- Similarly, Athletics righty Chris Smith took free agency after being outrighted off of the 40-man roster. The 36-year-old handled 55 2/3 MLB innings in Oakland over nine starts and five relief appearances, but surrendered 2.6 homers and 6.79 earned runs per nine innings. Smith had never before topped 46 innings in a single season over his unusual career.
Athletics Rumors
Elected Free Agency: Siegrist, Edgin, Hutchison, Locke, Bolsinger, Van Slyke, Maness
The indispensable Matt Eddy of Baseball America provides an overview of a vast number of players electing free agency following the 2017 season in his latest Minor Transactions roundup. Eddy largely focuses on players with big league service time (significant service time, in some cases) that were outrighted off the roster that are now hitting the open market for the first time. (Players with three-plus years of service that are not on the 40-man roster at season’s end can elect free agency, as can any player that has been outrighted on multiple occasions in his career.)
While the vast majority of these players seem likely to sign minor league pacts this winter — they did, after all, go unclaimed by 29 other teams on waivers — a number of them are still intriguing with recent success in their past and/or multiple years of arbitration eligibility remaining. Eddy’s rundown also contains a number of re-signed minor leaguers and released minor leaguers without big league experience as well as Arizona Fall League assignments on a per-team basis, so it’s well worth a full look.
We’ve updated our list of 2017-18 MLB free agents accordingly, and here are some of the new names now checking in on the list…
Depth options in the rotation
Josh Collmenter, Asher Wojciechowski, Drew Hutchison, Jeff Locke, Kyle Kendrick, Mike Bolsinger, Christian Bergman, David Holmberg
Collmenter is just two seasons removed from being the D-backs Opening Day starter but hasn’t had much success of late. Hutchison had solid Triple-A numbers and once looked like a long-term rotation piece in Toronto before Tommy John surgery. He can be controlled for another three seasons in arbitration. Locke was injured for most of an ugly first (and likely only) season in Miami, and Kendrick made just two starts for the Red Sox.
Wojciechowski (6.50 ERA in 62 1/3 innings with the Reds), Bolsinger (6.31 ERA in 41 1/3 innings with the Jays), Bergman (5.00 ERA in 54 innings with the Mariners) and Holmberg (4.68 ERA in 57 2/3 innings with the White Sox) all soaked up innings for injury-plagued pitching staffs. Bolsinger has had the most MLB experience of the bunch.
Corner Bats
Scott Van Slyke, Tyler Moore, Cody Asche, Conor Gillaspie, Jaff Decker
Van Slyke has long been a solid bat against left-handed pitching but appeared in just 29 games with the Dodgers and didn’t hit well with their Triple-A affiliate or with the Reds’ Triple-A affiliate. (He was included in the Tony Cingrani trade to balance out the financial side of the deal.) Moore, also a right-handed bat, showed power but struggled to get on base.
Once one of the Phillies’ top prospects, Asche hit well in Triple-A Charlotte but flopped in a brief stint with the ChiSox. Gillaspie was unable to replicate his 2016 rebound with the Giants, while Decker showed some on-base skills in the Majors and minors but didn’t hit much overall. (He can play center but hasn’t graded well there in the Majors.)
Utility Infielders
Ruben Tejada, Phil Gosselin, Dusty Coleman, Chase d’Arnaud
Each of the four can play all over the diamond, but none provided offensive value in 2017. Tejada has the most big league experience but hasn’t received much playing time since 2015 (and hasn’t performed well when he has gotten opportunities). Gosselin has a solid defensive reputation but a light bat through 551 MLB PAs. Coleman hit four homers in 71 PAs in his MLB debut this year but logged a .268 OBP. d’Arnaud saw his fair share of 2016 action with the Braves but has never produced much at the plate.
Bullpen options
Kevin Siegrist (L), Josh Edgin (L), Seth Maness, Kevin Quackenbush
Siegrist and Edgin are intriguing names for clubs in need of left-handed bullpen help. Both have recent success on their track records, though Edgin wasn’t as sharp in 2017 as he was prior to 2015 Tommy John surgery. Siegrist’s control eroded in 2017 as he missed time due to a back/spinal injury and tendinitis in his left forearm, but he was one of the Cardinals’ top setup options in both 2015 and 2016. Both lefties are controllable through 2019.
