2:20pm: The Athletics announced that Kemp has been acquired in exchange for minor league infielder Alfonso Rivas. Oakland’s 40-man roster is now up to 38 players.
1:55pm: The Athletics have acquired infielder/outfielder Tony Kemp in a trade with the Cubs, reports Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle (Twitter links). He’s just one name involved in a multiplayer trade, per Slusser.
Kemp, 28, appeared in 110 games between the Astros and Cubs in 2019, going from the former to the latter in exchange for catcher Martin Maldonado prior to the July 31 trade deadline. In 279 plate appearances, he mustered just a .212/.291/.380 slash with eight homers, nine doubles, four triples and four steals. Long one of Houston’s more intriguing prospects, Kemp has yet to find sustained success at the MLB level. He’ll give the A’s an option to insert into their second base and corner outfield mix, but he’s also out of minor league options, so he’ll need to break camp with the club out of Spring Training or else be moved to another club or designated for assignment.
The A’s have reportedly been on the hunt for some left-handed depth all winter, and Kemp will bring some southpaw-swinging versatility to their bench mix. He’s played all three outfield positions and second base in both the big leagues and in his minor league career. And although he hasn’t hit much in the Majors, Kemp is a lifetime .312/.373/.425 hitter in four Triple-A seasons.
Rivas, 23, was Oakland’s fourth-round pick as recently as 2018. He’s worked mostly as a first baseman but seen brief time in the outfield corners as well. The University of Arizona product has,to this point in his pro career, shown a strong knack for getting on base but minimal power, compiling a .290/.390/.411 slash through 800 professional plate appearances. He’s walked at a 13 percent clip against a 20.5 percent strikeout rate and briefly reached the Triple-A level in 2019 — albeit only in a six-game cameo after skipping over Double-A entirely. An assignment to Double-A with the Cubs to open the 2020 season seems likeliest.
Theo Epstein gm of year. Can he move descalso ??
I hope so. The Kemp move saved about $5.00. Go Theo!
I was hoping as a cubs fan that my best friend wasn’t apart of that trade because then I would have to be mad if he blew a game
Oh no… WHYYY?!
Biggest news of the day
Hah. This post should probably only have like 20 comments in total as it is very minor. Well maybe triple that as soon as the ChiSox bozos start commenting.
Meanwhile the Astros post should have around 2,000 comments by midnight. What a monster story.
I was laughing and thinking the same thing watching the Luhnow / Hinch storyline developing on either side of this item.
Tony Kemp surely happy to get a shot at more playing time in Oakland, now two transactions removed from his Astro days.
Tony Kemp was an Astro during the sign stealing scheme. As a bench player, perhaps he was one of the middlemen involved in relaying the signals. Apparently it was bench coach Joey Cora and some of the Astro players who masterminded the scheme. As an alum of an academically acclaimed university like Vanderbilt he might have been a good choice for such a role. Just speculating here….
* Meant to say Alex Cora.
Joey Cora is Alex Cora’s older brother. He was a former White Sox player and teammate of manager Ozzie Guillen who later hired him to be on his coaching staff. Joey was the 3B coach on the White Sox 2005 championship team and was promoted to bench coach following the 2006 season. Cora often filled the role of interim White Sox manager with Guillen’s penchant for getting ejected from ballgames.
Oakland has Bolt, Brown, and Dustin Fowler on the farm who are close/pretty good, signed Robbie grossman and now pickup Kemp. If I am Fowler or Bolt I am hoping for a trade out of there.
Fowler, Bolt, Brown and Mateo gets who? Matt Boyd???
Tony Kemp, we barely knew ye.
This new online commenting system sucks. You can’t tell who’s replying to what anymore. Commenting makes no sense now because everything is directly underneath each other. Why change from the old indented version?
Stop crying !!!!
It works fine on the computer. Who cares about your phone.
Works fine on my phone too. Might be an App issue?
This is new? Mine has always been like that. It sucks.
Stop being an old man and everything will be fine
Wow, what a block-buster this must be … can’t wait for the details. Bet a’s fans can’t wait either (both of them!!!)
Get back to your basement! you’re grounded until your Giants are good again.
meanwhile the Giants just dumped 10 million because their farm system is so bad.they had to pick up a minor leaguer. Now that is the most exciting news for the giants this off season picking up a far off prospect.
Nothing wrong with buying prospects!
@arc89 – since 2012 the #15 pick in the draft has resulted in a quality major leaguer. While the Giants have a laughable front office, buying those 6+ years of a quality player while only giving up money, is a very good move and thing I wouldn’t expect A’s fans to understand (spending money to get something good, unlike spending money to get Hiroyuki Nakajima).
