Do We Need To Rethink The Athletic

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Back in January, reported on the future of the Athletics, suggesting a big jump in payroll was coming over the horizon. However, Rosenthal himself expre sed serious doubt that any of it would actually come to pa s. According to a source briefed on their plans, Rosenthal wrote at the time, the As project payrolls in the $130 to $150 million range during the ramp-up period before they move into their new park, then $170 million-plus once they are established in their fixed-roof stadium. Rosenthal remained skeptical of what he was hearing and even titled the piece Why I remain skeptical about the As grandiose Vegas plans. The skepticism, from Rosenthal or anyone else reading it, was and is completely understandable. Owner John Fisher has done little to earn any benefit of the doubt. In fact, he had given plenty of people to do the opposite. Since Fisher took over as the clubs managing partner in , the As have arguably received more attention for their bolt to Las Vegas than their on-field performance. They did put a nice run together from 2018 to 2020, making the playoffs three straight years. But when their win total dropped modestly to 86 in 2021, it was full-blown fire sale time. , , and were traded prior to the 2022 season, with , , and others to follow. The As have been one of the worst teams in baseball over the past three years while the headlines have mostly been about the club abandoning its fans in Oakland and the surrounding area, absconding to the east. The plan is for a new stadium to open in Las Vegas for the 2028 season, with a three-year stopover in a Triple-A ballpark in West Sacramento. The club didnt seem to have much interest in staying in Oakland, as negotiations for a new stadium there didnt gain much traction. Nor did the talks about staying beyond the end of the lease, even on an interim basis, hence the temporary move to West Sacramento. Given the way the franchise has behaved, its natural to doubt that there is some ma sive pivot coming. According to , their payroll has been in the bottom third of the league for over a decade now, including being dead last for the past two years and 29th in 2022. Getting up to the range described by Rosenthal above would be a ma sive jump. The club had a payroll of just $61MM in 2024, so were talking about more than doubling that. The franchise record payroll was $92MM back in 2019, so the proposed numbers are coming close to doubling that as well. While that kind of leap might be extreme, its not impo sible to imagine a scenario where Fisher is more motivated to support the Las Vegas Athletics than he was the Oakland Athletics. Even if he doesnt care about the team or its fans in a direct sense, theres the cold-hearted busine s angle. If youve seen the movie Major League, you get the gist here. The recent lack of investment in the club may have been an intentional way of lowering fan engagement, thus manufacturing the justification for the move. After going through all the trouble of moving the club, all the paperwork and meetings involved, hes undoubtedly hoping for some kind of benefit at some point. Per , the Fisher family are willing to put down roughly a billion of the $1.5 billion needed to build the stadium. Akers says that U.S. Bank reviewed the Fisher family finances and concluded the Fishers have more than sufficient a sets for the equity required to fund the stadiums construction. Thats not especially surprising, considering the family situation. Johns parents Donald and Doris founded The Gap, the clothing chain. Donald died in 2009 but lists the family net worth as just under $9 billion, with John Fisher personally as having a net worth of just over $3 billion. That gives them plenty of ability to pay for the stadium, but it seems fair to a sume theyre not doing that out of the kindne s of their hearts and envision getting that money back someday. Its been speculated that the Vegas setting Howie Kendrick Jersey might mean the club is relying more on tourists to come to games as opposed to locals, when compared to other franchises. If thats the case, there could be motivation to make more of an effort to sign stars and generate interest outside of Vegas. Many clubs are hemorrhaging TV money as the cable model collapses and the As got $70MM as part of their deal in 2024. That deal is supposed to end if the club leaves the Bay Area though its been that they may be able to rework it for the West Sacramento years, although presumably at a lower price point. They will presumably find a new broadcast deal for Vegas down the line, but likely not at that price point. That will only put more pre sure on the club to make money off attendance. Their new stadium only projects to have a capacity of 33,000, which will be the lowest in the majors and barely half of the stadium they are leaving. If they want to charge big money for tickets, they will need big demand. Ideally for ownership, that demand would be big right from the get-go, so winning some games while in West Sacramento could be a big priority. We cant know if this is actually the case, but perhaps its worth considering. The family large se which allows the Fishers to cover the stadium costs could also allow them to run higher payrolls than they have in the past. They could simply decide to become a mid-market club if they wanted to. Many will take a believe it when I see it approach to this speculative scenario and thats probably the smartest position to take, but theres an argument that its in the Fishers own interest to take this path. Even if youre the type of fan who considers John Fisher to be a cold-blooded lizard person with no warm feelings towards baseball or people, which would be understandable if youre from Oakland and he has stolen your team from you, that wouldnt nece sarily conflict with him putting a good team on the field since that would be a good busine s decision. These are all big ifs but they could have significant ramifications if theres even partial truths within them, including shaking up baseballs winter landscape. One more club willing to give out big contracts would be good for the players, as another bidder always helps with the supply-and-demand equation. has the club projected for $37MM next year, meaning they would have to spend over $20MM just to get up to 2024s last-place figure. Many free agents wont be excited about playing in a Triple-A park, so the As might have to wait out the market and pitch themselves to guys who dont find the contract they were looking for. Taking on unwanted contracts from another club via trade would be another option to add payroll, without the player having a say in it. But that could also work to the benefit of players, as the other club could use their freed-up spending capacity to spend on someone else. The American League West already has four fairly aggre sive teams in it. The Astros have been one of the strongest clubs over the past decade. The Rangers spent aggre sively in recent years, leading to a World Series title. The Angels havent been succe sful lately but its not for lack of trying, as theyve been a top ten payroll club for most of this century. The Mariners dont run ma sive payrolls but are one of the most active clubs on the trade market and have finished above .500 for four straight years. If the As take things up a notch, it could ramp up the level of competition in an already-strong division. Despite the behavior of ownership, there have been some encouraging signs on the field lately for the As. They went 39-37 in the final three months of 2024, bolstered by strong performances from players like , , and plenty of others. If the club didnt care about how it performed during its three-year exodus in West Sacramento, it would make sense to trade Rooker, since hes slated for free agency after 2027. But they didnt trade him at the deadline and general manager David Forst they dont plan to trade him this winter either. As mentioned, they dont need to save money because theres almost nothing on the books, but trading Rooker could surely bring in a haul of prospects that they are deciding not to reel in. That aligns with Forst the club is focused on adding to the major league roster, not trading big leaguers for prospects. Whether the club has enough talent to compete in the immediate future is obviously debatable and depends on many factors. One of them is how much the club spends on bolstering the roster in that time frame. The general expectation of many people seems to be that the As will be as cheap as they have been in Oakland but its po sible to imagine that they have been intentionally waiting to leave town before opening the proverbial purse strings. This would be especially frustrating for the fans in the Bay Area who have watched the club be starved for years, only to see them start living high on the hog after bolting. But after how much theyve been hurt by Fisher already, would they really be that surprised? Drew Millas Jersey