Maness drew headlines for returning from a torn UCL in roughly seven months thanks to an experimental new “primary repair” procedure, but while he stayed healthy in 2017, the results weren’t great in the Majors and especially not in Triple-A (6.13 ERA in 47 innings). Quackenbush was excellent as a rookie in 2014 and solid in 2015-16 before imploding in 2017 (7.86 ERA in 26 1/3 innings). He was better but not great in Triple-A (3.90 ERA, 7.8 K/9, 2.9 BB/9). Maness could be controlled through 2019, while Quackenbush would have three more years of control.
Phillies Interview Chip Hale; Latest On A's Coaching Staff
- As the Phillies weigh a new managerial hire, Heyman says the team is not giving out much information. But he notes that Athletics bench coach Chip Hale has been interviewed. Red Sox coach Gary DiSarcina is receiving some consideration, Heyman adds.
- The Athletics announced that they’ve promoted Triple-A manager Ryan Christenson to the Major League staff and named him the new bench coach to manager Bob Melvin. The aforementioned Hale, who moved from third base coach to bench coach partway through the 2017 season, will return to his post as the team’s third base coach, barring an offer to manage another big league club. Christenson’s teams have gone 391-307 in his five-year tenure as a manager in Oakland’s minor league ranks.
Offseason Outlook: Oakland Athletics
MLBTR is publishing Offseason Outlooks for all 30 teams. Click here for the other entries in this series.
The Athletics posted their third straight last-place finish in the American League West in 2017, but for the first time since their fateful Josh Donaldson trade in November 2014, the franchise has a clear direction. Not only did the A’s commit to a full rebuild in the middle of the season, but a couple of their prospective long-term core pieces – first baseman Matt Olson and third baseman Matt Chapman – burst on the scene to provide immediate hope and contribute to a roster that closed the season on a 17-7 run. Led by executive vice president of baseball operations Billy Beane and general manager David Forst, the A’s will continue with a mostly youth-oriented approach in 2018, which means a fairly quiet winter could be in the offing.
Guaranteed Contracts
- Matt Joyce, OF: $6MM through 2018
- Santiago Casilla, RP: $5.5MM through 2018
Contract Options
- Jed Lowrie, IF: $6MM club option or $1MM buyout
Arbitration-Eligible Players (service time in parentheses; projections via Matt Swartz)
- Chris Hatcher (4.146) – $2.2MM
- Khris Davis (4.104) – $11.1MM
- Liam Hendriks (4.038) – $1.9MM
- Marcus Semien (3.118) – $3.2MM
- Josh Phegley (3.114) – $1.1MM
- Blake Treinen (3.065) – $2.3MM
- Jake Smolinski (3.016) – $700K
- Kendall Graveman (3.014) – $2.6MM
- Non-tender candidates: Phegley, Smolinski
Free Agents
- None
Athletics Depth Chart; Athletics Payroll Information
Evidenced by its handful of veteran signings in free agency last offseason, Oakland’s hope was to piece together a roster capable of pushing for a wild-card spot in 2017. But the A’s ended up well out of contention by summertime, paving the way for them to cut ties with several established players, most of whom were on expiring contracts. The primary exceptions were relievers Sean Doolittle and Ryan Madson and starter Sonny Gray, a trio of controllable players whose trades brought back returns which could benefit Oakland for years to come.
Of the A’s top 15 prospects, five came from those deals, per MLBPipeline.com. Doolittle and Madson netted left-hander Jesus Luzardo (No. 5) and third baseman Sheldon Neuse (No. 14) from the Nationals (plus major league reliever Blake Treinen), while Gray’s two-plus years of team control garnered outfielder Dustin Fowler (No. 3), infielder/outfielder Jorge Mateo (No. 4) and righty James Kaprielian (No. 10) from the Yankees.
