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Athletics Re-Sign T.J. McFarland

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Novemeber 8: McFarland is guaranteed a $1.8MM base salary, The Associated Press reports. The deal comes with another $250K in bonuses based on appearances. McFarland would unlock $50K in his 50th game and would receive another $100K apiece at 60 and 70 appearances.

November 7: The A’s are bringing left-handed reliever T.J. McFarland back ahead of their expected move to West Sacramento next year. The team announced Thursday they’ve agreed to terms with the free agent southpaw on a one-year deal for the 2025 season. McFarland is represented by Octagon.

McFarland, 35, spent the 2024 season in the A’s bullpen and was a reliable source of quality innings. He appeared in nearly half the team’s games (79) and pitched to a 3.81 ERA with a below-average 16.6% strikeout rate but strong walk and ground-ball rates of 7.2% and 57.3%, respectively. McFarland stymied left-handed opponents with a .234/.267/.324 batting line, though righties had an easier time with him, slashing .273/.364/.414 on the season.

This will be McFarland’s 13th season in the majors, and assuming he sticks on the roster for at least 122 days, he’ll reach the coveted 10 years of major league service time over the course of the 2025 campaign. The sinker-heavy southpaw carries a lifetime 4.10 ERA in the majors and has never been adept at missing bats (13.9% career strikeout rate, and career-high 18.2% mark in 2023). However, he’s one of the game’s premier ground-ball specialists (career 61.7%, and career-high 67.9% back in 2018) and has only thrice logged a worse-than-average walk rate in his lengthy career.

Somewhat incredibly, McFarland will become the only player on the A’s roster who has a guaranteed salary for the upcoming season. The rest of the roster includes four arbitration-eligible players — Brent Rooker, Seth Brown, Miguel Andujar and Dany Jimenez — but the rest of the players on the team’s 40-man roster have not yet even reached arbitration and thus do not have a salary locked in for next year. The A’s are widely expected to spend some money this offseason, be it via free agency or by acquiring players on guaranteed deals via the trade market, as they’ll need to spend a fair bit of cash in order to retain their status as a revenue-sharing recipient.

McFarland returns to a bullpen that lacks any real definition beyond star closer Mason Miller. Righty Tyler Ferguson posted nice numbers but did so as a 30-year-old rookie, making him something of a wild card. Hard-throwing righty Michel Otanez notched a 3.44 ERA and fanned 36.4% of his opponents in 34 innings … but also walked 13.2% of the hitters he faced. Twenty-seven-year-old Lefty Hogan Harris turned in a sub-3.00 ERA in 72 1/3 innings but had sub-par strikeout, walk and ground-ball rates (in addition to a disastrous 7.14 ERA in a comparable sample of innings in 2023).

Given the lack of defined roles beyond Miller, it’s likely the A’s will have multiple additions on the bullpen front. For now, McFarland looks like a candidate to work in some leverage spots against lefties who won’t be lifted for a pinch-hitter by the opposing manager. That said, A’s skipper Mark Kotsay typically used McFarland in low- and medium-leverage spots in 2025, so he’s not necessarily someone the team will throw right into full-on setup work.

The A’s could have some troubles drawing free agents to the team as they gear up to host home games in a Triple-A park for the next several seasons (assuming financing on their planned Las Vegas stadium is eventually finalized). But McFarland knows the team and the staff well, and for the well-traveled lefty, this new one-year deal offers him the opportunity to pitch consecutive seasons for the same team for just the second time in a span of seven seasons.

There’s obvious appeal in continuity for a pitcher who’s also spent time with the D-backs, A’s, Cardinals and Mets (plus a spring training with the Nationals) since 2019. It’s also just the second guaranteed deal he’s signed in what’s now five times through the free-agent process, so jumping early at a big league opportunity is both sensible and makes for a more relaxed offseason than the veteran southpaw is typically accustomed.

A’s Not Discussing Rotation Move For Mason Miller

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Last offseason, the Athletics moved Mason Miller from the rotation to the closing job. General manager David Forst said at the time that the A’s were open to building the right-hander back up as a starter after one season in relief. That doesn’t seem to be on the table for now.

