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<\/p>\nJeff McNeil will be 34 years old in April. The 2022 batting champion has had some bright moments in his career, and when the Athletics acquired him from the Mets this week for a prospect, he immediately upgraded the club\u2019s second base situation compared to last season.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s also a bridge player, unlikely to be a part of the next great A\u2019s contender.<\/p>\n
After their first season playing in Sacramento, a temporary home for at least three years while a stadium in Las Vegas is built, the A\u2019s are still a team in-between \u2014 not only in location, but in build. The A\u2019s might wait at least two more winters before making an aggressive offseason push, despite a commitment from owner John Fisher to spend more in 2026 than last year\u2019s total of $118 million.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can tell you it\u2019s going to be higher,\u201d Fisher said of next year\u2019s payroll in a phone interview with The Athletic. \u201cThat\u2019s something that we\u2019re continuing to work on internally. At the end of the day, our goal is to put the greatest team on the field that we can and payroll is an important part of that. But our guys (in the front office) have demonstrated over decades now that they can see things in players that other teams don\u2019t see. \u2026 We\u2019re going to sign our guys to longer-term deals, as well as sign free agents who can make our team better.\u201d<\/p>\n
In some settings, a roster like the Athletics\u2019 could be ripe for a front office and ownership group to reorient around a nearer-term future. A 76-86, fourth-place finish in the American League West last season is nothing to brag about in many contexts, but it was the best tally the club has turned in since 2021.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was everything that we could have hoped it would be and more,\u201d a particularly bullish Fisher said of 2025.<\/p>\n
More important than the record was the group\u2019s composition: only two teams had a younger group of batters last year than the A\u2019s, per Baseball-Reference.<\/p>\n
Slugging designated hitter Brent Rooker, a veritable veteran on a team like the A\u2019s as he enters his age-31 season next year, was joined by rookies Jacob Wilson, an All-Star shortstop with a .311 batting average, and Nick Kurtz, a first baseman who hit 36 home runs \u2014 including four in one game \u2014 and was named Rookie of the Year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t fully subscribe to, \u2018Let\u2019s wait until 2028,\u2019\u201d Fisher said. \u201cWe want to be good now and demonstrate the kind of team we can be.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yet, the A\u2019s are also playing in a converted minor-league stadium through at least the next two years, targeting a 2028 opening for their new ballpark in Las Vegas. Revenues aren\u2019t exactly soaring. Attendance was the worst in the majors at Sacramento\u2019s Sutter Health Park, following a much-maligned exit from Oakland, the team\u2019s home of 56 years.<\/p>\n
Last year, the A\u2019s\u00a0 sold 768,464 tickets as one of just two teams to finish with fewer than one million. The World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers cracked four million.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor us, it\u2019s difficult,\u201d manager Mark Kotsay said. \u201cWe\u2019re still in a situation where we\u2019re in Sacramento for two more years. We are still in that trending-up phase, right? I think had we maybe not gone through a season where we had some adversity in May and finished better, that maybe there\u2019s a perception that we\u2019re really ready to go. But I do think that we\u2019re right there, and we have an opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n
From Kotsay to Fisher to general manager David Forst, the team tries to sell both the present and the future. That\u2019s a fine line many club owners and executives try to walk, sometimes to talk up a roster that simply hasn\u2019t improved. But the A\u2019s and their itinerant existence are also unique.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt depends on how you define aggressive,\u201d Forst said when asked when the A\u2019s would push hard in player acquisition. \u201cWe\u2019re always looking to add and to get better. There\u2019s no doubt a lot of our focus is on what the team looks like in 2028. That said, we have a really good young core and have a chance, I think, to compete going forward. So it would be silly not to take advantage of some opportunities this offseason.\u201d<\/p>\n
Earlier in December, before the McNeil acquisition, Forst said \u201cthere\u2019s a lot of questions we have to figure out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Second base was high on the list, as was third base. The A\u2019s also want to add to their rotation. But after handing out the largest contract in club history last winter to pitcher Luis Severino, the team\u2019s external moves this winter have been smaller.<\/p>\n
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\n Jeff McNeil has one guaranteed season left on his contract, with the option for a second. (Adam Hunger \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n
