Outside attention on the A's will center on their temporary move to Sacramento. The front office's focus will be on supplementing a burgeoning offensive core. A decent second half offers hope the A's could push close to .500 with a few additions to the pitching staff. With a completely blank payroll slate, they'll need to spend some money.
Guaranteed Contracts
- None
2025 financial commitments: $0
Total future commitments: $0
Option Decisions
- None
Arbitration-Eligible Players (projections via Matt Swartz)
- Austin Adams (5.150): $1.7MM
- Miguel Andujar (5.053): $2.8MM
- Seth Brown (4.096): $3.8MM
- Brent Rooker (3.059): $5.1MM
- Dany Jiménez (2.162): $1MM
Non-tender candidates: Adams, Andujar, Brown, Jiménez
Free Agents
- Ross Stripling, T.J. McFarland, Alex Wood, Scott Alexander, Trevor Gott, Abraham Toro, Aaron Brooks, Brandon Bielak, Gerardo Reyes
The Oakland A's era ended last month after 57 years. The Las Vegas era won't begin for three more. The A's will call Sacramento's Sutter Health Park their temporary home from 2025-27. A's ownership will put the finishing touches on securing $380MM in public funds from Clark County and Nevada to begin construction on their Vegas ballpark. General manager David Forst and his front office get the unenviable task of trying to sell a few veteran players on joining a team that'll call a Triple-A park home.
By default, Forst and his staff will have money to spend. The A's incredibly have zero dollars committed to the 2025 player payroll. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projects the entire arbitration class to cost $14.4MM. The actual outlay will be a lot less, as only Brent Rooker (projected just north of $5MM) is guaranteed to be brought back.
Each of the A's commitments last winter were one-year deals. The last player they've signed (free agent or extension) for more than two seasons: Ryan Madson in 2015. It's fair to presume the aversion to long-term spending isn't changing in Sacramento, yet the A's will need to add a couple players on short-term pacts. The A's opened the 2024 season with a player payroll around $61MM, as calculated by Cot's Baseball Contracts. Even by John Fisher ownership standards, the A's should add $25-30MM to next season's payroll.
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julyn82001
For sure, A’s do need to sign Kotsay – and staff – to extension. Ownership and stadium affaire aside, no rebuilt is usually going to easy transition… It does need continuity on as many fronts for sure…
A's Fan
I would expect that Andujar is brought back and they make every effort to trade Brown as his solid last 2 months may have saved his career. Adams is depending on health as he was effective over stretches but some young arms that will likely be in the pen this year so his return is very suspect. Jiménez is almost certainly non tendered
Datashark
It is pretty incredible for a team have $0 dedicated to an upcoming season
mlb fan
“Pretty incredible”…I’ve seen many rebuilding teams before, but I don’t remember ever seeing any team with “zero dollars” committed to the upcoming season.
TerryTurnbuckle
Oakland strong
BobinTexas
I am a fan of these Offseason Outlook columns, as evidenced by the fact that I just read the outlook piece for these A’s. Well, I also read the White Sox outlook, which was certainly more bleak than for the A’s.
I sympathized enough with Tim’s explanation as to why he moved these behind the paywall that I finally sprang for the Front Office package this year. It was something I had resisted doing since it was offerred years back, as I have felt for years that the extra content was just not worth the extra fee, as reasonable as that fee was/is.
Honestly, I felt like the ONLY real benefit of the package was deleting the annoying popup ads, which constantly block content while reading, especially on my phone. But at this point, I think that MLBTR has finally reached the tipping point that the paywall-protected content AND the ad deletions make subscribing worthwhile.
Tim, I am sure that you and MLBTR are in a tough position moving forward, as the demographic of MLB fans just keeps getting older. And the younger demographic seems to prefer instant, brief, and FREE content above all else. I do value the content and analysis more than the sound bite pieces that come out via Twitter/X. And I’ve come to really enjoy the weekly podcasts that Darragh and y’all put out.
I’m sure y’all will keep tweaking the paywall-blocked content moving forward, and I honestly hope it works out financially for MLBTR. But I have watched too many other news and entertainment entities struggle with the paywall question to be optimistic for you.
Best of Luck, MLBTR! I’ll be reading – especially in the offseason.
andrewc62
Gotta be the first time I’ve seen a team with an empty payroll like that
A'sfaninLondonUK
@andrewc62
This is still a little rich for Fisher’s thin gruel.
And the king of moneyball Billy Beane has been as quiet as Fisher.
God alone knows what we’ll see in Sacramento, I’m intrigued to see if fellow Oakland fans turn out to continue the “Sell the team” chants.
Thanks Manfred & thank you the other 29 owners who are equally execrable, brainless kitty litter lickers.
King Floch
What are they even going to be called next year?
Just “the Athletics” without a city prefix, I guess?
A'sfaninLondonUK
@King Floch
Apparently so. I was hoping the Homeless Athetics, but Fisher seems to want to save on lettering costs.
cooperhill
TJ McFarland is going to start a bidding war !
Acoss1331
Athletics have a bright future as far as the product on the field, but then again they’ve torn it down and built back up so many times with continued success, it shouldn’t surprise anyone.