Ha-Seong Kim is back in Atlanta after signing a $20MM deal to remain the club’s starting shortstop. He took a one-year contract that’ll allow him to get back to free agency after what he hopes to be a healthy season. ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported last night that Kim had declined multi-year offers.
Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic writes that the A’s proposed a four-year, $48MM deal. It’s unclear if that would have included any opt-out opportunities, though it seems safe to assume they wouldn’t have risked a four-year commitment that allowed him to opt out after just one season. The A’s have a franchise shortstop in Jacob Wilson but are looking for second and/or third base help.
Kim bet on himself with a straight one-year deal at a higher rate. Gleyber Torres accepted a qualifying offer, while Jorge Polanco commanded $20MM annually on a two-year contract from the Mets. The A’s certainly aren’t going to sign Bo Bichette or Alex Bregman to contracts north of $150MM. Rosenthal writes that NPB stars Munetaka Murakami and Kazuma Okamoto are also expected to be out of their price range. Eugenio Suárez might be a long shot, as he command a similar annual salary to Kim and Polanco over two or three years.
There’s a significant drop from there in free agency. Willi Castro, Isiah Kiner-Falefa, Yoán Moncada, Luis Rengifo and KBO hitter Sung-mun Song are all one-year deal candidates. Song and Castro are probably the best bets to command a multi-year contract. The former at least comes with some intrigue as an upside play after consecutive strong seasons in Korea, but scouting reports raise questions about his pure hitting ability. The market for Song has been quiet publicly, but he’ll need to sign by Sunday or stay with the KBO’s Kiwoom Heroes for the ’26 season.
The second base trade market has gotten more attention. Ketel Marte and Brendan Donovan are the prizes, but the A’s aren’t great fits in either case. Marte’s six-year, $102.5MM contract is well below market value but would easily be the largest deal in A’s history. Donovan is affordable for any team, but the Cardinals are prioritizing controllable starting pitching. The A’s have a few talented arms (e.g. Luis Morales, Jacob Lopez, Braden Nett) who might appeal to St. Louis, but a lack of rotation depth is already the roster’s biggest flaw.
The Rays are open to offers on Brandon Lowe, who’ll make $11.5MM in the final year of his contract. Rosenthal writes that Tampa Bay isn’t interested in accepting a lowball offer merely to shed the salary. President of baseball operations Erik Neander said at the Winter Meetings that the Rays would be happy carrying Lowe and Yandy Díaz into the season. The Mets are shopping Jeff McNeil, but they’d probably need to eat a portion of the $17.75MM remaining on his deal. Impending free agents Nico Hoerner and Jazz Chisholm Jr. have come up loosely in trade rumors yet seem unlikely to move.
Speculatively speaking, Jake Cronenworth could be a potential fit. The Padres owe him $12MM annually through 2030. That’s a year longer than the A’s were willing to go on Kim but matches the average annual value they offered over four. A willingness to spend $12MM per season on Kim doesn’t necessarily mean they’d do the same for Cronenworth, who is a superior hitter but not as good a defender. Still, the Padres have looked for ways to clear payroll space to free money for their own rotation needs, so it’d make sense for the teams to explore trade scenarios.
Who would want to go athletics, be stuck playing in triple a stadium for 2 more season, terrible ownership..
They should shop in the minor league free agency and indy leagues since they are a minor league team..
Sure, but a shorter term deal could be optimal for the right person, to inflate stats in said AAA stadium. For example, in 2025 Stat Cast rated it (Sutter Health) as the #2 most offensive stadium behind only Coors.
bigmike0424: I will gladly play for the Athletics. Even if it means playing in a AAA stadium for 2 yrs. You would too. That’s who and so would (at least) 95% of those on these message boards. Unfortunately I probably wouldn’t do them any good with my artificial knee, arthritic shoulder & bad back.
At lest the As made an offer…the cherrington pirates didnt
Pirates need to be sold ; same for the A’s
For 48 million guaranteed? Plenty of people, on this website and in the real world, would kill for a chance to earn that kind of cash. Even Hilary and she’s already rich.
