4:10pm: The A’s announced Neal’s selection, along with the recall of right-hander Luis Medina. In corresponding moves, righty Rico Garcia was optioned to Triple-A Las Vegas while righty Mason Miller was placed on the 15-day injured list. Catcher Manny Piña was transferred to the 60-day injured list to make room on the 40-man for Neal. Matt Kawahara of the San Francisco Chronicle relays that Miller’s IL placement is due to right forearm tightness. Pina has been on the IL all year due to a lingering wrist issue and was recently pulled off his rehab after suffering a setback. He won’t be eligible to return until 60 days from the initial IL placement, which would be late May.
10:04am: The A’s are set to select the contract of righty Zach Neal prior to tonight’s game, reports Martin Gallegos of MLB.com (Twitter link). He’s expected to make a spot start tonight against Nathan Eovaldi and the Rangers. Neal inked a minor league deal with the Athletics last month.
It’ll be the second stint with Oakland for Neal, who also pitched there in 2016-17, logging a combined 4.89 ERA in 30 appearances (six starts). That accounts for the vast majority of Neal’s big league experience, though he also tossed one inning for the Dodgers in 2018. Overall, he carries a 4.94 ERA, 10.5% strikeout rate and 2% walk rate in 85 2/3 innings at the MLB level.
Now 34 years old, Neal hasn’t pitched in the Majors since that one-off appearance with the ’18 Dodgers. He spent the 2019-21 seasons with the Seibu Lions of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball, working to a combined 4.49 ERA with a 12.4% strikeout rate against a 5.6% walk rate. Neal logged a 2.87 ERA in 100 1/3 innings in his first year with the Lions but was north of 5.00 in his second and third seasons in Japan.
Neal spent the 2022 season with the Rockies’ Triple-A affiliate but was tagged for a 6.87 ERA in that hitter-friendly setting. He’s opened the 2023 campaign with similarly shaky results in another hitter-friendly setting, Las Vegas, allowing seven runs on eight hits and five walks with 11 punchouts in 11 1/3 innings (5.56 ERA).
The A’s have a full 40-man roster, so they’ll need to make a corresponding transaction to get Neal onto the roster. They’ve already turned over nearly their entire bullpen since the season began and could make yet another move there to accommodate Neal’s addition. Righty Zach Jackson and lefty Sam Moll are the only two members of Oakland’s Opening Day relief corps who are still currently in the bullpen.
Oakland A’s are showing how weak Manfred is as commissioner. I can think of no other sport a commissioner would let a team play AAA players and get rid of the entire team. Is there any leadership in MLB? Fisher doesn’t care about the team but profits. Why don’t they make Fisher sell the team?
I love it when people only notice what they want to notice; did you complain when the Cubs, Pirates, Nationals and Astros did pretty much the same thing as Oakland?
prove to me they traded away all their players and ONLY played AAA players. Inform what year this happened because I will prove to you those teams were much better.
Astros were god awful during their rebuild. AAA might be a generous observation of those late 2000 and warly 2010 teams. Bud Norris was their ace for a time being.
2022 Nationals. Look at their roster after they traded Soto.
Astros 2009-2014
Cubs 2012
BUT did they trade away their young talent before they became arbitration eligible? I see Lance Berkman, Carlos Lee, Michael Bourne and Hunter Pence on the 2010 team along with Roy Oswalt. Granted they were surrounded by other players who were fringe MLB level but that’s what this A’s roster, fringe MLB talent. Hell the A’s salary level for this year is less than it was 20 years ago, that’s not even inflation adjusted!
Still better than the A’s with no Ace and a bullpen of AAA players. even as bad as the 2010 team was they still had better players like JA Happ, Bud Norris, wandy Rodrigues, and Meyer in starting crew. i seen some bad A’s teams like 1978 A’s and this team is even worse. They will have the modern day record for worse record ever when done.
As bad as that team was this A’s team is even worse.
2018 Marlins. Traded Stanton, Yelich, Ozuna, and Gordon all in the same off-season.
You’re not wrong about the A’s, though. It’s embarrassing. But, the Cubs, Astros, Royals all proved tanking can work.
