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A’s To Carry Rule 5 Pick Noah Murdock On Opening Day Roster

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The A’s have informed Rule 5 pick Noah Murdock that he made the roster, manager Mark Kotsay told Martín Gallegos of MLB.com. The 6’8″ righty will get the opportunity to make his MLB debut.

Murdock was the fourth player selected in December’s Rule 5 draft. (The A’s had the fifth pick, but Colorado passed at #2.) The A’s took the reliever out of the Kansas City farm system. Murdock divided his 2024 season between Double-A Northwest Arkansas and Triple-A Omaha. He worked to a 2.22 earned run average over 24 1/3 innings at the former level. Murdock posted a 3.76 ERA through 38 1/3 frames in Triple-A. He combined for a 27% strikeout rate and a huge 59.7% ground-ball percentage, though that came with an alarming 15.4% walk rate.

The control was presumably the main reason that Kansas City decided not to add Murdock to their 40-man roster. It’s common for pitchers as tall as he is to struggle to consistently line up their mechanics. The A’s were clearly intrigued by his combination of plus whiff and grounder rates. Murdock has managed seven strikeouts with five walks over 7 2/3 innings of three-run ball this spring. He has gotten grounders on three-quarters of the batted balls he’s allowed.

Teams need to carry their Rule 5 picks on the MLB roster or injured list for the entire season to retain their contractual rights. They’d otherwise need to place the player on waivers and, if he clears, offer him back to his original organization. Murdock will likely begin the season in a low-leverage relief role. With Michel Otañez beginning the season on the injured list, the A’s have José Leclerc and T.J. McFarland lined up as their top setup options in front of star closer Mason Miller.

A’s Option Esteury Ruiz, J.T. Ginn

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The A’s optioned several names to Triple-A Las Vegas last night, including outfielder Esteury Ruiz, rotation hopeful J.T. Ginn, infielder Darell Hernaiz, and righties Elvis Alvarado and Grant Holman. Infielder Alejo Lopez and lefty Matt Krook, both former big leaguers in camp on non-roster deals, were also reassigned to minor league camp. All of those cuts were announced by the team.

Ruiz, 26, was the Athletics’ primary center fielder in 2023 and swiped a gaudy 67 bases that season but did so while batting only .254/.309/.345 in 132 games (497 plate appearances). Though he was one of several key players acquired in the Athletics’ slate of rebuild-focused trades — regrettably coming over in a three-way deal that sent star catcher William Contreras, whom the A’s could’ve kept, to the Brewers — Ruiz has fallen a ways down the team’s depth chart since that original acquisition.

Injury played a role in his drop down the pecking order, as he missed the bulk of the 2024 campaign with a wrist strain. Ruiz logged 29 games and 65 plate appearances in the majors and delivered only a feeble .200/.270/.382 output at the plate. He hit .345/.425/.596 in 73 minor league plate appearances last year, but he’s long had eye-catching numbers in the upper minors that haven’t carried over to MLB, where he’s a .243/.297/.343 hitter in 598 plate appearances. Ruiz didn’t do himself any favors this spring, hitting .121/.171/.152 in 35 trips to the plate during Cactus League play.

The A’s locked Lawrence Butler up on a long-term extension and saw JJ Bleday turn in a breakout performance at the plate last season. That leaves two of their three outfield spots spoken for in the long-term. Bleday is miscast as a center fielder, so perhaps there’s room for Ruiz to work his way back into that role, but prospects like Colby Thomas, Denzel Clarke and Henry Bolte are all on the cusp of MLB readiness as well. At least for the early stages of the 2025 campaign, it looks like the A’s will go with a left field platoon of Seth Brown and Miguel Andujar.