There\u2019s action brewing internally, however.<\/p>\n
The A\u2019s have made long-term extension offers to some players, Forst said, without offering names or an expectation as to when deals might be completed. It was this time last year when Rooker agreed to a five-year, $60 million extension. Outfielder Lawrence Butler then signed a seven-year, $65.5 million deal during spring training.<\/p>\n
But, in a wrinkle that underscores the sense the A\u2019s are in limbo, even the group making these roster decisions has an uncertain future. Aside from Billy Beane \u2014 the team\u2019s famed former general manager who started the Moneyball movement and who remains a senior advisor to Fisher \u2014 the only A\u2019s staffer under contract beyond next season is Kotsay.<\/p>\n
Forst and the A\u2019s are in extension talks, however.<\/p>\n
\u201cBilly is under a longer-term contract,\u201d Fisher said. \u201cAside from that, look, I\u2019ve now worked with David since Lew Wolff and I bought the team in 2005. So we\u2019ve been together for 20 years and I\u2019ve seen the kind of leader he is and how he has stepped up when David took on the role of being the GM. And I\u2019m really proud of the work that he\u2019s done, and how well we work together and we\u2019re continuing to have conversations about the future, and those conversations are ongoing.\u201d<\/p>\n
The A\u2019s have long been mired in stadium drama. For most of this century, the question was whether they\u2019d end up with a new park in Oakland. Now the questions pertain to the quality of their temporary digs in Sacramento, and the construction effort for their planned home in Vegas.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a lot of learnings when you go into a new ballpark,\u201d Fisher said. \u201cWe went from a ballpark that has the largest foul territory in baseball to a ballpark that probably has one of smallest territories. \u2026 The weather in Sacramento\u2019s drier, the ball flies farther, so it\u2019s a learning experience for our team to figure out what it\u2019s like to play in a new park with all-new facilities.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some A\u2019s players and visiting players alike criticized the quality of the facilities at Sutter Health Park. Forst, however, said those complaints dipped as the year went on.<\/p>\n
Now, a small facelift is coming for 2026.<\/p>\n
In big-league ballparks, locker rooms are typically an easy walk from the dugout, where players sit during games. Not so at Sutter Health Park, where both home and away players have to take a long walk to the outfield to reach their clubhouse.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe biggest thing we\u2019re going to do is add an area in each dugout where the starting pitcher in particular can have a chance to kind of escape,\u201d Forst said. \u201cThe one thing we heard about the most last year was, in most parks, the starting pitcher can go down to the clubhouse.\u201d<\/p>\n
The A\u2019s are also replacing the sod, which will again serve double duty in 2026, hosting a Triple-A team (the Sacramento River Cats) when the A\u2019s are on the road.<\/p>\n
The A\u2019s are paying for the upgrades, a person briefed on the team\u2019s construction plans said. The team hasn\u2019t disclosed the expected cost. MLB and the Players Association declined comment this week on the state of the A\u2019s facilities.<\/p>\n
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\n The Athletics are making improvements to what remains inescapably a minor league stadium. (Scott Marshall \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, in Las Vegas, there are two matters to watch: the nine-acre stadium itself, and the development around it on a 35-acre plot.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe stadium is going great and we are absolutely on track,\u201d Fisher said when asked about the targeted 2028 opening. \u201cEvery day I go out to the site is pretty inspirational. We have 300 workers on site. That number is going to work its way up to close to 1,800 when we\u2019ve got everything going on and a roof is going on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bally\u2019s, the casino operator, has announced a 500,000 square foot entertainment district surrounding the A\u2019s ballpark, but the Nevada Independent<\/a> and Las Vegas Review-Journal<\/a> have reported that Bally\u2019s funding for the project is not yet in place. That could mean the A\u2019s eventually need to either themselves fund \u2014 or find other ways to fund \u2014 some of the infrastructure relevant to the ballpark, like a parking lot, a person briefed on the A\u2019s plans said. But shared sites are complex, and financing is just one piece that would have to be sorted through if Bally\u2019s doesn\u2019t proceed.<\/p>\n \u201cThat is something that Bally\u2019s is working on putting together,\u201d Fisher said.<\/p>\n The Independent cited a Citizens Bank gaming analyst, Jordan Bender, who believes Bally\u2019s might ultimately not be the company to build around the A\u2019s park.<\/p>\n Fisher has been looking for investors and said he\u2019s had success.<\/p>\n