{"id":367012,"date":"2025-12-24T06:27:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T06:27:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/367012\/"},"modified":"2025-12-24T06:27:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T06:27:07","slug":"as-likely-to-rely-on-internal-options-at-third-base","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/367012\/","title":{"rendered":"A’s Likely To Rely On Internal Options At Third Base"},"content":{"rendered":"

The A\u2019s added to their infield with this week\u2019s acquisition<\/a> of\u00a0Jeff McNeil<\/a> from the Mets. The A\u2019s sent a lottery ticket pitching prospect (Yordan Rodriguez<\/a>) while taking on $10MM of the $17.75MM remaining on the veteran\u2019s contract.<\/p>\n

Adding help at one of second or third base<\/a> had been on the A\u2019s checklist since the beginning of the offseason. It seems they\u2019re content with one outside pickup. General manager David Forst told Mart\u00edn Gallegos of MLB.com<\/a> that the A\u2019s view McNeil as their primary second baseman. They\u2019re planning to leave the third base job open for a Spring Training competition among a few players already on the roster.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll probably look internally at third base,\u201d Forst told Gallegos. \u201cMax Muncy<\/a> did a really nice job there in his limited time. Darell Hernaiz<\/a> has shown he can play the position. Brett Harris<\/a>\u00a0has a lot of experience at third base. So I like our internal options.\u201d Forst didn\u2019t specifically mention\u00a0Zack Gelof<\/a>, who is questionable for the start of exhibition play as he works back from September shoulder surgery. Gelof was a college third baseman but hasn\u2019t played anywhere other than second since he reached Triple-A at the end of the 2022 season.<\/p>\n

None of Muncy, Harris or Hernaiz showed a lot in limited big league playing time. Harris was the best of the group offensively, hitting .274 with a .349 on-base percentage. That came in just 84 plate appearances, and he was a .146\/.276\/.262 hitter in a similar amount of playing time as a rookie the year before. Muncy struck out in 31% of his first 220 trips to the plate in the big leagues, leading to a .214\/.259\/.379 slash. Hernaiz made a ton of contact with below-average exit velocities. He only managed two homers and a .231\/.292\/.306 line over 197 trips to the plate. Gelof showed some promise when he hit 14 homers in 69 games as a rookie in 2023. He led the American League in strikeouts in his first full season and battled injuries for most of the \u201925 campaign, dropping him down the depth chart.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s one of the weakest third base groups in MLB on paper. 19-year-old top prospect\u00a0Leo De Vries<\/a> is likely to open the season in Double-A. It\u2019s not out of the question that he forces his way to the big leagues before the end of the year, especially if the A\u2019s hang around the playoff bubble. That won\u2019t be a consideration out of the gate, so the A\u2019s will need someone from their group of upper level infielders to take a step forward.<\/p>\n

If the A\u2019s wanted to go outside the organization, they could probably get a veteran like\u00a0Yo\u00e1n Moncada<\/a> or\u00a0Ram\u00f3n Ur\u00edas<\/a> on a cheap one-year deal closer to Spring Training. That doesn\u2019t appear to be the current plan. The McNeil acquisition pushed their projected payroll to $87MM, as calculated by RosterResource<\/a>. That\u2019s $12MM above where they opened the \u201925 season. They\u2019ve yet to make any moves to upgrade a rotation which was 27th in ERA and 25th in strikeout percentage. Forst reiterated to Gallegos that acquiring a starter is the \u201cfirst focus right now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The A\u2019s added to their infield with this week\u2019s acquisition of\u00a0Jeff McNeil from the Mets. The A\u2019s sent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":367013,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[180274,98960,33986,180275,363,99,105280],"class_list":{"0":"post-367012","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-brett-harris","9":"tag-darell-hernaiz","10":"tag-jeff-mcneil","11":"tag-max-muncy-2002","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-zack-gelof"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=367012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367012\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/367013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=367012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=367012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=367012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}