Hillary duff?
Since the park is a minor, Trump would probably take that deal, too.
100%. I see too many people acting like they wouldn’t take these contracts for that kinda money and you know damn well they would. My best guess is Kim wants to play SS and the A’s have that position locked up for the foreseeable future. If he knows he’s healthy and believes in himself then the 1/20 makes a lot more sense than a 4/48, financially in the long term. If he has a return to form next year then he’ll be the top SS on the market which equals massive payday for him.
Why not swing for Donovan and Arenado to settle 2B and 3B and/or get a 3rd team involved to fill in gaps. It’s what Billy Beane would have done 20 years ago. David Forst is a pale, limp charade of Beane, though.
Arenado is washed my,dude.
I really like that Cronenworth idea, but the A’s don’t necessarily have what the Pads are looking for. Can’t really afford to trade their top pitching prospects
Based on his age, salary, and production I don’t think it would take their top pitching prospects. I think it would be a mid level guy.
I generally like the idea of Cronenworth for the A’s too. We’ll see if that’s actually a fit
Cronenworth for Severino. Who says no?
I understand the appeal for the A’s. An elite defender to go with all their young offense. I don’t know if Kim would be the right guy to make that commitment too, but I like that they went for it. Surprised they offered 4 years. Shows they are trying to add guys that will be with them in Vegas. And the dollar amount shows the continued trend of increasing payroll along with the severino deal and the butler/rooker extensions.
Now que up all the “bad owner, trade players” comments that aren’t creative, interesting, or useful
Man.
Kim is really betting on him self. Hopefully he can regain his form he once had before his shoulder injury and doesn’t need to self deport back to the KBO to finish out his career. He was really fun to watch offensively and defensively with the Padres.
I would have taken the 4 years 48 mill personally. All about the art of the deal.
Side note. A’s should call up the Mets about Acuna and Mauricio. Take a flier on them to play 3B and 2B
Kim must think he is a 20 million per season type of player. Agree 4/48 is a no brainer.
Not really. He got almost half of the guarantee from the A’s in a single year. All he has to do is make 28 million over the 3 years following this one to match it. That’s an AAV of a little over 9 million. That’s pretty easy for a player like him to get. Literally less than half of what he got for this season.
If the A’s were a playoff team I’d agree on looking at Acuna and Mauricio but this team won only 76 games last year. We’re not in a position to be unloading the assets it would take to get those two. If you start unloading the farm now just to try and get to the 90+ wins it would take to get a playoff spot then you’re setting yourself up for future disappointment. Yes we have a good farm system IMHO, but it’s not deep enough to close that big of a gap and leave enough ammo for future reinforcements.
Wow. Thanks A’s but I’ll lock in $28m less over here. No offence.
Would love to know the Boras/Kim dynamic in that decision.
He should easily be the best SS on FA market next offseason at 31 y/o and if healthy and productive anywhere near his 5.0-bWAR 2022 or 5.4-bWAR 2023 — he’ll get more than the 48M and most likely be on a more competitive team. Severino signed for the most money with the A’s and looked/sounded miserable all of 2025. Who wants to fall into that Gap?
Agreed. He only needs to get 28 million over 3 years after this contract to match what the A’s would have given him. If he has a typical healthy season around his career averages he could easily double that.
Yeah. True.
Just the health risk.
“lack of rotation depth is already the roster’s biggest flaw”
I have to humbly disagree with this statement. The A’s don’t lack rotation depth, they lack “experienced” rotation depth. We have a LOT of good arms (Morales, Perkins, Jump, Arnold, Lin, Lopez, Nett, Zhang, Hoglund, Ginn, etc.). Problem is as you can see most of them are either prospects in AA-AAA or on the roster with minimal experience. We haven’t had a pool of arms this deep in years and honestly I would be 100% fine rolling with that group next year because it’s not a playoff year anyways. Those are the best years to give youngsters a chance to get their innings in.
Maybe if it was 4 years and $80 million he takes it but how are you going to offer a deal that has an AAV of only $12 million per season