It was supposed to be a big year for the A’s, both on and off the field. The team was angling for yet another postseason run on the field and more progress towards a new stadium off of it. Instead, almost everything has gone wrong, including things both within and outside of their power, and the ramifications look to be far-reaching. Now the A’s will have to make tough decisions about what their future holds considering the franchise had, at least from outside appearances, placed such a big bet on success in 2020.
The team was set up to make a playoff run this year - Marcus Semien, the 2nd runner up for the 2019 AL MVP, is in a walk year. Prospects A.J. Puk, Jesús Luzardo, and Sean Murphy had all shown glimpses of what they could down the stretch in 2019 and looked healthy and ready to contribute this year. The upper minors are chock full of potential role players and depth pieces ready to step in at a moment’s notice. Sean Manaea was ready for a full year after missing most of 2019 and counting on Frankie Montas to keep his pre-PED suspension 2019 form. The A’s were hoping for bounce back seasons from Khris Davis and Stephen Piscotty, and for Mark Canha to prove last year was no fluke. Clearly this year was targeted by A’s brass as a potential peak for their current competitive window, which has also been my personal opinion for a while. And if the success materialized, then it would help propel the A’s further down the road of a Howard Terminal site for the new stadium fans have been hearing about for years.
Unfortunately, the ways it has gone wrong are at least as many as the reasons for optimism before COVID-19 hit. The pandemic has been the primary facilitator of the negativity and has lead to a protracted and ugly negotiation between the players’ association on one side and the owners and commissioner’s office on the other. Before the disputes on return to play reached their venomous peak though, the A’s had already had a roller coaster ride through the shutdown. They decided not to pay rent and followed that by a tone-deaf decision to not pay their (already underpaid) minor leaguers a $400 weekly stipend, though that has since been reversed. The decision to not pay minor leaguers was so bad that you almost wonder if MLB owners decided to draw straws as to who would do it so they could all see how it would go over before deciding upon it themselves. There may not be draft compensation and trade opportunities are sure to be extremely limited, so the team may lose Semien for nothing. To say nothing of how this might impact future player acquisitions and general relations, these moves paint a stark financial picture and likely destroys the fans’ faith that a new stadium will be built anytime soon.
What are the results and implications of the unraveling of the 2020 season for the A’s? Best case scenario is the pandemic allows them to negotiate a below market free agent deal with Semien with the theory that he’ll be able to stay close to home, and the Matts Chapman and Olson don’t have salaries that skyrocket too fast once they hit arbitration. The stadium plans make incremental progress and in general seem delayed but not abandoned. There does seem to be a world, as depressing as it would be, where Marcus leaves, the stadium plans stall out, and the Matts are both traded after 2021 (their first season with an arbitrated salary) to help replenish the farm system. If that does not happen, then pressure will be on the pro scouting department to continue finding players to fill out the rosters in three or four years since the amateur scouting and player development groups have been underwhelming.
This unfortunately seems like an option because the farm system is about to look terrible. FanGraphs’ Eric Longenhagen put it well in the recap for the A’s top prospect list (pre-2020 draft) when he said it “is likely to become the worst farm system in baseball by the winter”, though he gives more credit to the amateur department than me. His grades back it up, as their system is the oldest in the league and most experienced by current level (22.5% of prospects do not have a current level assigned for whatever reason). Removing the prospects at AAA or MLB leaves the system with pitchers with injury histories, toolsy hitters who are limited in some way, and a handful of young high school or international players who are far off from impacting the MLB team.
This means that as things currently stand, there likely won’t be many internal reinforcements coming in 2021 or 2022, though of course players could develop in the interim. However, the A’s record is very mixed in that regard and there has not been much evidence - reports, rumors, or job postings - that they have invested in a progressive player development system akin to the Dodgers, Yankees, and now the Reds are doing, among others. Instead, when it comes to acquiring amateur players to develop in the system, the A’s seem devoted to putting all of their eggs in one whenever they have the opportunity through the yearly first year player drafts and July 2nd international signing periods.
Of course, the team operates with a wealth of information while the public relies on a combination of reports, both free and behind paywalls, so when the team uses a third round pick on a relative unknown who immediately becomes promising (Marcus Smith: 35 FV and unranked by FG, completely unrated by MLB Pipeline), then it’s clearly a win for the team. Same goes for Brayan Buelvas, a 2018 international signee for a small bonus. However, their all-in, against the grain moves have largely been failures of varying degrees, like a power hitter swinging for the fences and instead missing or hitting an infield fly. Whether it’s Kyler Murray in 2018, Austin Beck in 2017, or the 2016 international free agent class (Lazarito, Marcos Brito, Norge Ruiz, Yerdel Vargas, and Kevin Richards), they have come up empty and have cost them in other ways on several occasions. The A’s did not get a comp pick for Murray and had to sit in the international signing penalty box for 2017 and 2018 because of the size of the 2016 class, which they will have to do again in 2020 and 2021 due to signing Puason to a bonus pool shattering $5.1M deal. In other words, they better hope Puason works out.
It happened again in the 2020 MLB Draft, where the A’s picked Tyler Soderstrom, a fine young player who seems promising. But reports are they will go over the allotted slot value for bonus money to sign him, meaning they had to cut money in other parts of the draft due to how it’s structured. This comes in a year where teams have very limited opportunities to add talent to their farm systems due to the five round draft and $20,000 cap on bonuses for individual undrafted signees. The strategy results in the A’s depending on a select few players working out and hoping that several rise from the sea of sleepers to become prospects of note.
If Beck, Buelvas, Davidson, Puason, and Soderstrom hit at least their median outcome in at most expected amount of time, then the A’s of the mid-2020s might look decent on the field. But if they bust outright or take longer than expected, then those years might be quite rough for A’s fans. This would be fine and, though unfortunate, a reasonable cost if 2020 itself went as expected or better. But it’s not, and it’s looking increasingly likely that no team will fly a flag forever for 2020, or at least not one that will be fully satisfying. That’s a shame for many reasons, but it means another big A’s bet is likely to come up empty, and this one can’t be blamed on football.