And don’t get me wrong, I’m not a fan of the tanking. Draft well, develop well, create a winning culture.
I wouldn’t say the Royals tanking worked. If you polled most fans I don’t think they would agree to 20 bad years in return for one WS title.
Could be, but I live in KC area and people still hold high the back-to-back WS appearances, as they should.
A fine memory but as a sports fan I truly can’t imagine a full decade of having my team be bad with little to no attempt to be good, let alone multiple decades. I’m a Kings fan from my time living in Sacramento but even as we continually failed it was still OK because it usually felt like the team was trying to be competitive.
None of those teams went where the A’s went with this tank job.
Yea, none of those teams were playoff competitive then suddenly traded away 3 all stars, let all of the role players go, and then relied on waiver claims, mostly failed prospects, and older mediocre veterans to field a team, followed by an immediate attempt to move the franchise.
A triple A team would actually be an upgrade because you have a lot of young potential superstars with their best years and a long period of team control ahead of them. We have more of a “the film major league” situation going on.
I am not sure you understand how baseball works.
The A’s have the worst TV/Radio deal in sports. For several seasons the A’s did not have a flagship radio station when Spring Training started. They had to cobble together a deal at the last moment.
Back in the 1980s and early 1990s you could drive to Vancouver, WA on I-5 down past Bakersfield, CA and have the A’s on multiple radio stations.
The A’s tv contract is middle of the pack, it’s a matter of public record.
The Cubs, Pirates, Nationals and Astros have always spent money. The A’s biggest contract was signed in 2006. That’s next level horrible front office GMing and the USA labor unions should sue him for malpractice.
MLB took profit sharing away from Oakland for several years because they were not using it for its intended use (spending on free agents, maintaining an appropriate payroll). They (Oakland) just recently got it back as part of the new cba (I believe).
One of the things that irritate me about certain, crying poor, owners is that get around 100 million per season from MLBs tv deals, they also get around 100 million from shared ticket sales. I’m sure it cost a lot running an organization but teams start +200 million. That doesn’t include their own local tv deals, doesn’t include profit sharing, merchandise sells and so on. “Oh, well, we don’t have the ticket sells of ____” put a better product on the field, make the environment a place people want to go, attendance is their problem, not mlb.
I have a personal belief, and that is that profit sharing teams should have to open their books to mlb and show them what they make, what they spend on the team and so on and MLB should work with them, develop business plans to make them more profitable. It’s good for the team and good for baseball in general. If they are found to be hoarding money, then there is a problem. If they are not actively trying to improve the product and profitability, there is a problem and then they should have to explain their actions to the board (other owners) and owners should be allowed to vote out other owners.
There was an article here about how the other owners were mad that the union deal brought the A’s back into revenue sharing. Like it was a level of greed and rule violations that was too much for even them, lol
The 1993 Padres traded or let go Jose Fernandez, Benito Santiago, Darrin Jackson, Jerald Clark, Randy Myers, Mike Maddux, Larry Anderson, Jose Melendez, Jeremy Hernandez and Jim Deshaies in the off-season and then proceeded to trade Fred McGriff, Gary Sheffield, Kurt Stillwell, Greg Harris, Bruce Hurst, Rich Rodriguez and Tim Scott during the ’93 season. 17 members of the ’92 team gone by the ’93 trade deadline.
The 1998 Marlins got rid of Kevin Brown, Al Leiter, Moises Alou, Devon White, Alex Arias, Kurt Abbott, Gary Sheffield, Bobby Bonilla, Charles Johnson, Jim Eisenreich, Robb Nen, Tony Saunders, Dennis Cook, Jay Powell and Felix Heredia all between the off-season and ’98 trade deadline. 15 members of a championship team gone.
MLB has allowed tanking on a grand scale for decades
Why don’t they let the A’s move to San Jose, which is -further away- than Oakland to San Francisco.
The A’s aren’t allowed to move further away from the Giants. Logic. Corruption.