In the rotation, Ginn heads back to Triple-A on the heels of a tough spring. The righty’s final outing was excellent — four innings of one-run ball with seven punchouts — but he still served up 13 runs (11 earned) in 13 innings while walking 12.5% of his opponents. The 25-year-old is a former second-round pick whom the A’s acquired in the trade sending Chris Bassitt to the Mets. He was hit relatively hard between Double-A and Triple-A last year but turned in a decent blend of strikeout, walk and ground-ball rates (21.2%, 8.8% and 54.1%, respectively). He held his own with a 4.24 ERA in his first 34 MLB frames last summer as well.

With Ginn being sent out, it increasingly appears as though the Athletics’ season-opening rotation will include Luis Severino, Jeffrey Springs, JP Sears, Osvaldo Bido and Mitch Spence. A late injury could always change that, and the A’s still have one possible rotation alternative in camp in the form of Joey Estes, who’s had a decent Cactus League run this spring.

Hernaiz, acquired in the trade of Cole Irvin to Baltimore, became a long shot for the roster after the A’s signed both Gio Urshela and Luis Urias to major league contracts this winter. Jacob Wilson and Zack Gelof are lined up in the middle infield, while Urias and Urshela can handle third base and move around to multiple infield positions. Hernaiz hit well in Triple-A last year (.331/.376/.493) but mustered only a .192/.261/.242 line in his first 135 MLB plate appearances. His spring output wasn’t much more encouraging — .194/.302/.306 in 43 plate appearances — so he’ll had back to the minors for more work.

Athletics’ Michel Otanez To Start Season On Injured List

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An MRI revealed that right-hander Michel Otanez has an impingement in his throwing shoulder, Athletics manager Mark Kotsay told MLB.com’s Martin Gallegos and other reporters.  Otanez will start the season on the injured list and the A’s didn’t release a projected a timeline, though Gallegos notes that the standard timeline for a normal impingement is two-to-three weeks of recovery.

Otanez made his Major League debut last season, and posted a 3.44 ERA over 34 relief innings.  A 13.2% walk rate stood out as a red flag, even if that number is actually an improvement over the even more ungainly walk rates Otanez posted over his seven minor league seasons.  However, Otanez has also racked up a lot of strikeouts at every level, including an eye-opening 36.4% strikeout rate in the big leagues.  Otanez was one of the hardest-throwing pitchers in the majors last season, averaging 97.8mph on his fastball.

The Athletics intend to use Otanez as one of Mason Miller’s setup men this season, but this shoulder injury will now delay that plan for what is hopefully only a short while into April.  Tyler Ferguson and new acquisition Jose Leclerc now project as the top setup options, and Gallegos feels Justin Sterner might be the favorite to win the bullpen job left open by Otanez’s absence.

In other A’s injury news, southpaw Brady Basso is set to start a throwing program on Wednesday in the next step of his recovery from a shoulder strain.  Basso has been shut down since March 5, though it doesn’t appear his shoulder strain is too serious, as the Athletics think there’s a chance he can start up minor league games soon after Opening Day.  Infielder Brett Harris is facing a longer absence from an oblique strain, as it doesn’t appear he will play in any games before Spring Training is over even though he has restarted some baseball activities.

No Extension Talks Thus Far Between A’s, Mason Miller

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The A’s have handed out two of the largest extensions in franchise history in recent months. They inked DH Brent Rooker to a five-year, $60MM guarantee in January. Earlier this week, they finalized a seven-year deal with outfielder Lawrence Butler that guarantees $65.5MM.

It’s possible that the Butler deal is the first of multiple A’s extensions in Spring Training. General manager David Forst told Evan Drellich of The Athletic a couple weeks ago that the team had opened talks with a few players. With Butler signed, closer Mason Miller should arguably be the team’s top extension candidate.

Miller told Foul Territory’s A.J. Pierzynski on Friday afternoon that he’s open to talks but hasn’t heard from the team about the possibility. The A’s control the hard-throwing reliever for another five seasons. Miller will qualify for early arbitration as a Super Two player next winter. He’d go through that process four times unless he signs an extension.

