Offseason In Review: Oakland Athletics

In conjunction with the A’s offseason review, we’ll be hosting an A’s-focused chat later this afternoon at 2pm CT. You can submit a question in advance, and check back to participate at 2:00.

The A’s began the offseason with a changing of the guard in baseball operations, as longtime executive vice president of baseball ops Billy Beane shifted into an advisory role and turned autonomy over to general manager David Forst. The A’s probably spent more in free agency than some expected — a low bar to clear — but they continued to trade away established talent with an eye toward the future. Whether that future will be in Oakland, Las Vegas or another city remains an open question; the team’s current stadium lease expires after the 2024 season and there’s been no agreement with the city of Oakland on a site for a new stadium.

Major League Signings

• Aledmys Diaz, INF: Two years, $14.5MM
• Jace Peterson, INF: Two years, $9.5MM
• Trevor May, RHP: One year, $7MM
• Shintaro Fujinami, RHP: One year, $3.25MM
• Jesus Aguilar, 1B: One year, $3MM
• Drew Rucinski, RHP: One year, $3MM
• Total spend: $40.25MM

Option Decisions

• None

Trades and Claims

• Traded C Sean Murphy to the Braves and RHP Joel Payamps to the Brewers in a three-team deal netting LHP Kyle Muller, RHP Freddy Tarnok, RHP Royber Salinas and C Manny Pina from Atlanta, as well as OF Esteury Ruiz from Milwaukee
• Traded LHP Cole Irvin and RHP Kyle Virbitsky to the Orioles in exchange for INF Darell Hernaiz
• Traded LHP A.J. Puk to the Marlins in exchange for OF JJ Bleday
• Acquired RHP Chad Smith from the Rockies in exchange for RHP Jeff Criswell
• Claimed OF Brent Rooker off waivers from the Royals
• Claimed INF Yonny Hernandez off waivers from the D-backs
• Traded INF Yonny Hernandez to the Dodgers in exchange for cash
• Selected 1B/OF Ryan Noda from the Dodgers in the 2022 Rule 5 Draft

Notable Minor League Signings

• Drew Steckenrider, Greg Deichmann, Tyler Wade, Pablo Reyes, Deolis Guerra, Austin Pruitt, Jake Fishman, Yohel Pozo, Joe Wieland

Extensions

• None

Notable Losses

• Sean Murphy, Cole Irvin, A.J. Puk, Joel Payamps, Stephen Vogt (retired), Chad Pinder

Heading into the offseason, the A’s were in a virtually unprecedented spot: zero dollars in guaranteed salary on the 2023 payroll, a small arbitration class (that featured a few trade/non-tender candidates) and very little in the way of established big leaguers on the roster. It was a blank slate that both lent itself to some degree of creativity and also spoke to the dire situation in Oakland, where the initial stages of a fire sale designed to scale back payroll and build up the farm had only succeeded in the former of those two goals.

The possibility of a Sean Murphy trade loomed large over the Athletics’ offseason and dominated A’s-related headlines throughout the winter. It’s easy enough to see why. Murphy has cemented himself as one of the game’s top defenders behind the plate, and he jumped from a roughly average showing with the bat in 2021 to a well above-average year in 2022 (with a particularly strong finish to the season). Add in that he entered the offseason as a first-time arbitration-eligible player with three remaining years of club control, and there simply weren’t many teams where Murphy didn’t make sense as a target.

Despite that, Murphy arguably landed on one of those very clubs that didn’t appear to be a logical suitor. Though the Cardinals, D-backs, Giants, Astros, Cubs, Guardians, White Sox, Twins and Rays were among the teams to inquire on Murphy’s services, it was the Braves — who already had three catchers on the roster — who wound up orchestrating a three-team trade to bring Murphy to Atlanta.

Oakland’s return in the Murphy trade has generally been panned; the Braves were not only a surprise trade partner for Murphy due to their own catching surplus (Travis d’Arnaud, William Contreras, Manny Pina) but also because their prior series of trades and prospect graduations had thinned out a once-vaunted farm system. Atlanta was willing to part with Contreras, who broke out with a .278/.354/.506 batting line over 97 games in 2022 and had five remaining seasons of club control, largely because Murphy is viewed as a vastly superior defender. Rather than accept Contreras as a headliner, though, the A’s flipped him to Milwaukee (along with reliever Joel Payamps) in order to acquire center field prospect Esteury Ruiz, whom the Brewers had acquired from the Padres a few months prior in the Josh Hader blockbuster.