“We’re not talking about moving him back into a starting role,” Forst told John Shea of the San Francisco Chronicle this week. While that doesn’t preclude having the conversation at some point during the offseason, it appears the likelier outcome is that Miller will remain in the ninth inning.

Stretching Miller back out would be a huge risk-reward play for the A’s. A few teams have had success with converted relievers in recent seasons. Garrett Crochet immediately looked like a budding ace when the White Sox gave him a starting job. Seth Lugo and Michael King have gone from setup relievers to borderline top-of-the-rotation starters. Reynaldo López and José Soriano found success but battled injury issues in their returns to starting. Free agent righty Jeff Hoffman has drawn interest as a potential rotation conversion.

Miller is talented enough that a Crochet arc would be within the realistic range of outcomes. The A’s are concerned that a starter’s workload would weigh heavily on his arm, though. Miller has battled shoulder and elbow injuries and pitched fewer than 40 innings in the minor leagues. He started six MLB games as a rookie in 2023. Miller was pitching well but forearm tightness shelved him between mid-May and the start of September. The A’s used him out of the bullpen for the season’s final month and kept him in that capacity this year.

The 26-year-old’s first full season as a closer could hardly have gone better. Miller’s already elite velocity jumped in short stints. His fastball averaged nearly 101 MPH and routinely got into the 103-104 range. Between that kind of life and a wipeout slider, Miller was almost untouchable. He turned in a 2.49 ERA while striking out almost 42% of opposing hitters through 65 innings. Opponents swung and missed at nearly a fifth of his offerings. Among relievers with 50+ innings, only Josh Hader and Braves’ breakout lefty Dylan Lee got swinging strikes more frequently. Miller locked down 28 of 31 save attempts.

Most importantly, Miller’s arm held up. His only injury this year was a three-week absence due to a small fracture in his non-throwing hand. (He reportedly sustained that injury when he struck a training table in frustration after a poor outing.) It took all of a few weeks for Miller to establish himself as an elite late-game weapon.

Relievers aren’t immune to injury, but the A’s clearly feel better about his chances to stay healthy working in 1-2 inning stints. Assuming they don’t reverse course later in the offseason, he’ll project as one of the best closers in baseball. Other teams called on Miller at the deadline and surely will do so again this winter, but a trade would be a surprise. He’s still a year from arbitration and under club control for five seasons. The A’s are no longer aggressively tearing down the roster. They were relatively quiet at the deadline. Forst has already declared they’re keeping Brent Rooker, their best trade chip aside from Miller.

The A’s will need to add multiple starting pitchers. Their rotation is among the thinnest in the league. Players like JP Sears, Mitch Spence and Joey Estes headline the group. They all look like back-of-the-rotation arms at best. With almost nothing on the books for next season, Forst and his staff should be able to take on money via trade and/or a mid-level free agent strike to add innings.

MLBTR Podcast: Breaking Down The Top 50 Free Agents List

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The latest episode of the MLB Trade Rumors Podcast is now live on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts! Make sure you subscribe as well! You can also use the player at this link to listen, if you don’t use Spotify or Apple for podcasts.

This week, host Darragh McDonald is joined by Tim Dierkes, Steve Adams and Anthony Franco of MLB Trade Rumors to discuss our annual Top 50 Free Agents post. The conversation veered into these specific topics…

Check out our past episodes!

  • The Mets’ Spending Power, Juan Soto Suitors, And The Rangers’ Payroll Limits – listen here
  • The World Series, The White Sox Reportedly For Sale, And Tropicana Field – listen here
  • Changes In Minnesota, Cubs’ Prospect Depth, And Possibilities For The O’s – listen here

The podcast intro and outro song “So Long” is provided courtesy of the band Showoff.  Check out their Facebook page here!

A’s GM: “We’re Going To Keep [Brent Rooker]”

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Athletics slugger Brent Rooker was one of the most sought-after candidates on the summer trade market, but the A’s were reluctant to move him then and are similarly unwilling to move him now. General manager David Forst candidly told Jon Heyman of the New York Post at today’s GM Meetings (X link): “We’re going to keep [Rooker].”