The Gray deal was especially notable not just for the prospect haul the A’s picked up, but because it was the end result of multiple years of trade rumors centering on the hurler. The A’s orchestrated a weekslong bidding war for Gray before moving him at the non-waiver trade deadline on July 31, and though two of the farmhands they acquired for him are on the mend from significant injuries, they still made out well in the swap. Fowler’s recovering from a ruptured patellar tendon, but the soon-to-be 23-year-old will have a legitimate chance to serve as the A’s starting center fielder from the get-go in 2018, according to Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle. And Kaprielian, who’s working back from the Tommy John procedure he underwent in April, could enter Oakland’s rotation sometime next year.
The aforementioned prospects are each important pieces of an ascending farm system, one the A’s could further bolster by selling well-performing veterans such as slugger Khris Davis and infielder Jed Lowrie in the coming months. However, they seem inclined to keep the pair. Fresh off his second 40-home run season in a row, Davis has only two years of arbitration control remaining and is projected to earn upward of $11MM in 2018. Despite Davis’ declining control and increasing price tag, A’s brass wants him in the fold.
“He fits in perfectly here,” Beane said after the season, while Forst brushed off concerns about Davis’ rising salary.
“If it is, it is,” Forst said of Davis’ arbitration case potentially being difficult. “I don’t think you could overstate the impact he has on the rest of the lineup.”
Lowrie, meanwhile, is down to his last year of control, but the A’s will pick up his affordable option and write him in as their starting second baseman for 2018. Doing so will allow them to give top prospect Franklin Barreto further seasoning at Triple-A after a rough 2017 debut in the majors, albeit over just 76 plate appearances.
With Davis and Lowrie seemingly returning next year, the majority of the A’s lineup already looks set. The infield will typically feature Olson, Chapman, Lowrie and shortstop Marcus Semien, while Fowler, Davis, Matt Joyce, Boog Powell and Chad Pinder will divvy up most of the reps in the outfield. For now, the designated hitter slot looks as if it’ll primarily belong to corner infielder Ryon Healy, but the A’s could attempt to move him to strengthen their bullpen, according to Slusser. The 25-year-old Healy isn’t even scheduled to reach arbitration until after the 2019 season, which could certainly appeal to teams searching for a long-term offensive piece, though he’s coming off a so-so year at the plate. While Healy belted 25 homers for a team that finished fourth in the majors in long balls (234), his .271/.302/.451 line across 605 PAs hovered around league average, thanks in part to a bottom-of-the-barrel walk rate (3.8). Healy wasn’t much better in that category in his 283-PA rookie year, 2016, when he logged a 4.2 percent mark that a .305/.337/.524 line helped mask.
Regardless of whether Healy sticks around, the A’s will have a chance to build on an offense that placed seventh in the league in wRC+ (102) this year, particularly if they get better production from behind the plate. The A’s catchers, primarily Bruce Maxwell, now-Brewer Stephen Vogt and Josh Phegley, combined to hit just .217/.298/.334 this year. The lefty-swinging Maxwell was the best of the three in 2017 and is likely to collect most of the playing time at catcher next season, but the A’s could at least stand to improve over the righty-hitting Phegley. The 29-year-old non-tender candidate batted a meek .201/.255/.336 in 161 trips to the plate and, like Maxwell, ranked among Baseball Prospectus’ worst pitch framers. Fortunately for Oakland, there will be a few reasonably priced upgrades over Phegley available in free agency, including Chris Iannetta, Nick Hundley and Rene Rivera.
It’s fair to expect the A’s to add a catcher via the open market, but taking that path to find a starting pitcher may not be in the cards.
“The preferred route is to create the pitching staff organically. That’s where we’ve had the most success,” Beane said.
A’s starters ranked 20th in the game in ERA (4.74) and 21st in fWAR (7.9) in 2017, and much of that production came from the departed Gray. Despite that subpar performance, though, the A’s still have a mishmash of 20-something rotation candidates they may prefer to go forward with, including two somewhat established options – Sean Manaea and Kendall Graveman – as well as Jharel Cotton, Andrew Triggs (recovering from hip surgery), Daniel Mengden, Jesse Hahn, Paul Blackburn and Daniel Gossett, among others. There’s also Kaprielian and lefty A.J. Puk, the sixth overall pick in 2016, knocking on the door. But even though Beane isn’t gung-ho on free agency, the A’s could still reel in one of the many soon-to-be available veteran stopgaps capable of eating innings. Notably, only three A’s surpassed 100 frames in 2017.
