The A’s activated J.T. Ginn from the injured list on Tuesday, but the 26-year-old righty is not immediately returning to the rotation. Manager Mark Kotsay said before Tuesday’s game that Ginn would be available out of the bullpen (via Jessica Kleinschmidt). He’s already made his first relief appearance, firing three scoreless innings behind Mitch Spence last night.
Ginn had started his first four appearances of the season. He posted a 5.60 ERA across 17 innings while missing time to both elbow inflammation and a quad strain. The former second-round pick started six of his eight MLB outings last year as a rookie, allowing 4.24 earned runs per nine through 34 frames. The A’s evidently prefer him in multi-inning relief in the short term rather than bumping someone — likely Spence or Jacob Lopez — out of the starting five.
Zack Gelof is also nearing a return, as he began a rehab stint at Triple-A Las Vegas tonight. He took three plate appearances as a designated hitter in his first game action in over six weeks. Gelof has missed the entire season. He fractured his wrist on a Spring Training hit-by-pitch and required hamate surgery. That knocked him out for a month. He began a rehab assignment in early May but quickly suffered a rib injury that cost him another month and a half. He’ll need a while to get up to MLB readiness but should make his season debut within the next couple weeks. Position players can spend up to 20 days on a rehab assignment.
Luis Urías has stepped in as the regular second baseman in Gelof’s absence. He’s having a decent year, hitting .249/.338/.407 with seven homers through 207 plate appearances. Urías is playing on a cheap one-year deal and is an impending free agent. The 30-45 A’s will presumably try to drum up trade interest before next month’s deadline.
In an A’s-adjacent development, Sportico’s Kurt Badenhousen reports that owner John Fisher is pursuing a sale of his Major League Soccer franchise, the San Jose Earthquakes. Fisher has owned the MLS franchise for nearly two decades. According to Sportico, he intends to sell the majority stake of the soccer organization and has contracted an investment bank to facilitate the sale. Sportico valued the team around $600M in January.
That sale comes in the first year of what is expected to be a three-year process for the construction of the A’s new stadium in Las Vegas. The A’s secured upwards of $350MM in public funding towards an estimated $1.75 billion cost estimate. Fisher has reportedly sought to raise at least half a billion dollars in private funding through selling minority shares of the Athletics. It’s unclear whether and to what extent his desire to sell the Earthquakes is related to the A’s stadium plan. Last week, Mick Akers of The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that the A’s have scheduled a groundbreaking ceremony for their new facility on June 23 — though that’s largely an aesthetic measure after construction crews began preliminary work at the site in April.
Gelof was looking like a bright spot… back when they were in Oakland
Now there’s Wilson and butler and soder overshadowing
True, but he still managed to put up 1.4 WAR last year despite leading the league in strikeouts with 82 OPS+.
I think he’s the 2B of the next A’s playoff team.
Ha ha ha…”next playoff team!”
Isn’t Jack Perkins a better option than a few guys the As are sending out there every 5 days or is he more of the same?
Perkins and Morales were promoted to AAA recently. They are very talented but also young and inexperienced. Unless extremely necessary, the A’s probably want to see some upper level development before bringing them up to the big leagues…
Perkins took a no-hitter into the 7th inning in a recent start for Triple-A Las Vegas. He had 12 strikeouts. That was pretty encouraging.
Fisher should have been kicked out of MLB ownership club for this massive debacle… plugging his underfunded team into a Triple-A stadium, abandoning a loyal fanbase. Tampa Bay has a real reason for their current stadium situation & supposedly a near solution next year. The A’s are an embarrassment and it’s all on ownership.
Fisher will sell “a majority stake” in the Earthquakes ($600M total) …
$300M from Goldman, $100M from Aramark, $350-400M± of earthquakes
With construction prices spiking and the _early_ estimate of $1.7B to build, he’ll STILL have to come up with another $1B+ to finish the build in Vegas.
$380M from the government. If he sells the whole Quakes he’s about $400M short.
But remember the Goldman money is a LOAN. At some point you have to wonder if this whole exercise is even profitable, with Fisher losing probably $1 billion of his own money plus the Quakes just to maybe get a new stadium with a 30-year lease agreement.
“Fisher has reportedly sought to raise at least half a billion dollars in private funding through selling minority shares of the Athletics.”. “Reportedly” is the key word. The reality is that before US Bank and Goldman Sachs loaned $300 million of their own money to the A’s for the stadium, they did an extensive audit of the Fisher family finances. They concluded that they were well able to provide ALL of the funding necessary. Fisher might like to raise more money, but he doesn’t have to. He’s only going to sell minority shares at his desired price. The reason is that once the move is successfully completed, the value of the franchise will skyrocket and then he can sell at a huge profit. He’ll fund the stadium because the return on his investment will make it worth it.
He doesn’t _have_ to, sure. But that means he’ll have to give up majority control of Gap to have enough liquidity to make it happen… Baseball can (and will) work in Vegas one day, but not the A’s with Fisher. He and Manfred are destroying an entire generation of baseball fans…
No, he doesn’t have to give up anything in terms of his Gap ownership. Billionaires don’t spend their principal. They simply borrow against it. He’ll then pay it back out of his revenue stream, and cash in on the sale of the A’s post-2028. And the interest he’ll pay on the borrowing will be far less than the capital gains tax he would have had to pay on realized gains if he sold any Gap stock. That’s precisely why billionaires borrow that way.
