This article is free for anyone to read, but please consider becoming a Patreon subscriber to allow me to keep writing posts like this one. Sign up to receive articles like this one in your inbox here.
The A’s can say that they don’t want to be known as the Sacramento A’s all they want, but the thing is, that’s where their home games are. And the players that they might want to sign know this, and on top of the A’s not being a very good team and not offering competitive contracts to basically anyone for years and years now, it’s going to impact their player acquisition.
In fact, it already has. Walker Buehler, a free agent for the first time after seven seasons and eight years with the Dodgers, would have been the perfect fit for a team like the A’s on a short-term deal. Buehler missed 2023 after undergoing Tommy John surgery, and pitched pretty poorly in 75 regular season innings after returning, allowing nearly two homers per nine innings while posting an ERA of 5.38. He was better in the postseason, but we’re also talking about 15 innings there: he had plenty left to prove, especially with his 2022 just being a league-average campaign.
So, the A’s approached him already, but were rebuffed. And we know why, too, thanks to manager Mark Kotsay saying as much at the USC SBA Sports Business Summit last week: it’s that the A’s are playing their home games in Sacramento now. Not only are the conditions going to be minor-league — the park and facilities can only be upgraded so much, and the chances of them doing anything besides hitting the bare minimum for Players Association seem slim considering the organization we’re talking about here — and Sutter Health Park isn’t supposed to be as pitcher-friendly as the Coliseum in Oakland, as well. The upside that would have existed a year ago in signing with the A’s just to get back on track before signing elsewhere (or being traded to a contender mid-season) don’t exist anymore.
Of course, this was all predictable. Back on October 7, I published a piece in this space headlined “Phillies, A’s open up about spending, could not be more different,” with the idea being that the Phillies have developed a winning culture and have become known as a place that players want to go because of the environment. Owner John Middleton gets his players what they want by spending money in the hopes that it will create this kind of culture, which will help them sustain a winning club for years even as the current players age out and are replaced. Contrast that with the A’s, who opened the offseason by telling people they plan on spending this winter, sure, but how will they ever convince anyone to take their money when they have, to be blunt, a losing culture perpetuated by a loser?
Build up a reputation as a terrible place to play and work, with rundown facilities and awful catering paid for by a corner-cutting cheapskate, and players are going to talk about it. Be an organization that’s always worrying about money and constantly breaking up whatever core forms in order to trade it in for cheaper players, and players are going to talk about it. None of the talk is going to be good.
…
The A’s lost 93 games in 2024, in no small part because they spent the last few years cutting payroll and trading away their better (and pricier) players for prospects when they had been right on the cusp of postseason contention — it’s easy to forget now, after consecutive 100-loss campaigns and an “improved” one with “just” 93 defeats, but the 2021 A’s won 86 games! Whatever you say about the Coliseum is probably true, but it’s also true that it’s a major-league stadium in a major-league city with major-league facilities. Their new supposedly temporary home lacks that kind of stadium and facilities. They aren’t heading to Las Vegas, at the earliest, until 2028, and that’s if Las Vegas even happens. What would the draw even be for most free agents, to willingly sign with the A’s?
The A’s might want to spend, at least a little bit, but if you’ve got someone like Buehler — a perfect candidate for a one-year, make-good deal — saying no thanks because of Sacramento, then doing so is going to be tough. They’re going to have to trade for players instead of trading them away. They’re going to have to overpay for players to the point where the next Buehler’s only question is, “what’s the fastest way to get to Sacramento?” Whatever credibility or reasons existed to shack up with the A’s in the past are gone right now, so they’ve got to figure out something new beyond “maybe this player will be desperate enough to sign here.”
Visit my Patreon to become a supporter and help me continue to write articles like this one.