Somehow the Giants claim dominion over San Jose. I feel like Fisher is playing poker with Oakland and Vegas. We’ll see what happens when both cities call his bluff
The San Francisco (population 815k) Giants claim dominion over San Jose (population 983k), because the Oakland (population 433k) A’s told the Giants they could move there if they wanted to in 1992, which they didn’t and in 2023 proceed to hold these phony “rights” that Manfred could easily overrule by telling the Giants to shut up and play – make it make sense please. Selig was a coward about it and Manfred is too.
How are you supposed to get high draft picks with good players? How many more people are going to attend games if they had good players? I see no reason for them to have good players now. They will get them when prospects develop. You need to spend at least 200 million to buy a good team.
Because Manfred doesn’t care about the game. He’s a businessman who’s job it is to make sure the owners make money and he’s good at it. and he’s gonna have the job until he’s ready to retire so get used to good business decisions that are bad for the game itself.
vegas will be a disaster.
by who;s standard? it’s going to make serious money so to manfred and fisher it’s going to be a complete success. since the ownership is going too I see no reason to think the build then tank routine stops so it’ll be terrible for the fans and sport, but they won’t care.
It will be a bonus ONLY for Fisher who wants Vegas to give him 1/2 billion free and pay 0 property tax on the stadium. That is exactly what Fisher is asking a redistribution of wealth to a billionaire.
I’d love for the A’s to stay in the bay. However, the Golden Knights are pretty fun to watch, and home games are wild. Sad to say I think they’ll do alright in Vegas.
I don’t see people going to Vegas to watch a baseball game during the summer. Hockey is different since that is the only thing to do during the winter in Vegas.
You might be right, but the thing about Vegas is people are always there for vacations, conventions, and the like. If I had 3 hours to kill and it was 102 outside in the evening I’d go see a ballgame in an air conditioned stadium for sure. We will see in a few years I guess!
Did you see they plan to install artificial turf in the AAA park there where the A’s and Aviators will both play. How many fans are coming out to that in the middle of summer?
Oof I didn’t, the players are gonna love that… If there is no roof on the stadium nobody will survive out there. The Rangers new stadium is pretty nice on hot days.
He probably should care about the game a little, his “business” is artificially protected from competition and rates very poorly with kids and teens. If the owners are purely interested in money I don’t see why the league should have anti-trust exceptions, let’s get some competition in here and see if Manfred really is “good at business”.
Oh well let’s just wish Neal good luck tonight vs Texas.
Not ideal… would rather they have given Kaprielian a shot again, but he just pitched on Sunday so understand not bringing him up for this start.
I’m not dissing Neal – congrats to him to even get the opportunity – but the fact that he’s the A’s best option in this situation illustrates that OAK is no longer scraping the bottom of the barrel, they’re getting players from UNDER the barrel.
Even if you watch the A’s team last year i doubt you could name 5 players on the team this year. Just terrible how MLB allows a owner to do this.
I actually think the A’s have some very intriguing hitters. Brent Rooker had the best wRC+ in all of baseball as of like two days ago. Ryan Noda is an OBP wizard. Esteury Ruiz has a light bat but is getting on base enough to lead the majors in stolen bases. Jordan Diaz is looking pretty solid in his debut as a 22 year old. Langeliers is young and still improving. Bleday seems to have figured out his issues and could be a really good OF bat.
They’ve also got some guys that should arrive soon in Soderstrom and Gelof. Can’t figure out if Nick Allen is gonna be a AAAA guy or not.
Laureano and Brown are very likely to be traded if they’re healthy by the TDL. Kemp, Kevin Smith, and Jace Peterson have all been real duds though.
Biggest issue is their pitching is absolutely horrendous. And some of the young guys that were supposed to be at least passable just flat out stink. Mason Miller is the lone bright spot. Rucinski is a groundballer that can’t get groundballs. Fujinami was never going to make it as a starter with those control lissues. Every player to get a GS has a FIP over like 5.50 or 6.00 (except Miller).
I think the move to Las Vegas is awful for baseball and wish they’d get a new owner in, but they’re not the worst-hitting lineup right now. Rather underrated IMO. They’re around 13th best the last few weeks of baseball in terms of OPS. BUT THEY HAVE A 7.43 TEAM ERA ON THE YEAR. They could be the best hitting team in baseball and they’d still probably lose around 100 games with those pitchers.