Skeptics will crack wise that this only means Rooker is even likelier to be traded, but that’s quite likely not the case. Baseball executives rarely make such definitive declarations about a player’s trade candidacy (or lack thereof) on the record. The overwhelming majority of the time they do so, the player indeed stays put. The most famous recent exception is back in 2022, when Nationals GM Mike Rizzo said in June that he would not trade Juan Soto but then did so the following month; however, even then, Rizzo only did so after Soto rejected a reported 15-year extension offer worth more than $400MM guaranteed.

Teams could still try to pry Rooker away from the A’s, but today’s frank comments from Forst all but rule out the possibility this winter. Perhaps next July or next offseason the club will reconsider, but the A’s control Rooker for an additional three seasons. They’re likely headed to West Sacramento to kick off a new era for A’s baseball, ahead of their planned move to Las Vegas in 2028. It stands to reason that the A’s will want some recognizable talent on the roster as they aim to appeal to fans in their temporary home market, sell merchandise, etc.

Rooker, who turned 30 last week, has gone from waiver fodder to one of the sport’s premier sluggers since landing with the Athletics. The Twins selected him with the 35th overall pick in 2017, gave him his MLB debut in 2020, and ultimately traded him to the Padres alongside Taylor Rogers in the deal that brought Chris Paddack, Emilio Pagan and prospect Brayan Medina back to Minnesota. San Diego only held Rooker for a bit more than three months, giving him just seven big league plate appearances before trading him to the Royals in exchange for backup catcher Cam Gallagher. Kansas City waived him less than three months later.

The A’s placed a claim, and it proved to be perhaps the best waiver claim in recent memory. Rooker, always touted for his plus power but panned for strikeouts and defensive limitations, broke out with a .246/.329/.488 slash and 30 homers in an uneven 2023 campaign. He was brilliant in April, July and September but struggled in the interim months that season.

Rooker’s 2024 campaign, however, left little doubt about the sustainability of his breakout. He was a plus hitter in every month of the season and finished out the year with a superlative .293/.365/.562 batting line and 39 home runs. Only four players — Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani, Anthony Santander and Juan Soto — hit more home runs than Rooker this past season. By measure of wRC+, he was the seventh-best qualified hitter in MLB, trailing only Judge, Ohtani, Soto, Bobby Witt Jr., Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Yordan Alvarez.

Rooker is hitting arbitration for the first time in his career. Because of his limited track record prior to landing with the A’s, he’s projected for a reasonable $5.1MM salary by MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz. With another season like the one he just enjoyed, that sum could more than double in the 2025-26 offseason. If he can sustain this for two more years, Rooker could well be sporting a salary in the $15-20MM range during his final year of arbitration. Suffice it to say, that opens the door for potential trade scenarios down the road, but it seems that Rooker will stay put for the time being.

The A’s don’t have a single dollar committed to the 2025 payroll. Rooker is one of four arbitration-eligible players, and the others — Seth Brown, Miguel Andujar and Dany Jimenez — are all potential non-tender/trade candidates. Rooker, along with outfielders JJ Bleday and Lawrence Butler, slugging catcher Shea Langeliers and rebound candidate Zack Gelof, comprises a potential lineup core for the A’s next season. With nothing guaranteed on next year’s books, the A’s are likely to add some money via free agency and/or trade in the next few months, as they’ll need to invest in the roster to an extent in order to retain their status as a revenue sharing recipient. It’s a low bar to clear, but the A’s did finish the ’24 season with an approximately $63MM payroll, per RosterResource, so they’ll need to make some additions alongside Rooker, given the dearth of any other meaningful financial commitments on the roster.

A’s Claim Anthony Maldonado, Justin Sterner

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The A’s announced they’ve claimed righty relievers Anthony Maldonado from the Marlins and Justin Sterner from the Rays. Both players had quietly landed on waivers last week.