The amount of times you have spent your days coming into A’s threads to make this exact same illogical, pathetic excuse for a “joke” you could have been doing something meaningful with your life. You arent even an A’s fan, so it has nothing to do with that at this point. I think you might have some kind of mental illness tbh (prove me wrong though).
I bet this is a tough time for Theo not being able to do much until the Bryant saga is decided. Like a kid in a candy store but he is grounded from eating any candy other than penny candy.
Well it isn’t gonna be announced today obviously. Maybe tomorrow
All the time being spent on the cheating scandal, hopefully they were working on Bryant’s case at the same time because it will be too late in a couple weeks
Good move for the A’s. Kemp is a nice utility player that every team should have. I just want to see the other moves, cause I hate anything to do with the Angels or A’s, so hopefully they gave up Chapman…. (that was sarcasm)…(ok maybe not)
What kind of money does Kemp make? I wonder, too, whether Yolmer Sanchez might not be a better FA signing for teams looking for utility infielders. He’s versatile, plays hard, he’s younger than Kemp, and he’s a gold glove winner at 2nd base. I’ll be interested to see which team lands him.
Major league minimum. Not enough service time to qualify as a Super-Two.
@realsox excellent point. Yolmer is way better than Kemp. Why one and not the other?
Yolmer HAS to be requesting a full time role. Or Beane is bad at GMing now.
I hope Kemp latches on for a while in Oakland. A scrappy kid with a big heart for baseball.
LOL.
What kind of grown man calls another 28 year old grown man a “kid”????
Take a look in the mirror, pal. You are talking about grown adult males here. “Kid” should be reserved to teens only.
Kemp is the 27th guy and a 26 man roster.
Wonder if the A’s have ever had success with those types of guys…
Perfect player for the A’s to utilize with that 26th roster spot. If he can replicate his 2018 numbers, Kemp can be a really nice bench player.
Ah yes, that crazy new dance called the “Theo-shuffle”.
You’re the most objective and unbiased commenter on here.
Kemp is a perfect player for the a’s and Mr. Beane … CHEAP!
yeah because Billy Beane sets the A’s budget
Billy Beane is an owner of the Oakland A’s. Yes, he has a say in budget.
Financial lockdown lifted…..
Last time I checked the Cubs needs cheap players….what happened to the multiple players involved? Kemp is the headliner lol!
Kris Bryant in LF would have been an inspired move by Beane. Shame he doesn’t make those anymore.
Great landing spot for Kemp. He seems like the perfect complementary player for Oakland. He’ll probably have a career year for Oakland. If the young A’s pitching staff can perform to their talent level, the A’s have a real shot of winning the AL West this season. Houston is going to have a target on their backs all year now; they either band together in an “us against the world” mentality or they come apart at the seems. How happy is Cole that he’s out of that dysfunctional organization now?
Cole has to be very happy, and Luzardo and Puk are going to absolutely annihilate that dumb hippy Forrest Whitley’s MLB career numbers, if he even makes it.
The story says it was a multiplayer trade, where’s the rest of it?
2 player trades are multi-player swaps.
I think the original report was that it was for money-only, but Slusser was told “players” were involved and it got miscontrused from there. 1-for-1 =2 and 2 players is multi-players tho!
Rivas seems like decent get if they can convert him to OF full time.
$600,000 off the Cubs payroll !
This is just a snow flurry before The Blizzard.
Rivas kid has some crazy good numbers other than not hitting for power. Seems like a really good deal for Cubs
He’s a 1B-only type with low power. Great bat otherwise, but he really needs to work to be an OF for the bat to play.
His bio says relief pitcher also. I wonder if that is accurate.
Both Barreto and Mateo have 0 options, and Machin was a R5 pick. Only one can stay and Kemp was bought in to be a left-side 2B. Machin is also a lefty, but has no experience and the A’s will have to return him now and Mateo (another righty like Barreto) really looks like a potential DFA unless he’s in a trade.
I’d expect to see Mateo in a trade very shortly…
Abad mover for A’S
bad move for A’S
The Cubs are freeing up additional space on their 40-man roster with this trade which now stands at 38. It could be a precursor to a bigger deal that might net the team multiple MLB players in exchange for a player like Kris Bryant who is the most likely young impacting veteran to be traded once his service time grievance is decided. It also clears space for a potential free agent addition like Nicholas Castellanos if the Cubs can move a significant salary from their payroll.
Nah. He has no place to play with all their options.