Outside of Miller the entire pitching staff is horrible. Even the bullpen has nobody you can count on. A’s new GM has made just horrible trades the last 2 years. look at Murphy now the best catcher in baseball.
I agree that the A’s have a surprisingly productive crop of hitters in the lineup currently. I do have to say Kevin Smith is one of the worst hitters I’ve ever seen – struggles to maintain a .100 BA. The pitching should be better, but it just flat out isn’t. Not sure what the answer is there other than keep running these guys out there and hope they figure it out.
I wonder if he’ll reveal as much chest in his A’s jersey?
Funny. Worst pic of a player in MLBTR history. Keep looking that there must be a t-shirt in there somewhere
I’ve been scrolling the comments and no rants about the woke agenda or California is a failure. Really disappointed in some of you. You know who you are, you literally can’t help yourselves.
Maybe because the whole issue is a terrible owner and how a planned move to a market unfit for a MLB franchise is something that shouldn’t be allowed and rightfully deserves to be criticized by the fans no matter how politically aligned you are…
@Steinbrenner2728 I despise the Yankees, their fans and everything they stand for, but man, you nailed it. Truce for this year.
At least Bob Nutting heard the footsteps and stepped up his game. Fisher is 100x worse and Nutting spent nothing after getting a new stadium – Nutting was low, but Fisher is pushing the limits here.
Shoutout to the fan who sat in Yankee Stadium last week front row in a “SELL THE TEAM FISHER” shirt in green and gold.
Fisher is miserable for MLB, period. He really is the worst offender at this point.
California wildfires are caused by the Oakland A’s and {deleted} space lasers!
Outside of Mason Miller the pitching is beyond cringe to watch, they can hit, but its like watching the Bad News Bears pitch against major leaguers…
Miller was really the only light in the dark, he barely had any minors innings and was instantly ready for MLB. Now it looks like TJ is on the table. You’d hope the prospects were lighting it up but outside of Ryan Cusick no one’s showing much and Gunnar Hoglund, Freddie Tarnok and Luis Morales are still MIA, literally thats their top 2-4 pitching prospects on mlb.com’s top 30 list.
Shea Langeliers is going to need to be traded for pitching. Susac is looking like basically the same player, so they have room to play with there. If they can get a bunch of blocked pitching prospects who are MLB-level for Shea they might be able to quickly turn into a contender. Need at least one those top 2-4 prospects to pan out too.
Shea Langeliers is one of the worst catchers I’ve ever seen.
youve never seen anyone
I watched the series against the Cubs and he was awful, cannot block, cannot frame, doesn’t hit well enough to justify his atrocious play behind the plate but let’s not take my word for what does fangraphs think… -8 drs already?!? How about baseball savant… again horrendous
So you watched one game and cherry picked some EXTREMELY small samples and made a forever opinion about him = awful analysis. You dont know ball. He’s an above average hitter in MLB are you insane? Langeliers is a MLB catcher whether you like it or not.
Please buy a clue sometime, I beg of you.
Its May 13 and you are pulling a rookies defensive metrics, like no, just, no.
I watched three games and the guy has no clue how to block a ball. He looks like jack sparrow behind the plate, arms swinging to either side without even a thought about framing.
He’s a terrible catcher and if you think differently it’s you my friend that knows Jack all about baseball and needs to buy themselves a clue. Also, all the stats back my argument. -0.2 WAR is below replacement level last time I checked.
May 13 and he’s a rookie. Grow up. Stats dont matter on May 13. You understand if he hits a HR today, his WAR goes over 0.0? This is not how to do baseball analysis. No shot youre older than 8.
You’re too dumb to talk baseball with.
You got owned and cant fathom you dont know baseball better than me. It happens. Grow up and watch more games, you will see I am right in the long run.
I will give the A’s credit for this: whoever they have running their Instagram account makes this team look almost magical. If you based your knowledge of OAK solely on that IG account, you’d think they’re well over .500