The Athletics are about to play the first of multiple seasons in a minor-league ballpark in Sacramento ahead of a proposed but still quite uncertain permanent relocation to Las Vegas. This, of course, comes after a sustained sabotaging of the club’s future in Oakland, where it had resided for more than 50 years, on the part of lead owner John Fisher.
Given that backdrop, as hapless as it is cynical, it’s hard to paint a positive picture of the organization’s present and near-term future. Fisher, though, is trying. Here’s some of what Fisher told The Athletic about the A’s current straits:
“We have a home and the ability to know where we’re going, and to build upon that. There’s an awful lot of positive things going on, and there’ll be more in the future.”
And:
“This isn’t a build to the future. We think that we can win today, and that’s really our goal.”
The A’s do not, in point of fact, know where they’re going – not until they secure the private financing necessary to build their dreamed-of ballpark in Las Vegas. Given the ricketty nature of the entire scheme, it’s not certain they’ll be able to get that financing, and that financing is necessary in order to get the tax dollars promised by Las Vegas and Nevada lawmakers. Considering what unfolded in Oakland, this is already among the ugliest examples of owner behavior (truly a cornucopian category). If Vegas falls through, then, well, Fisher will be in a heretofore unimaginable bind of his own making.
As for his claims of being able to win right now, they’re in contrast to the Athletics’ recent history. They went from 102 losses in 2022 to 112 losses in 2023 to 92 last season. That’s a general upward trend, sure, but consider the baseline. Fisher and the A’s have indeed spent this winter, at least by their own subterranean standards. Specifically, they’ve signed core hitters Brent Rooker and Lawrence Butler to long-term extensions, inked Luis Severino on the free-agent market to front the rotation, taken on Jeffrey Springs in trade, and added Gio Urshela to the fold. That said, Roster Resource still projects them to rank 29th in Opening Day payroll this season and 27th in luxury-tax payroll, which is calculated using the average annual value of long-term commitments. And to be clear, this even modest uptick in spending from Fisher was all about pre-empting a possible grievance from the players’ union over how he was using the revenue-sharing dollars he was receiving (and has now ensured will continue by abandoning the much larger Oakland market).
On the field, yes, the A’s should be better in part because of those additions but mostly because of the on-ramping of young talent and further development of those already in place. Still, they play in a division that also houses the Houston Astros, Texas Rangers, and Seattle Mariners. That’s why any projection system sees the A’s with effectively no chance of winning the AL West. SportsLine gives them, quite literally, a 0% chance of securing a division title. Yes, the weakening of the American League continues apace, which means a win total in the low- to mid-80s might be sufficient for a wild-card berth, and that’s possible for the A’s. Some squinting may be required, but, yes, possible.
Fisher’s comments are egregious, in that they can be filed away under “what did you expect him to say,” but any positive rendering of what’s happened in Oakland, what’s now happening in Sacramento, and what may never happen in Vegas is a bit too much. If the A’s do happen to exceed expectations on the field in 2025, then it’ll happen in spite of Fisher’s chronic misdeeds and not because of them.
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