Maldonado and Sterner each made their debuts this past season. Maldonado, 27 in February, has slightly more experience. He pitched in 16 games for Miami and allowed 12 runs across 19 innings. He struck out 11 while issuing seven walks. Maldonado showed better strikeout stuff in the minors, fanning 26.1% of batters faced over 46 1/3 Triple-A frames. While that came with a slightly elevated 10.8% walk rate and a middling 4.66 ERA, the A’s are evidently intrigued by his arsenal. Maldonado leaned most heavily on his mid-80s slider.

Sterner, 28, has all of two games of MLB experience. The BYU product tossed four innings of two-run ball with four strikeouts. He had a strong year with the Rays’ top affiliate in Durham. Sterner turned in a 3.28 earned run average over 46 2/3 innings. He punched out more than 31% of batters faced against an 8.9% walk percentage. Sterner used a fastball-cutter combination during his limited MLB look. Both he and Maldonado sat in the 93-94 MPH range with their heaters.

This was the first option year for both pitchers. The A’s can keep them in Triple-A for the foreseeable future if they stick on the 40-man roster.

GM David Forst: A’s Focused On Trades, Upgrading MLB Roster

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While the Athletics’ rebuild isn’t over, it does appear that the club has moved out of purely a selling phase as the 2024-25 offseason begins (and the team’s temporary tenure in Sacramento begins).  A’s general manager David Forst told The San Francisco Chronicle’s John Shea that his front office has already at least touched base with every team except the Dodgers and Yankees, and that “any trade activity we’re discussing is about improving the major league team in 2025, not about trading major league players for prospects.”

This isn’t exactly a new stance, as Forst said in July prior to the trade deadline that the A’s were somewhat putting the brakes on moving any established trade chips.  While this could have been construed as some gamesmanship to get rival suitors to up their bids, the Athletics ended up keeping such notables as Brent Rooker, Mason Miller, and JJ Bleday, despite significant interest from other teams.  The A’s did trade Paul Blackburn (arbitration-controlled through 2025) to the Mets and a longer-term asset in Lucas Erceg to the Royals, though Erceg’s team control through the 2029 season is somewhat undermined by the fact that he is already 29 years old.

While the Athletics had a 69-93 record in 2024, things seemingly started to click for the team’s young core as the season developed.  After a brutal 37-61 record in the first half, the A’s had an even 32-32 mark after the All-Star break, and even delivered a 29-21 mark over the months of July and August.  Rooker was one of the better hitters in the entire league, and Bleday, Lawrence Butler, and Shea Langeliers all showed some intriguing potential elsewhere in the lineup.

The weak links were pretty obvious, as Shea writes that the Athletics’ offseason wish list includes upgrading a porous defense, a starting pitching staff that was one of the worst in baseball, and some help at third base.  A whopping 10 players suited up at the hot corner for the A’s over the course over the 2024 season, but this revolving door combined for a sub-replacement -0.6 bWAR (ranking 28th of 30 teams in third-base production).

As always, Forst will be limited in what he can spend on any new players, though how much the A’s might spend on free agents in general is still up in the air due to the uncertainty surrounding their relocation.  “We have to be active in the trade market until we get a clear sense of how free agents are going to view the possibility of coming to Sacramento.  That’s been the impetus for our reaching out to clubs ahead of free agency starting,” Forst said.

With this in mind, the A’s might well be one of the more aggressive teams in the early stages of free agency, with Forst and company perhaps being keen on acquiring any non-tender candidates or unwelcome contracts that other teams have on their books.  The Athletics have roughly $35.5MM on the books for 2025 (according to RosterResource) though none of that money is actually guaranteed, so some trades or non-tenders of their own could reduce that number.  This gives the A’s some relative flexibility in terms of payroll space, as Forst has said the club is prepared to spend beyond its $63.1MM payroll from 2024.

Athletics Outright Kyle Muller, Tyler Nevin

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The Athletics announced that left-hander Kyle Muller and infielder Tyler Nevin have each been passed through waivers unclaimed and outrighted off the 40-man roster.

Muller, 27, was a second-round pick of Atlanta and a notable prospect with that club. He came to the A’s in the December 2022 trade that sent catcher Sean Murphy the other way.