The Murphy return is generally viewed as a quantity-over-quality collection of players. Ruiz brings elite speed — he stole a ridiculous 86 bases in 103 tries in 2022 — but doesn’t have much ability for making hard contact. Muller has solid Triple-A numbers but hasn’t had much success in limited big league time yet and is considered more of a potential fourth starter than a higher-end pitching prospect. The other arms in the deal — Freddy Tarnok and Royber Salinas — have had success in the minors but also come with a fair bit of bullpen risk. It wouldn’t necessarily be a surprise to see any of the three pitchers enjoy a run in the A’s rotation, nor is it out of the question that Ruiz’s blazing speed and baserunning acumen make him a table-setting type of outfielder for the foreseeable future.

Still, the general expectation when trading a player of Murphy’s caliber — particularly three years of control over such a player — is more certainty and more ceiling. The Athletics have had success with bulk returns that don’t necessarily feature high-end prospects in the past (e.g. acquiring Marcus Semien, Chris Bassitt and Josh Phegley in exchange for a year of Jeff Samardzija), in part because they seem to habitually buck the industry consensus when it comes to prospect evaluation. Part of that is surely recognizing that the unique dimensions of their home park tend to allow back-end starters (Cole Irvin, for example) to find success even if they’re not prototypical, highly touted pitching prospects.

Speaking of Irvin, he joined Murphy amid the latest offseason exodus in Oakland. Traded to the Orioles alongside minor league righty Kyle Virbitsky, he brought infield prospect Darell Hernaiz to the A’s. Irvin wasn’t a clear-cut trade candidate, as he had four years of team control remaining and wasn’t even eligible for arbitration yet, but the A’s surely feel good about acquiring him in exchange for cash in 2021 and flipping him for a prospect of some note just two years later. Keith Law pegs Hernaiz No. 6 among A’s prospects over at The Athletic, calling him a potential regular at second base or a super-utility option who can bounce around the infield. Either would be a nice outcome for an Oakland system that was light on infield depth.

It should be noted, too, that Irvin is a pitch-to-contact starter who’s thrived with the A’s partly due to the spacious confines of the Coliseum. He has pronounced home/road splits and has been quite susceptible to the long ball when pitching away from Oakland. He also finished out the 2022 season in a prolonged slump, and there was certainly risk that with a poor start to his 2023 season or an injury, the trade value he possessed might’ve quickly dried up.

The third notable A’s trade of the offseason shipped lefty A.J. Puk to the Marlins in exchange for minor league outfielder JJ Bleday. It was a “challenge” trade to some extent — a direct swap of the 2016 No. 6 overall pick (Puk) for the 2019 No. 4 overall selection (Bleday).

In this instance, the A’s gave up the player with big league success in order to acquire the younger, more recent draftee, but it was another somewhat curious swap for Oakland. The 6’7″ Puk rattled off 66 1/3 innings of 3.12 ERA ball in 2022, fanning a well above-average 27% of his opponents against a solid 8.2% walk rate and 43.4% ground-ball rate. Five of the 23 runs surrendered by Puk came in one nightmare outing against the White Sox, and his ERA outside that disastrous showing was an even sharper 2.47. Puk may not ever pan out as a starter — he’s already had shoulder surgery and Tommy John surgery since being drafted, and that injury history surely factored in Oakland’s decision to trade him — but he at least looks the part of a potential high-end reliever.

Bleday, meanwhile, is a career .225/.337/.409 hitter across three minor league levels with strikeout rates that have risen as he’s ascended the organizational ladder. He’s punched out in 27% of his Triple-A plate appearances and fanned at a 28.2% clip in 238 big league plate appearances last year, finishing with a .167/.277/.309 output in his debut effort. Bleday walks at a high clip but doesn’t make much contact and hasn’t shown more than above-average power to this point.

The Marlins have spent two offseasons looking for a center fielder and, despite coming up empty, felt comfortable trading Bleday, who has spent more time in center field than in the corners to this point in his career. The A’s are making a big bet on Bleday. We know the type of packages a southpaw like Puk could command at the trade deadline if he’s healthy and in the midst of a big season. One of these two teams is quite wrong about Bleday, and for the A’s to reverse their trend of underwhelming trade returns over the past calendar year, it’s paramount that they got this one right.