Oakland’s rotation clearly had problems this season, but the bullpen didn’t help the club’s cause. A’s relievers registered the majors’ sixth-highest ERA (4.57) and ranked just 19th in strikeout percentage (22.0). And remember, that was with Doolittle and Madson around for a large portion of the campaign. Treinen, who came over in that trade, was outstanding for Oakland, though he’s the only returning standout in its relief corps. Santiago Casilla, Ryan Dull, Liam Hendriks, Chris Hatcher and Daniel Coulombe remain controllable for 2018, but nobody from that group was a world-beater this year. So, whether it’s via trade or free agency, it would behoove the A’s to upgrade their bullpen. Beane hasn’t been hesitant to use the market to pick up relievers recently, having added Madson, Casilla and John Axford over the previous two offseasons, and could do so again. Free agency will overflow with possibilities, many of them appealing and affordable. Speculatively, with Coulombe as their only semi-established lefty option, the A’s could look to a southpaw like San Jose native Jake McGee, Brian Duensing, Tony Watson or Fernando Abad for late-game improvement.
Given their new course, any players the A’s go after in free agency during the coming months are likely to be modestly priced Band-Aids, meaning there won’t be another Edwin Encarnacion-type pursuit this winter. Beane noted at his season-ending press conference that the A’s are aiming to take a “disciplined” course in the early stages of their rebuild, revealing that their primary concern is to identify which youngsters are bona fide linchpins worth locking up for the long haul. As such, any lengthy deals the A’s hand out prior to next season are likely to go to players who are already in their organization.
Khris Davis Going "Year By Year" With A's
It was on this day in 1929 that the Athletics (then based out of Philadelphia) won the World Series after a walkoff comeback in Game Five against the Cubs. Down 2-0 doing into the bottom of the ninth, the A’s tied it on Mule Haas’ two-run homer, and then Bing Miller later delivered an RBI double for the game- and Series-winning run. This comeback came just two days after the A’s scored 10 runs in the bottom of the seventh in Game Four, erasing an 8-0 Cubs lead.
- During an appearance on MLB.com’s Newsmakers podcast, Khris Davis tells Bill Ladson (audio link) that he enjoys playing in Oakland but doesn’t necessarily anticipate remaining over the long term, given the Athletics’ penchant for trading established players for prospects. “I see myself year by year. I don’t know what the longest streak for a player to be in Oakland is, but I know that it’s a business, and one day I’ll have to leave,“ Davis said. The team at least explored the possibility of an extension with Davis and Marcus Semien last year, and Billy Beane recently discussed how the A’s are looking to lock up some core pieces, so one would assume that the club will re-open talks with Davis at some point this winter. Davis has done nothing but mash since joining the A’s two years ago, delivering a pair of 40+ homer seasons and improving his walk rate last season, en route to a .247/.336/.528 slash line over 652 PA. That big year has put Davis in line for a projected $11.1MM salary in 2018 via arbitration, so an extension would also give the A’s some cost certainty over Davis as his price tag will rise again during his final arb-eligible offseason in 2018-19.
A's Likely To Pursue Veteran Starter
The Athletics have a history of adding veteran starters to eat innings and serve as mentors within otherwise young rotations, and the team will again be looking to add such a pitcher this winter, John Shea of the San Francisco Chronicle writes in a look at the starting situations on both Bay Area teams. “You have to bring in the right guy in that situation. Not just any veteran or experienced guy can come in and play that role, so we’ll certainly survey the market and be opportunistic,” Oakland GM David Forst said. As for the Giants, they seem pretty set in the rotation, as they’re counting on better health and/or returns to form from Madison Bumgarner, Johnny Cueto, Jeff Samardzija and Matt Moore, with Ty Blach and Chris Stratton competing for the fifth starter’s job.