The A’s may not be eager to commit to a reliever, even one as dominant as Miller, whom they already have under control for a half-decade. There’s downside associated with the general volatility of relief pitching. Miller’s stuff is so exceptional that he’s a safer bet than almost any reliever to remain effective, but there’s more of a risk from a health perspective. He battled shoulder and elbow injuries and pitched fewer than 40 innings in the minor leagues.

[Related Front Office Post: Who Else Could The A’s Look To Extend?]

Forearm tightness wiped out most of his ’23 season and was the main reason the A’s moved him out of the rotation during the 2023-24 offseason. Miller stayed healthy last year aside from an incident where he fractured the pinkie on his left (non-throwing) hand, which reportedly occurred when he hit a training table in frustration after a poor outing. That’s presumably not a concern moving forward, but as baseball’s hardest thrower, he certainly puts a lot of stress on his elbow and shoulder.

There have been a handful of extensions for relief pitchers in the 1-2 year service bucket. Miller would almost certainly look to set a new standard for that class if the A’s were interested in an extension. Emmanuel Clase’s five-year, $20MM guarantee is the current record. That deal, which was signed in April 2022, included a pair of $10MM club options to extend Cleveland’s control window by two seasons. Clase was coming off an outstanding first full season, turning in a 1.29 ERA with 24 saves and 74 strikeouts in 69 2/3 innings. Miller struck out 104 hitters with a 2.49 earned run average over 65 frames last season. He went 28-31 in save chances.

Clase’s deal is a three-year old precedent that has turned into an extremely team-friendly contract. Clase also wasn’t on track to reach Super Two status, which meant he was two years from arbitration and had a much lower earning power through that process. Arbitration salaries escalate annually, and Super Two qualification sets a higher baseline for future raises. Clase didn’t have Miller’s injury history, but the Cleveland closer had served a performance-enhancing drug suspension in 2020 that added a different risk to his profile.

MLBTR Podcast: Lawrence Butler’s Extension, Gerrit Cole’s TJ, And Rays’ Ownership Pressured To Sell

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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 Steve Adams of MLB Trade Rumors to discuss…

Plus, we answer your questions, including…

  • Will the Cubs win the NL Central and how would you rank the AL Central clubs? (34:25)
  • Will the spring injuries lead to some deals and keep the hot stove burning into April? (41:35)
  • Should fans of the Dodgers be worried by how many old/injury-prone players are on the roster? (47:50)

Check out our past episodes!

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

Reds Return Rule 5 Selection Cooper Bowman To Athletics

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The Reds have returned Rule 5 draft selection Cooper Bowman to the Athletics, per announcements from both clubs. Cincinnati’s 40-man roster count drops to 39. Bowman does not need to go onto the 40-man roster with the A’s.

Bowman, 25, was initially drafted by the Yankees but was one of four players who came to the A’s via the August 2022 trade that sent Frankie Montas and Lou Trivino to the Bronx. After that deal, he posted some decent Double-A numbers but struggled in his first taste of Triple-A.

He appeared in 152 minor league games from the start of 2023 through July 28 of 2024, mostly at Double-A but with four Complex League games in there as well. In his 705 plate appearances during that stretch, he walked at an 11.8% clip and kept his strikeouts down to a decent 20.9% pace. His combined .272/.369/.450 batting line led to a 125 wRC+. He also stole 73 bases in 81 tries and lined up defensively mostly at second base but with stints at third base, shortstop and center field.

He was promoted to Triple-A for the final few weeks of the 2024 season and struggled, hitting just .218/.284/.308 in a 38-game sample. But with the speed, defensive versatility and the decent offense at Double-A, the Reds perhaps saw enough for Bowman to carve out a utility role at the big league level, so they nabbed him in the Rule 5 draft.

That gave him a chance to break camp and make his major league debut but Bowman hit .120/.267/.120 in his 30 plate appearances this spring. That’s a small sample size but was apparently enough for the Reds to change course. Per Rule 5 regulations, the Reds would have had to keep Bowman on the big league roster all year or else put him on waivers. Any claiming club would have been bound by the same rules as the Reds, so it appears no other club was willing to give him a 40-man spot. Bowman will instead return to the A’s and give them some extra non-roster depth.