He already borrowed against his principal, and GoldmanSachs only went in for $300M.
The only other actual investor is Aramark, and they got 6% of the A’s for $100M and another $75M in a 20-year service contract (hope everyone likes spending $20 on warmed-over and possibly expired hot dogs).
No, the Athletics, not Fisher personally, borrowed from US Bank and Goldman Sachs. They “only went in for $300 million” because that was exactly the amount that was requested. Both of those institutions have been providing routine operating loans to the Athletics for years. That’s completely separate from Fisher borrowing against his billions in Principal to provide the completely separate portion of the financing which will come from Fisher AND the Fisher family. All of this was explicitly stated in the financing plan which was reviewed and formally approved by the Las Vegas Stadium Authority on December 5, 2024.
And by the way, that $75 million figure is the amount that Aramark is going to spend on new concessions equipment for the new ballpark. That’s above and beyond the amount of their investment.
You’re aware MLB has stipulations in their agreement to waive the relocation fee for Fisher? He has to pay MLB a percentage of any sale for like 4-5 years. So if this all goes through as planned he needs to sit on it for a while before selling, or take a big hit.
You’re aware that a billionaire who knows how to avoid capital gains taxes will have no problem sitting on it for the specified period? While, like all billionaires, he borrows against his now much more valuable asset, thus getting the actual cash which represents the the de facto unrealized gain on the increased value of the franchise.
This isn’t any other billionaire, this is John Fisher, no amount of word salad can get the guy or excuse him out of this debacle.
Sorry if a straightforward explanation of how he can easily realize his capital gains appears to be a word salad to you. To anyone who knows anything about investments, finance, and capital projects, this isn’t a word salad. It’s capital finance 101, easily understood by any first year Business major. YMMV. And, Fun fact: Fisher hires accountants to figure it all out for him. Just like every other billionaire. There is no debacle. It’s a done deal, regardless of what the Brodie stans think.
It’s a done deal, that’s why he’s now putting up a majority stake of his MLS team for sale. Nothing to see here.
I wasn’t talking about capital gains. He will owe MLB, not the IRS, a significant chunk of money if he sells. This isn’t an accounting maneuver. There is a reason owners put that in.
Here you go:
A provision in MLB owners’ approval of the A’s relocation to Las Vegas called a 10-year flip tax would prevent A’s owner John Fisher from “using the relocation simply to increase the value of his team and immediately sell,” according to Bob Nightengale of USA TODAY. MLB gave Fisher about a $300M break by “not charging him a relocation fee,” but if he turns around and tries to sell the team, he is “going to have to pay a stiff penalty.” The agreement requires Fisher to “retain the team until at least 2028 when they are scheduled to open in Las Vegas.” If Fisher sells before 2028, he will be “taxed 20% of the purchase price, which will be split among owners.” If he sells in 2029, he will be “taxed 10%,” and if he sells in 2030-2033, he will be “taxed a decreasing amount each year.” He will be “unable to sell the team without being taxed until 2034” (USA TODAY, 11/19).
What do you think the A’s value will be in 5 years, assuming the stadium is built and they move to Vegas? MLB teams aren’t increasing at the rate of NFL or NBA teams and with a potential lockout/labor issue coming up that also adds uncertainty. If you think 3 billion, ok, maybe, so he has to pay 1.5 billion of his own money to build this stadium in order to make roughly 3 billion in a potential sale (not counting the MLB 10%). Or he could probably sell it now for 1.,5 billion. I’d take 1.5 billion in 2025 vs 2030. But since he’s a billionaire let’s keep assuming he’s very smart. He went to Stanford after all.
Congratulations on missing the point by the widest possible margin. When the value of the franchise goes up, Fisher doesn’t have to sell the team to get the money. He simply borrows against the value of the franchise, gets the cash, and holds onto ownership until the flip tax period is over. Derp.
Thanks for using your extensive experience and your doctorate in Finance to give us your thoroughly researched projections. After all, you went to kindergarten.
You really believe this is what will happen?
No need to get sassy and personal, if you feel you need to add that to an argument you might as well admit you lost.
The points and facts I brought up still stand.
No, none of the points you brought up were valid in any way. You seem unaware of what is actually happening in the real world, and you’re trying to invent false arguments out of thin air. There is no argument because the fact is that the Las Vegas Stadium Authority reviewed and formally approved the financing plan on December 5, 2024. US Bank and Goldman Sachs audited the Fisher family finances and concluded that they are well able to keep their commitment for the funding of their portion of the financing. Your puerile opinion means absolutely nothing on that matter. The community benefits agreement has been reviewed, approved and signed by both the Las Vegas Stadium Authority and the Athletics. The lease agreement has been reviewed, approved and signed by both the Las Vegas Stadium Authority and the Athletics. The non-relocation agreement has been reviewed, approved and signed by both the Las Vegas Stadium Authority and the Athletics. The development agreement has been reviewed, approved and signed by both the Las Vegas Stadium Authority and the Athletics. Clark County has approved construction permits for the first two phases of construction, and construction has begun. If you want to continue to deny the reality, that’s your problem, not mine. Feel free to keep necro-posting if it makes you feel better but I’m done wasting time on you.