A’s Executives On Offseason, Future
On Monday, the Oakland Athletics held a season-ending press conference. Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle and Joe Stiglich of NBC Sports were present, and both provided insightful takes on the words from A’s VP of Baseball Operations Billy Beane and GM David Forst.
Somewhat expectedly, it doesn’t seem as though the A’s are likely to add significant payroll or make any sort of all-in push towards contention this year.
“Next year, you want to improve,” Beane says (via Slusser), “but more than anything, if we can just get long-term pieces in — a process that was started this year and will continue on — I think we’ll feel good. If we have the opportunity for a playoff spot, of course, I think we’ve always been opportunistic, and we’ll look at the winter that way, but we do want to be disciplined long term.”
Slusser also adds that Beane expressed disappointment in the volatile development process of their young pitchers (which would include up-and-down seasons from Sean Manaea, Kendall Graveman and Jharel Cotton), but adds that the free-agent market for starting pitchers is too risky to plunge into. The A’s, according to Beane, want to build their pitching staff “organically.” 2016 first-rounder A.J. Puk and trade acquisition James Kaprielian are good bets to contribute to the A’s rotation in the near future as well.
However, the A’s believe that their offense is in very good shape for the future. Khris Davis hit 43 homers last season, and they have no plans to shop the slugger, per Beane (via Slusser). He’ll complement a young core led by Matt Olson, Matt Chapman, Bruce Maxwell and Chad Pinder that has earned the faith of the front office. That group will only get stronger as additional minor leaguers join the MLB club. Highly-touted prospect Franklin Barreto could begin the season at Triple-A, for instance, but seems likely to contribute in 2018 as well.
Notably, the A’s brain trust is already looking at which members of the young core to lock up via long-term extensions.
“First, we want to make sure we’re identifying the right guys,” said Beane (via Stiglich). “I’ll just say it’s probably a conversation we’ve already started. We’ve had that discussion already. It’s going to be important for us to do it.”
Olson, Chapman, Manaea, and Ryon Healy all seem like candidates for these type of extensions (though Slusser notes that Oakland could choose to dangle Healy in potential trades for pitching help). The A’s appear to be acting more proactively on this front than the organization typically has in past years, and interestingly, Beane cites the new stadium as a factor.
“When you’re talking about building a club for a stadium that’s six years off, and if you’re talking about locking them up, then you’re looking to have to lock them up for a long time. So that’s sort of the trick and the balance that we have to address this offseason, if we’re going to embark on that… I think right now we’ve just got to operate that (the ballpark) is going to happen (on time). The other option is one we’ve done my entire career here, which is constant churn. I’m churned out.”
The A’s are treating their new ballpark as additional motivation to get a strong perennial contender together. They believe that by combining a team the fans are excited about with a move to a brand new stadium, they can give a major boost to a franchise that will continue to see revenue-sharing checks dwindle over the next few seasons. Beane cites the Indians’ success with a similar enterprise back in the 90s as the model for his plan.
“I think you have to be very proactive long before a stadium opens,” Beane said (via Slusser, in a separate article). “Listen, you have to get people excited about the product that’s going in a new stadium if you expect them to pay higher prices or even come at all. That’s really important. So for me, the model has always been the Indians. No one has done it since then nearly as well. If you wait too long and try to create a team a year before the stadium opens, most of them badly miss the mark, and we’ve got to take advantage of it.”
It’s been a tough couple of seasons for the A’s since an aggressive but ultimately disappointing playoff push in 2014. But if they can lock up some of their promising young players and continue to add to an intriguing foundation, the franchise could be well on its way to sustainable success sooner than later.
Athletics Expect To Retain Jed Lowrie
Infielder Jed Lowrie has a $6MM club option on his contract with the A’s, and while the exercising of that option has long seemed like a foregone conclusion, he’s remained a highly speculative trade candidate. Speaking to the media following the conclusion of the regular season, however (via Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle), EVP of baseball operations Billy Beane and general manager David Forst instead strongly suggested that Lowrie would be back as the A’s regular second baseman in 2018.
