The A\u2019s have around two-thirds of their starting lineup in place going into the offseason. While starting pitching should be the primary focus, they have some questions on the infield that may need to be addressed externally.<\/p>\n
Second baseman\u00a0Zack Gelof<\/a> underwent surgery<\/a> after dislocating his left shoulder with two weeks remaining in the regular season. Meanwhile, the team announced last week that third baseman\u00a0Brett Harris<\/a> underwent surgery to repair the UCL in his left thumb (link via Jason Burke of Sports Illustrated<\/a>). The injuries cloud what were already the two weakest positions in the lineup heading into the winter.<\/p>\n Mart\u00edn Gallegos of MLB.com<\/a> writes that Harris is expected to be ready for Spring Training. General manager David Forst was noncommittal about Gelof\u2019s timeline, telling Gallegos that they\u2019ll need to \u201cwait further in the offseason to know exactly what [that] is.\u201d It doesn\u2019t appear that Gelof is locked into the starting second base job even once he\u2019s healthy. Forst told Gallegos that the A\u2019s will \u201cbe open to a lot of possibilities\u201d at each of second and third base.<\/p>\n That presumably includes looking outside the organization. The A\u2019s don\u2019t have great internal options at either spot. Darell Hernaiz<\/a> got some late-season run at all three infield positions to the left of first base (including everyday shortstop work while\u00a0Jacob Wilson<\/a> was out with a broken arm). Hernaiz put a lot of balls in play but didn\u2019t hit the ball hard enough to make an impact, batting .231\/.292\/.306 across 197 plate appearances.<\/p>\n [Related: A\u2019s Offseason Outlook<\/a>]<\/p>\n Former first-round pick\u00a0Max Muncy<\/a> had a tough rookie season, hitting .214\/.259\/.379 over 220 trips to the plate. He struck out in more than 30% of his plate appearances and lost most of the second half to a broken hand. The 27-year-old Harris got regular third base reps over the final six weeks of the season. He hit .274 with a .349 on-base percentage but didn\u2019t connect on a home run in 32 games. Max Schuemann<\/a> is the only other utility infielder on the 40-man roster. He\u2019s coming off a .197\/.295\/.273 showing and isn\u2019t guaranteed to hold his roster spot all winter.<\/p>\n Gelof has shown the most promise of that group. The former second-round pick hit 14 homers with a .267\/.337\/.504 slash line over 69 games as a rookie in 2023. He has followed that up with consecutive tough years. Gelof led the American League with 188 strikeouts in \u201924, causing his average (.211) and on-base percentage (.270) to plummet.<\/p>\n Injuries limited him to 30 MLB games this past season. He sustained a wrist fracture on a Spring Training hit-by-pitch and underwent hamate surgery. A stress reaction in his ribs set him back when he was on a rehab assignment six weeks later. Gelof didn\u2019t make his season debut until July 4. The A\u2019s optioned him to Triple-A a week later and kept him in the minors until late August. He got a few weeks of run before suffering the dislocated shoulder. While the stop and start nature of his season didn\u2019t do him any favors, Gelof\u2019s contact issues worsened. He struck out 46 times in 101 plate appearances while whiffing on more than 40% of his swings.<\/p>\n Top prospect Leo De Vries<\/a>, the centerpiece of the\u00a0Mason Miller<\/a> return, may be the long-term answer at second base. De Vries has come up as a shortstop but could eventually move to the other side of the bag to play alongside Wilson in the middle infield. He\u2019s coming off a .255\/.355\/.451 showing as an 18-year-old between High-A and Double-A. De Vries has a chance to get to the big leagues next year, but it\u2019s hard to imagine the A\u2019s would carry him on the Opening Day roster. He only has 21 games at Double-A and has no Triple-A experience. A second half debut is more reasonable and would still be remarkable for a player who turned 19 two weeks ago.<\/p>\n The A\u2019s will want to keep one long-term infield spot available for De Vries. Their needs at second and third base mean they could pursue a controllable infielder at one spot while looking for a stopgap at the other. Brendan Donovan<\/a> and Ozzie Albies<\/a> each have two years of club control remaining and could be available on the trade market.\u00a0Josh Jung<\/a> and\u00a0Alec Bohm<\/a> are change-of-scenery candidates at third base. Jung has three years of remaining control and is projected<\/a> at a $2.9MM salary, though it\u2019s possible the Rangers would prefer to trade him outside the division. Bohm is projected for a salary in the $10MM range for his last arbitration season.<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t a great class for free agent infielders. The A\u2019s obviously aren\u2019t signing\u00a0Bo Bichette<\/a> or\u00a0Alex Bregman<\/a>. Each of\u00a0Jorge Polanco<\/a>,\u00a0Gleyber Torres<\/a> and\u00a0Ha-Seong Kim<\/a> (if he opts out) could be available for two or three years, but they\u2019re all going to command eight-figure salaries on an annual basis.\u00a0Willi Castro<\/a>,\u00a0Yo\u00e1n Moncada<\/a>,\u00a0Luis Rengifo<\/a> and\u00a0Isiah Kiner-Falefa<\/a> will be available on one-year or cheap two-year deals at most. Signing someone from that group would aim a little higher than last winter\u2019s deals with\u00a0Luis Ur\u00edas<\/a> and\u00a0Gio Urshela<\/a> but would be broadly similar pickups.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The A\u2019s have around two-thirds of their starting lineup in place going into the offseason. While starting pitching…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":231079,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[109915,49,48,53654,462,82,78918],"class_list":{"0":"post-231078","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-brett-harris","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-darell-hernaiz","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-zack-gelof"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}