Unfortunately, he hasn’t done much to impress the A’s since coming over. He has tossed 126 1/3 innings as an Athletic over the past two years, allowing 6.20 earned runs per nine. His 8.5% walk rate and 42.5% ground ball rate are both around average but his 16% strikeout rate is well below par. He also has a 6.48 ERA in the minors since the start of 2023.

He exhausted his final option year in 2023 and was out of options in 2024. The A’s outrighted him off the roster midseason, with Muller clearing waivers and sticking in the organization. He was selected back to the roster but has now been waived once again.

Since this is his second career outright, he has the right to elect free agency. If he does so, it will be another development in making the Murphy trade look quite poor in hindsight. Royber Salinas, another player in that deal, was claimed back by Atlanta just today. Freddy Tarnok and Manny Piña departed the organization long ago. That leaves Esteury Ruiz as the only of the five players they received that’s still with the club. He is a big base stealer but has hit just .243/.297/.343 in his big league career thus far.

Nevin, 27, has bounced around the league and is settling in as a Quad-A type. He has continued to put up strong numbers in Triple-A but has flailed in the majors. At this point, he has a .204/.299/.315 batting line and 81 wRC+ in his big league career but a .313/.391/.536 line and 135 wRC+ at Triple-A over the past three years.

He exhausted his final option year in 2023 and has since bounced around. Since the start of 2024, he went from the Tigers to the Orioles and then the A’s. He was outrighted by Oakland midseason and added back to the roster. Since this is his second career outright, he has the right to elect free agency.

Braves Claim Royber Salinas

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The Braves announced that they have claimed right-hander Royber Salinas off waivers from the Athletics. The A’s evidently tried to clear a roster spot by passing him through waivers but Atlanta swooped in to grab him.

Salinas, 24 in April, now returns to his original organization. An international signing of Atlanta out of Venezuela, he posted some intriguing results in the lower levels of the club’s system before getting flipped to the A’s as part of the December 2022 trade that sent catcher Sean Murphy to Atlanta.

At the time of that deal, Salinas had just wrapped up a 2022 season that he finished with 109 minor league innings between Single-A and High-A, allowing 3.55 earned runs per nine. His 37.6% strikeout rate was quite strong but he also gave out walks at a high rate of 13.5%.

In 2023, he threw 71 2/3 innings on the farm with a 5.40 ERA. His walk rate improved to 10.2% but his strikeout rate fell to 30.2%. There was surely a bit of bad luck in there, as his 59.7% strand rate was on the unfortunate side and his 4.19 FIP was far better than his ERA.

He was added to the 40-man roster a year ago to keep him out of the Rule 5 draft. He made ten starts this year between Double-A and Triple-A with a 4.60 ERA and 25.3% strikeout rate but a big walk rate of 17.2%.

His last start of the year was at the end of May. In July, Martín Gallegos of MLB.com relayed on X that Salinas had undergone season-ending shoulder surgery.

It’s unclear how long it will take the righty to get healthy in the wake of that procedure but Atlanta gets to reunite with a prospect they once signed and are plenty familiar with. Whenever he gets back on the mound, he’ll give the club some optionable rotation depth.

For the A’s, the Murphy trade continues to look like a big whiff for them. Of the five players they received in return, they have already parted ways with Salinas, Freddy Tarnok and Manny Piña. They still have Kyle Muller and Esteury Ruiz but neither inspires much confidence at the moment. Muller is out of options and has a 5.90 ERA while Ruiz is a threat on the bases but has subpar offense thus far.

Angels Claim Ryan Noda

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The Angels announced Friday that they’ve claimed first baseman Ryan Noda off waivers from the Athletics.

Noda, 28, was a Rule 5 pick out of the Dodgers organization back in 2022 and spent the entire 2023 campaign on the A’s roster. At the time, it looked like a savvy pick. Noda was an on-base machine with the Athletics, hitting .229/.364/.406 and drawing a walk in a whopping 15.6% of his plate appearances. He struck out far, far too often (34.3%) but popped 16 home runs in that rookie showing.