Though A’s top prospect Franklin Barreto made his Major League debut in 2017 and could eventually push starting shortstop Marcus Semien over to second base, it seems that scenario won’t play out immediately in 2018. Barreto is, as Beane pointed out, still just 21 years of age (22 in February). He has received plenty of attention on prospects list, and he posted a strong .290/.339/.456 as one of the youngest players in the Pacific Coast League this year. But, Barreto hit just .197/.250/.352 in 76 plate appearances this year – a far cry from the manner in which young teammates Matt Olson and Matt Chapman more authoritatively seized spots in Oakland’s lineup moving forward – and Slusser writes that the A’s are inclined to give him further seasoning in the minors.
“You’ve got those two dynamics, which is actually ideal,” Beane said. “I want a young player to sort of push, where his performance is so good that he sort of pushes himself in. But Jed Lowrie had an absolute amazing year, one of the best years probably this side of Jose Altuve as any second baseman in baseball.”
Lowrie certainly was superb for the A’s in 2017, hitting .277/.360/.448 with 14 homers, 49 doubles and three triples over a career-high 645 plate appearances. He also turned in passable defense at second base, with both Ultimate Zone Rating and Defensive Runs Saved pegging him as only slightly below average in the field.
While a strong offer for Lowrie’s services over the winter could always alter the thinking of the Oakland front office, the comments from Beane and Forst seem to largely indicate that Lowrie is indeed a firm Plan A for Oakland in 2018. Some doubters will recall reports that the A’s wouldn’t trade star third baseman Josh Donaldson in the same offseason that he was dealt to Toronto, but those comments were made anonymously by an Oakland official — as opposed to on-record statements by the team’s top decision-makers. More recently, Beane and Forst drew a hard line in November 2015, stating on record that they could not foresee trades of Sonny Gray or Josh Reddick that offseason, and they indeed held onto them through the winter. Both, of course, were eventually traded at a later date.
Athletics Extend Bob Melvin
The Athletics and manager Bob Melvin have agreed to a one-year extension, the team announced this afternoon. Melvin is now under contract through 2019, joining executive vice president of baseball operations Billy Beane and general manager David Forst. He’d previously been under contract through the completion of the 2018 season, so this new agreement will prevent him from entering the 2018 campaign as a dreaded “lame duck” manager with just a year to go on his deal.
Melvin, 55, is wrapping up his 14th season as a Major League manager and his seventh at the helm for the Athletics. He’s previously managed the Mariners (2003-04) and Diamondbacks (2005-09), and as the A’s point out in their press release, he’s one of just seven managers in baseball history to win Manager of the Year honors in both the American League (2012 with the A’s) and the National League (2007 with the Diamondbacks). Overall, Melvin has a career record of 1028-1040 as a manager, though he’s presided over a number of A’s teams that haven’t necessarily been in “win-now” mode.
The 2017 season was one of those years, as Oakland entered the season with a number of stopgaps among its position-player ranks as the team waited for the arrival of a wave of young talent. Veterans like Trevor Plouffe, Rajai Davis, Stephen Vogt and Yonder Alonso eventually gave way to an impressive bumper crop of young talent, however — a group that the A’s hope will form the nucleus of their next contending club.
Corner infielders Matt Olson and Matt Chapman have made the biggest impact in the Majors (Olson with his bat, Chapman more with his glove), but the team has also welcomed the likes of Franklin Barreto, Ryon Healy, Bruce Maxwell and Jaycob Brugman into more prominent roles.
Melvin will be tasked with helping to hone the skills of that potential core group, as Oakland looks to put its current 73-85 record in the rear-view mirror in future seasons and return to contention in what was one of Major League Baseball’s most top-heavy divisions in 2017.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Bruce Maxwell Kneels During National Anthem
Whatever one may think about athletes making social or political gestures during the National Anthem, this excellent piece from Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports on Athletics catcher Bruce Maxwell is well worth a read. The first-year big leaguer, who became the first and thus far only major-league player to join many in the NFL in taking a knee during the anthem, certainly has thought deeply about his actions and appears to be motivated by honestly-held beliefs.