The rest of Oakland’s offseason featured a handful of sensible free-agent additions. Aledmys Diaz and Jace Peterson give the A’s some affordable infield flexibility — veterans who can hold down a starting position but handle multiple spots if a younger farmhand usurps their spot in the lineup. Peterson’s OBP-and-defense skill set at the hot corner, in particular, feels like a vintage Oakland play. Neither veteran’s signing garnered significant attention, but they’re solid hands who could easily hold some trade appeal — particularly Peterson, given his lower salary.

The Athletics also tapped into the KBO and NPB markets, signing righties Drew Rucinski and Shintaro Fujinami to cheap one-year contracts in hopes of catching lightning in a bottle. At 34, Rucinski is an older MLB reclamation project but has been nothing short of sensational in South Korea (732 2/3 innings, 3.06 ERA, 21.5% strikeout rate, 6.3% walk rate, 66% ground-ball rate). The younger Fujinami is a 28-year-old flamethrower who was once a high school rival of Shohei Ohtani (and a similarly touted prospect). He was dominant as a starter early in his NPB career but has battled command woes in recent years as his stock has dropped. For a one-year commitment at this price point, there’s little to dislike about the A’s taking a chance and hoping to unlock something in the 6’6″ right-hander.

One-year deals with Trevor May and Jesus Aguilar give the A’s a potential late-game bullpen option and a cheap roll of the dice on a power bat who’ll hope to turn things around in a change of scenery. May limped through an injury-plagued 2022 season but from 2016-21 had a solid 3.71 ERA with a massive 32.2% strikeout rate. Home runs have been an issue, but his new home park will help with that. Aguilar, meanwhile, is no stranger to pitcher-friendly parks, having swatted 22 homers in just 130 games with the Marlins as recently as 2021. Last year’s .235/.281/.379 slash was an eyesore, but dating back to 2017 he’s a .257/.326/.456 hitter with 109 round-trippers.

While many of the Athletics’ free-agent additions were sensible in a vacuum, they also underscore the manner in which the 2021-22 offseason’s slate of trades has come up short thus far. None of the pitching prospects the A’s acquired in trades of Matt Olson, Matt Chapman, Chris Bassitt and Sean Manaea has solidified a spot on the roster yet, despite several arms receiving opportunities to do just that. Left-hander Zach Logue, acquired in the Chapman deal, was designated for assignment and lost to the Tigers on waivers less than a year after being acquired.

In the lineup, both center fielder Cristian Pache and third baseman Kevin Smith struggled enormously. Pache is now out of minor league options after batting just .166/.218/.241 in 260 plate appearances with Oakland last year. He’ll have to try to refine his offensive skill set at the big league level, but with Ruiz and Bleday now joining veteran Ramon Laureano, it’s not entirely clear that Pache will be given an everyday role, which only further complicates his development.

Broadly speaking, that’s a microcosm of the entire 2023 season for the A’s. It’ll be one of large-scale auditions for young players as Oakland hopes to piece together the makings of a core that unfortunately did not begin to take form in 2022. The only somewhat established starter in the rotation is righty Paul Blackburn, who had an out-of-the-blue, All-Star first half in 2022 before a torn tendon in his hand tanked his numbers in the second half. Others vying for spots will include Rucinski, Fujinami, Muller, Tarnok, Ken Waldichuk, Adrian Martinez, JP Sears and James Kaprielian.

In addition to Pache, Bleday and Ruiz in the outfield, the A’s will hope some combination of catcher Shea Langeliers (acquired in the Olson trade) and top prospect Zack Gelof (drafted 60th overall in 2021) can emerge as mainstays on the roster. Shortstop Nick Allen, a light hitter but high-end defender, will get another crack at shortstop, and the aforementioned Smith will likely get a big league mulligan at some point somewhere in the infield as well.

As the summer approaches, more A’s veterans will surface in trade talks. Expect each of Blackburn, Pina, Laureano, second baseman/outfielder Tony Kemp, first baseman/outfielder Seth Brown to surface in trade chatter this summer along with this offseason’s veteran signees — particularly those who inked one-year deals.

It’s a tough time for A’s fans, with no viable path to contention and — despite the gutting of a core that helped produce a 316-230 record from 2018-21 — one of the worst-ranked farm systems in the game. There will be plenty of opportunity for young players, and some of the veteran additions will help, but year two of the team’s rebuild feels a lot more like year one than it should.

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