A’s Sign Lawrence Butler To Seven-Year Extension

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March 10: The A’s made it official today, announcing they have signed Butler to a seven-year extension plus a club option for 2032.

March 7: Butler’s deal will pay him a $3MM signing bonus and $2.25MM in 2025, Evan Drellich of The Athletic reports. He’ll then earn salaries of $3.25MM, $5MM, $8MM, $10MM, $14MM and $16MM from 2026-31. The Athletics’ option checks in at $20MM and comes with a $4MM buyout. The contract also contains escalators that can push the option value north to $26MM, per the report. In all, Butler can max out at $87.5MM over eight years if he hits all those escalators and the option is picked up.

March 6: The A’s are in agreement with right fielder Lawrence Butler on a seven-year, $65.5MM extension, reports ESPN’s Jeff Passan. There’s a club option for an eighth season. The contract buys out at least two free agent seasons, while the option covers a third would-be free agent year. The team has yet to announce the signing, which is pending a physical. Butler is represented by CAA Sports.

A sixth-round pick out of high school in 2018, Butler struggled over his first couple minor league seasons. Things clicked for him in Low-A in 2021, and he continued to hit his way up the ladder. The lefty hitter reached the majors in 2023 and hit .211 over his first 42 games. While he got out to another relatively slow start last year, a monster second half demonstrated his potential.

Butler raked at a .300/.345/.553 clip with 13 homers and 32 extra-base hits after the All-Star Break. Among qualified hitters, he ranked 10th in wRC+ over that stretch. The nine more productive batters in the second half are stars: Aaron Judge, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bobby Witt Jr., Yordan Alvarez, Juan Soto, Shohei Ohtani, Francisco Lindor, Jackson Merrill, and teammate Brent Rooker.

It’s impressive company, though it’s worth noting that Eugenio Suárez and Gavin Lux were among those closely behind Butler in second-half production. Three months is still a relatively small sample size. Butler went into last year’s All-Star Break as a career .205/.260/.337 hitter. He had fanned in almost 30% of his plate appearances to that point. He sliced the strikeouts to a tidy 19.8% clip in the second half. The whiffs began to creep back up in September, though he still managed a .280/.330/.409 in the season’s final month.

The A’s believe he’ll build off that strong finish. Butler ended the season with a .262/.317/.490 slash across 451 plate appearances. He hit 22 homers and went a perfect 18-18 on stolen base attempts. While most of his playing time came against right-handed pitching, he more than held his own in unfavorable platoon settings. Butler hit .291 with five homers in 89 plate appearances against southpaws.

Butler led off for Mark Kotsay throughout the second half. He has sufficient on-base skills to hit atop the lineup or the power to slot into the order’s middle third. He’s an effective baserunner who’ll play every day in right field. Statcast and Defensive Runs Saved each graded him as a league average defender over 955 1/3 innings. Butler has solid speed and arm strength, so he probably has the tools to be an above-average corner outfield defender. He started 32 games in center field as a rookie, but he only played four MLB innings there last season. JJ Bleday will play up the middle on most days.

The A’s had Butler under club control for five seasons. He wasn’t on track to reach arbitration for another two years. There have been a few recent extensions for hitters in that 1-2 year service bucket. The Pirates inked third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes to an eight-year, $70MM guarantee in 2022. The Rockies signed a seven-year, $63.5MM extension with shortstop Ezequiel Tovar last spring. The Nationals hammered out an eight-year, $50MM agreement with catcher Keibert Ruiz two seasons ago.