In 2024, Noda was unable to replicate that production in a smaller sample of 111 plate appearances, however. He posted a grisly .137/.255/.211 slash with a diminished (albeit still excellent) 12.6% walk rate and a strikeout in one-third of his plate appearances. Noda’s Triple-A production was reminiscent of his 2023 output, as he hit .224/.391/.486 with 22 homers and an eye-popping 19.9% walk rate.

Noda is the embodiment of the three-true-outcomes skill set, with a particular focus on walks and strikeouts. He’s shown above-average but not elite power to go along with below-average speed (41st percentile, per Statcast). Both Statcast and Defensive Runs Saved feel the 6’1″, 217-pounder is a sound defender at first base. He’s dabbled in the outfield corners as well, but his limited mobility plays better at his primary position.

Noda will enter the 2025 season with minor league options remaining, so the Halos needn’t carry him on the Opening Day roster. He can give them some depth behind Nolan Schanuel — a similarly OBP-focused first baseman whose skill set is in many ways the inverse of Noda. Schanuel has below-average power but rarely strikes out. Both players are left-handed bats who walk at plus clips and have limited defensive utility.

Pirates Claim Tristan Gray

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Infielder Tristan Gray has been claimed off waivers by the Pirates, per an announcement from the Athletics. The A’s also announced that right-hander Austin Adams and infielder Armando Alvarez have been outrighted off the 40-man roster. There was no previous reporting about the three being removed from the roster but it’s a time of year where clubs regularly try to clear roster spots. The A’s tried with these three but the Pirates swooped in to grab Gray.

Gray, 28, was only on the Athletics’ roster for a couple of months, as they claimed him from the Marlins at the end of August. Between those two clubs and the Rays, he has a tiny amount of major league experience, having stepped to the plate 36 times in 17 games. He has a dismal line of .152/.222/.273 though it’s obviously a tiny sample size.

The Bucs are undoubtedly more interested in Gray’s prospect pedigree and minor league numbers. It was actually Pittsburgh that drafted him, selecting him with a 13th-round pick in 2017. His initial stint with the Bucs was short-lived, as he was traded to the Rays in the February 2018 trade that brought Corey Dickerson to Pittsburgh.

He was with the Rays through 2023 but reached free agency after that season and secured a minor league deal with the Marlins. To this point, between his various organizations, he has hit .238/.311/.454 in his minor league career for a 104 wRC+. He is capable of playing all four infield positions.

Gray’s previous tenure in the Pirates’ system predated Ben Cherington being hired as the general manager, but the appeal of grabbing him now is understandable. Gray’s minor league offense has been passable and he can provide the club with depth all around the infield. He is still optionable and doesn’t need to be guaranteed a spot on the active roster.

The Pirates have uncertainty at essentially every infield position. Shortstop Oneil Cruz was recently moved to center field. Third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes has ongoing back problems. First baseman Rowdy Tellez was released late in the 2024 season. Second base was a revolving door this year.

For Adams, this move is effectively an early non-tender. He could have been retained for 2025 via arbitration, with MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projecting him for a salary of $1.7MM. This move suggests the A’s weren’t keen at bringing him back at that price.

Adams has regularly posted strong strikeout numbers but often with poor control. He throws his frisbee slider the majority of the time, often missing bats but also missing the strike zone and hitting batters.

He tossed 41 1/3 innings for the A’s this year, allowing 3.92 earned runs per nine. He struck out 27.7% of batters faced but also gave out 23 walks for a 12% clip and hit 13 batters.

Players with at least three years of service time or a previous career outright have the right to elect free agency rather than accept another outright assignment. Adams qualifies on both counts and will likely be officially a free agent soon.

Alvarez, 30, just made his major league debut this year. He was selected by the A’s in June and hit .243/.282/.270 in 39 plate appearances.

His minor league numbers have been better in recent years, as he hit .301/.369/.551 over the 2022-24 seasons for a 127 wRC+. But as a 30-year-old journeyman who just made his MLB debut, the A’s likely didn’t view him as a key building block and bumped him off the roster.

Alvarez doesn’t have three years of service or a previous career outright, but he does have seven years in the minors, so he’ll soon be able to elect minor league free agency.

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