So you don't like the job A's GM David Forst is doing
Yesterday I talked about how difficult a job A's GM David Forst has, not only because of the financial constraints put on the front office by ownership, but also because when it comes to building a roster, he doesn't know which players he should be targeting that will fit his home park because the team doesn't know where they'll be playing in 2025.
There was a decent amount of pushback on the article on social media, so let me address two main talking points that were in my comments most of yesterday.
The first is that Forst has completely botched recent trades for Matt Olson, Matt Chapman, Sean Murphy, Sean Manaea, Chris Bassitt, and Frankie Montas. While there is some credibility to that argument, let me offer a counterpoint. A's fans knew that a fire sale was about to happen that would tear down the A's roster once the lockout ended in 2022, and it did, with Olson, Chapman, Manaea, and Bassitt being traded away before the start of the season, then Montas at the Trade Deadline, and Sean Murphy the following offseason.
Do you really think that other teams didn't know that Forst had to move these guys to clear payroll? Everyone knows the A's timelines for their roster churns by now if you're paying attention, and they know that the A's have self-imposed financial limits, which means a deal needs to happen no matter what the return is. Take the Jesús Luzardo deal for Starling Marte. They needed to replace Ramón Laureano's production and had zero money to add to payroll. With another teardown looming, the decision was made to trade the left-hander and have the Marlins pay Marte's remaining salary. If John Fisher were willing to add a few million in payroll, then Luzardo isn't included in that deal.
Yes, you can argue that there may have been better trade partners that the Braves (twice) and the Blue Jays getting another Oakland third baseman, but at the same time, when ownership isn't allowing flexibility to perhaps hold onto a couple of these guys in order to get the best offers out there, then Forst's hands are tied. Opposing front offices knew that these players had to go, and that there was a limited timeframe to make the deals happen thanks to the lockout.
Fisher took away any negotiating leverage that Forst had. He also gave his front office the smallest analytics department in MLB to evaluate the players they were acquiring.
When you take a look at a couple of trades that the A's have made since those deals in the immediate aftermath of the lockout, the A's have faired well. They traded Frankie Montas and Lou Trivino for JP Sears, Ken Waldichuk, Luis Medina, and Cooper Bowman. Sears was the A's best pitcher last season and Waldichuk and Medina certainly showed signs of being solid middle-of-the-rotation starters, but they're all works in progress. Montas threw 41 innings for the Yankees and held a 6.15 ERA.
Last year the A's traded away Cole Irvin (who was acquired for cash) for shortstop prospect Darell Hernaiz, and Irvin is a solid pitcher, but Hernaiz has some real potential and a shot to be the A's starting shortstop on Opening Day. They also traded away Sam Moll to Cincinnati in exchange for Joe Boyle, and the A's didn't really have a need for an effective left-handed reliever with years of control in the midst of a 112-loss season, so they landed a interesting hard-throwing right-hander that will be vying for a spot in the rotation this year. You can't really be mad at any of those three trades.
The one that you can point to right now and say the A's definitely lost was the Chapman deal, since only one player is in Oakland's system, and that's Gunnar Hoglund. The rest of the trades are still TBD. Let's see how Esteury Ruiz looks over the course of the 2024 season.
Joey Estes made his MLB debut at the age of 21 last year and didn't set the world on fire in *squints* ten innings pitched. He spent most of the year dominating in Double-A (3.28 ERA with a 1.10 WHIP in 104 1/3 innings). Let's see how he does in the first half of the season at Triple-A where the ball flies a little more.
There are players that are now in the A's system that are works in progress. Just because they don't become All-Stars immediately doesn't mean that they're busts. Baseball is a hard game. It wasn't until Brent Rooker's fourth season in the big leagues with his third club that he broke out with the A's last season. It takes time.
That all said, as I mentioned last year, some of the additions have been head scratchers, most notably Cristian Pache in the Olson deal. Not because he's a bad player, but because he only had one option year remaining and was obviously still a work in progress. Either you're going to give him the time to develop or you're not. The A's did not and ended up trading him away at the end of camp last season.
The other piece of pushback that I received is that Forst hasn't had a draft pick hit since 2014 when the A's took Matt Chapman.
2015 was a largely rough draft, but they did snag Seth Brown in round 19. 2016 had A.J. Puk (who was traded for JJ Bleday) in the first round and Sean Murphy in the third. The 2017 draft was pretty bad. They took Austin Beck and he didn't really pan out and is now in the L.A. Dodgers' system. Nick Allen could be a nice piece, but he's likely fighting for a roster spot with Hernaiz this season. The A's also selected Garrett Mitchell in round 14, but he did not sign. The Milwaukee Brewers selected him number 20 overall in 2020 and he was their number four prospect in 2023.
2018 had the whole Kyler Murray debacle, and the biggest mistake there was that they didn't get a compensatory pick for him not signing (because he signed) in the following year's draft. The A's would have had the number ten overall pick in 2019 had Murray not signed at all with Alek Manoah, Corbin Carroll, and George Kirby still on the board. Funnily enough, the A's have the fourth and ninth overall picks (Bleday and Langeliers) on the roster. Despite the Murray pick, the A's still landed Hogan Harris (3rd), Lawrence Butler (6th), and Max Schuemann (20th) who's knocking on the door to the big leagues.
The 2020 draft was only five rounds and they took Tyler Soderstrom, who just turned 22, in the first round. He struggled in his debut, but his track record suggests he'll be fine. While it seems too soon to look at the 2021 draft because it takes players time in the minors to develop, that's also the same year that the team selected Mason Miller and Zack Gelof, who have already made the big leagues, as well as Max Muncy, Denzel Clarke, and Brett Harris who could come knocking on the door this season.
To say that the A's have whiffed is misleading. Could they have done a little better in some areas? Sure. Every team could. The MLB Draft is not as surefire as the other sports.
We all remember Fisher complaining about having a higher pick during the last draft which lead to a higher draft pool, right? Everything stems from the top of the pyramid and trickles down, folks.
At the same time, don't put too much stock into what the national prospect writers say about the A's farm system. It's all an informed guessing game where even the best analysts are wrong a fair amount.
The A's also don't get to benefit from being bad like the Astros, Cubs, Tigers, and Orioles have because of the implementation of the Draft Lottery. Oakland doesn't just automatically get a top pick after a bad season like those teams did, year after year.
The Orioles selected in the top-5 four years in a row with two number one picks. The Astros had three number one picks in a row, whiffed on Mark Appel with one and failed to sign Brady Aiken with the other, so they ended up with Alex Bregman the following year instead. They also took Daz Cameron in the first round one year and he's in the A's system now.
The Cubs took Javier Baez ninth in 2011, then Kris Bryant second in 2013, Kyle Schwarber fourth in 2014, and Ian Happ ninth in 2015. They also spent money to attract free agents to help supplement their roster.
The Tigers haven't had as much success yet due to injuries, but they have picked in the top-5 in five of the past six seasons with two number one overall picks. The further you get from the number one overall pick, the more of a crapshoot the draft becomes.
Those teams also built up their front office staffs to better analyze the types of players they should target, something that the Fisher has yet to do. You can blame Forst if you want to, but as I said in yesterday's piece, he's being asked to field a team blindfolded with one arm tied behind his back.