Butler has shown a higher offensive ceiling than all those players had at the time of their deals. They’d each been top prospects and played more valuable positions, though. Tovar and Hayes were already plus defenders. Butler’s deal puts him alongside the Hayes and Tovar contracts. That’s a reasonable landing spot. Butler locks in a significant sum that hedges against injury or regression. The A’s buy into his breakout relatively early. If they’d waited until next offseason, another strong season would probably have pushed Butler’s asking price beyond nine figures.

The A’s have now signed three of the four largest contracts in franchise history over the past few months. Their three-year, $67MM free agent deal with Luis Severino stands as their biggest ever. They signed Rooker to a five-year, $60MM extension with a sixth-year club option. As shown on MLBTR’s Contract Tracker, this is the first time the A’s have extended a pre-arbitration player since their $10MM deal with Sean Doolittle in April 2014.

The spike in spending has coincided with the franchise’s three-year move to Sacramento. They’ve reportedly needed to get their competitive balance tax number to $105MM in order to avoid a grievance from the MLB Players Association regarding their use of revenue sharing funds. They’d already achieved that between deals for Severino, Rooker, and reliever José Leclerc, as well as the trade for starter Jeffrey Springs.

Butler joins Rooker as the only players under contract through at least 2028, the scheduled opening of their Las Vegas ballpark. The option extends their control window through 2032. Butler would hit free agency after his age-31 season if they exercise the option.

It’s possible this is the first of a handful of spring deals for the A’s. General manager David Forst told Evan Drellich of The Athletic last month that the team had opened talks with multiple players. MLBTR highlighted a few of their extension candidates in a post for Front Office subscribers last week.

Image courtesy of Imagn.

A’s Announce Las Vegas Jersey Patch Sponsorship

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The A’s announced on Friday evening that they’ve reached a three-year advertising partnership with the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA). As part of the agreement, they’ll have “Las Vegas” jersey patches on their uniform sleeves during their three seasons in Sacramento. The A’s will wear a Sacramento patch on the opposite arm for at least the 2025 season.

“For the Athletics, this partnership is more than just a jersey patch—it’s the beginning of the transition to our new home,” A’s owner John Fisher said in a press release. “This is a chance to wear our hearts on our sleeves for the next three years before bringing the vibrant spirit of our new home front and center across our uniform.”

Steve Hill, the head of the LVCVA, tells Evan Drellich of The Athletic that the deal will pay the A’s $8.25MM over the next three seasons: $2.5MM this season, $2.75MM next year, and $3MM in 2028. Hill acknowledged that it’s rare for a team to don an advertisement for a city in which they’re not currently playing.

“Frankly, one of the reasons that something like this hasn’t been done, at least for a team that’s moving, is that they’re still in the city they’re moving from,” Hill told Drellich. “We couldn’t have done this with the Raiders (who moved directly from Oakland to Las Vegas in 2020), for example, because it would have just been rude. They’re in the city they’re moving from, and that’s kind of in your face, just not appropriate. But because (the A’s are) moving to Sacramento for three years before coming here, it opened up that possibility of doing that.”

The A’s plan to break ground on their 33,000-seat stadium in Las Vegas within the next few months. The team released their latest set of renderings for that facility on Thursday (link via Mick Akers of the Las Vegas Review-Journal). Newly-hired club president Marc Badain told Drellich on Thursday that he has “no doubts on that at all” when asked if the ballpark will be ready in time for the 2028 season.

Athletics Announce Marc Badain As New President

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The Athletics announced that Marc Badain will be the club’s new president, per Mick Akers of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Badain is most notable for having previously been president of the NFL’s Raiders, who moved to Las Vegas in his time in that job. He will replace Dave Kaval, who announced his resignation from the position in December. Sandy Dean was named interim president when Kaval stepped down but will now serve as vice chairman.

“We are excited to welcome Marc to the Athletics,” A’s owner John Fisher said in a statement. “His vast experience, particularly his work on the opening of Allegiant Stadium and overseeing the Raiders’ move to Las Vegas, makes him a great addition to our team at this pivotal moment. His leadership, commitment to the community, and ability to oversee transformative projects will be key as we look to build a strong and successful future in Southern Nevada.”

