A's, Royals Taking Two Wildly Different Approaches to Offseason
The Oakland A's finished with the worst record in baseball in 2023 at 50-112. The Kansas City Royals finished with the second-worst record at 56-106. Heading into the offseason, not much was expected of either team in 2024, but the Royals have been actively trying to get better this winter by spending. According to Jeff Passan, the Royals rank fifth in offseason spending to date at $105 million while the A's have spent $1.5 million, which was all on veteran reliever Trevor Gott this past weekend.
The circumstances for the two clubs right now is a bit different, so there is some leeway for Oakland's ownership over this specific winter's spending. The A's are in the middle of attempting to relocate to Las Vegas, which also needs a ballpark that John Fisher has to pay for. The A's are also years away from potentially playing in Vegas, so any money they spend on free agents now wouldn't necessarily benefit them once they land in Vegas, either.
There's also the fact that the Royals reside in arguably the worst division in baseball, the AL Central, and even though they lost 106 games in 2023, with the Twins, Guardians, and White Sox taking steps back in 2024, the door could be open for Kansas City to be a sneaky contender through these modest expenditures.
The A's don't have that luxury. The defending World Series champions live in their division, and the Houston Astros have been to the ALCS in each of the past seven seasons. Throw in the Seattle Mariners, and there are three teams actively attempting to contend in 2024 and beyond.
The Royals are also attempting to build a new ballpark, which would require public funds. Spending on the roster with some short-term deals is one way to attempt to get that funding. They are hoping that the ballpark could open in 2028.
Royals owner John Sherman was one of the three owners on the A's relocation committee to look into the financials of the team's proposed move to Las Vegas. The committee recommended relocation based on not much evidence. The Milwaukee Brewers owner was also the chair of the relocation committee, and his team is looking for upgrades to their ballpark. This couldn't have been a coincidence.
The reason they approved the A's relocation is because all MLB owners need a boogeyman (relocation threat) in order to extort the communities they play in for public money. Now it's up to whether or not John Fisher can actually make a ballpark happen.
But that still isn't why we're here today.
The reason the Royals spending irks some A's fans is because Kansas City, instead of trading away their best player in Bobby Whit Jr., they're attempting to build a team around him. The front office has been given resources (money) in order to improve the roster. The A's have been able to build teams through trades and shrewd signings, but they have never actively tried to lure the pieces necessary to their team in order to contend, which has led to a number of ALDS and Wild Card losses.
Maybe that's why the city of Oakland didn't just give in to Fisher's fantasies at Howard Terminal, instead looking for a deal that was mutually beneficial for both the team and the city.
Fisher may claim that they exhausted every avenue to keep the team in Oakland, but he never tried to spend money or retain a player. He never tried to break the player cycle that he created, where there would be a dozen new players every season and fan favorites would only be around for a few years. Even when he had rosters that were winning nearly 100 games a season while he was finally looking for a place to build a ballpark in Oakland, he never crossed the $100 million payroll threshold.
The team did sign Khris Davis to a two year, $33.5 million contract during that time, and then traded him away one year into it in the Elvis Andrus deal. That trade, which also sent Jonah Heim to Texas, only happened because Fisher wouldn't spend money to retain Marcus Semien, who also ended up with Texas a year later.
Ownership's unwillingness to spend in any facet of the baseball experience has led to this point in A's history. Baseball is in the entertainment business, and if you can't even get people in the East Bay to show up, good luck in Vegas when you're competing against the best shows in the world.