will likely finish the campaign shy of the four-year mark. That means he won’t reach free agency until after the 2025 season, giving the club one extra year of control over him.
For a team like the A’s that’s taking a step back, that could be viewed as making him more or less likely to be traded. On the one hand, the extra year of control increases the chances that the club can return to contention within his time with them, making it sensible to hang onto him. On the other hand, Laureano will now be going through arbitration four times instead of three, giving him more chances to increase his salary. He’s only set to make $2.45MM this year, which isn’t a prohibitive sum, even for a low-payroll team like the A’s. But the past few months saw them trade away players projected to make salaries just a bit higher than that. According to MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz, Matt Olson was going to be earning around $12MM this year, with Matt Chapman a touch lower at $9.5MM. Chris Bassitt was pegged at $8.8MM and Sean Manaea at $10.2MM. The club went into the offseason determined to unload those projected salaries and eventually did so. Over the next couple of years, Laureano could push his salary into that range and become a little pricey for the club, especially if Pache seems capable of taking over for him, as he likely won’t reach arbitration until after the 2024 campaign.
The Marlins were known to have interest in Laureano during the offseason as they looked to upgrade in center field. However, they may have found a solution in Jesus Sanchez, who has been providing cromulent defense while mashing at the plate. The season is still quite young, but Sanchez is hitting .340/.386/.623, 194 wRC+.
Laureano would embiggen the baserunning speed of the Marlins’ lineup
So the countdown starts until he’s traded
Cromulent! Good to know.
That was a new one for me, as well. Glad WORDLE doesn’t use nine letter words. I would have never gotten “cromulent”.
You should try to embiggen your vocabulary.
Will be interesting to see how the Marlins brass screws this one up.
For all the whining A’s “fans” that post here telling us how important the A’s are to Oakland – although they themselves don’t go to any games……..
A Las Vegas newspaper has been publishing a daily count of attendance at A’s games compared to those at Aviators games. The AAA team in Las Vegas is outdrawing the ML team in Oakland.
LOL
Must be fun being so much smarter than everyone.
A’s owner is not going to Vegas. He has offers from 3 other cities that have much more money than Vegas has to offer. Vegas blew their wad on the Raiders and can’t afford $1.2 billion to build a new stadium there. Vegas has had their best weather now so when A’s tickets are twice as much money and the weather been rainy and cold. So Oakland attendance will go way up while Vegas attendance will go back down.
Las Vegas is NOT a pro sports town, the Raiders won’t stay there long term and the NHL team they have is the joke of the league.
115 degrees is NOT baseball weather. LV wont even be hospitable in 10 years ffs…
Why would non-opening day April A’s games draw heavily anyway? The Orioles and Rangers have zero bay area presence and they are bad teams with no one a normal fan would pay to see.
Jeez, its almost as if A’s fans don’t want to give fisher money after completely gutting a playoff-caliber team because of arbitration salaries that are still below market.
Not good timing with a ball park deal and potential move seriously discussed. It is just fuel to the fire and plays right into Fisher’s hands. If he wants to move then low attendance would be used by him as a justification for a move,
Dude’s in my top 10 favorite PED users list.
That catch AND warning track throw for a double-play at 1B is legendary YouTube clip material.
I hope his cannon isn’t shot now with the extra testing he’ll receive.
As an Angels fan, I remember that double-play well.
Now, this shows a certain sense of style!!!
too late he’s already been traded
Players who serve PED suspensions are not eligible for postseaaon rosters so i wonder what kind of an impact that will have the A’s ability to trade him
I am also wondering if it’s a rehab assignment since he is serving a suspension?
Could have sworn that since he began serving it last season it only made him ineligible for last year’s postseason. Thought I read that somewhere but could be wrong.
that’s what I was thinking as well
Pache in CF, Laureano in RF until Ramon’s traded -probably at the deadline but maybe even earlier.
Could he be traded on his first day of eligibility? I’m guessing Beane already has offers out there.
Well players using PED is nothing new aka Bonds, Clements – his wife too -, Canseco, McGuire, etc, you name it, the list goes on and to this day that is still a common practice among many athletes. Laureano did his suspension. He will come back and be an important part of a A’s team that is knowing to be retooling. Go A’s, Vegas or anywhere else for that matter…
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Pat Clements? Ryan McGuire?
The Phillies could use an upgrade in CF.
Depends on what the A’s would want for Laureano.
Phillies should not give up any of their top prospects for him