Badain served as president of the Raiders from 2013 to 2021. At the start of that time frame, the Raiders played their home games in Oakland Coliseum, sharing the facility with the Athletics. Looking for a new stadium, the Raiders started to explore the possibility of moving to Las Vegas in 2015. Those plans gradually became reality and the move was approved in 2017, though the Raiders stayed in Oakland through the end of the 2019 NFL season, moving into their new stadium in Vegas in 2020.

Badain then resigned in 2021. Per a report from Daniel Kaplan and Tashan Reed of The Athletic in October of 2021, Raiders owner Mark Davis said that “accounting irregularities” prompted the resignation. He said the team “overpaid our taxes…we paid more than we owe,” a matter that “may have started in Oakland.” Badain has since been working with the Oak View Group, trying to build a hotel and casino complex with a venue capable of hosting an NBA team.

Controversial finish aside, there are some clear parallels between his Raiders tenure and the current state of the Athletics. The A’s are in a similar position to where the Raiders were a few years ago. The baseball club is planning to play out of a new stadium in Vegas starting with the 2028 season. They failed to work out a deal to stay in Oakland beyond the end of their 2024 lease of the Coliseum, so they are going to play out of Sutter Health Park in West Sacramento for the 2025-27 seasons. That is normally the home of the Sacramento River Cats, the Triple-A affiliate of the Giants. The A’s and River Cats plan to share the park for the next three years.

The detour to West Sacramento is a notable difference, but the journey of the two franchises is otherwise quite similar. Since Badain has already steered one franchise from the Oakland Coliseum to a new facility in Las Vegas, the A’s seem to be banking on his experience to guide them through the process in the coming years.

“I’m honored to join the Athletics and help guide the team into a new era of success,” Badain said in the news release. “Las Vegas is a city that celebrates innovation and excellence, and I’m excited to work alongside the team, the fans, and the community to create something extraordinary.”

A’s Shut Brady Basso Down Due To Shoulder Strain

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The A’s have shut southpaw Brady Basso down for the time being due to a shoulder strain, per Martin Gallegos of MLB.com. There’s currently no timetable for his return to throwing.

While Basso wasn’t guaranteed a spot on the Opening Day roster — he still has a pair of minor league option years remaining — his solid rookie showing in 2024 put him in position to genuinely compete to break camp. A 16th-round pick back in 2019, Basso pitched the first 22 1/3 innings of his MLB career last season and logged a 4.03 earned run average with a 20.4% strikeout rate, 5.4% walk rate and 42% grounder rate. That came on the heels of a 4.55 ERA, 27.5 K% and 6.3 BB% in 93 innings (18 starts, four relief appearances) between Double-A and Triple-A.

The Athletics currently have Luis Severino, Jeffrey Springs and JP Sears locked into rotation spots. Last season’s Rule 5 pick, Mitch Spence, very likely pitched his way into the fourth rotation spot with a nice rookie effort. Basso was in competition with Osvaldo Bido, Joey Estes, J.T. Ginn and Hogan Harris for a remaining rotation spot. It’s also possible he could’ve cracked the bullpen as a second lefty alongside veteran T.J. McFarland.

Through the first few weeks of camp, Basso had only strengthened his case. While Ginn, Bido and Estes have been hit hard and Harris has struggled with his command, Basso has rattled off 4 1/3 scoreless — and hitless — innings. He’s only allowed one of 14 opponents to reach (a walk) and had fanned four batters. Things can change in a hurry in a small spring sample, but to this point he could scarcely have done more with the opportunities he’d been given.

The A’s will have more information on his timeline for recovery in the days and weeks ahead, but a shutdown at this point effectively takes him out of the running for the Opening Day roster. If there’s a strain of any real significance, Basso could be a 60-day IL candidate the next time the team needs a 40-man roster spot, but that’ll hinge on the forthcoming prognosis and recovery timetable.

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