A's Las Vegas Relocation Hindering Team's Pitch to Free Agents
Free agents don't want to play for the A's, but not because they play at the Coliseum or finished with 112 losses in 2023. Nope, this time it's because nobody knows where the A's will play from 2025-27 while their proposed ballpark in Las Vegas is being built.
A's GM David Forst told Martín Gallegos that he hopes to have an answer on where the team will be playing during that time period--perhaps even later this offseason.
That announcement may not come in time to help the team land any free agents on a multi-year deal, however. In a weird twist of fate, that could end up helping the team in 2024 with so many young internal options that need to be sorted through in order to find out which players will be the core of the A's moving forward.
Still, it has to be frustrating for Forst. He could have the best budgeting process in the world right now and be ready to hand the money he's earmarked to a number of players, but since those players may need to buy two different homes in different cities over the course of a two year deal, then that has to be off-putting.
There's also no guarantee that things will get better once a decision has been made. Unless the A's plan to play in one location, and that ballpark is either full-time in Oakland or San Francisco, then luring free agents isn't going to get easier. One option that has been floated has been to have the A's play half of their games in the Bay Area (in order to collect their roughly $60 million in RSN money) while playing the other half at a Triple-A ballpark. Do you think that sounds better to free agents? That's two homes in the same year!
If the A's can't secure a Major League ballpark to play all 81 home games over the course of a season for three consecutive seasons, then it's going to continue to be difficult to land any free agents that could actually help Forst and company build a winner.
That's where things get interesting with the impending move to Las Vegas. If the team is unable to land top or even mid-tier free agents, their arrival in Nevada could be a large dud, and their innagural season needs to be a success. Sure, the A's have some talented players that would presumably be coming into their own by that point, but it's hard to see them being a super-competitive club with solely internal options in 2028.
That said, the A's do have the best odds to land the top pick in the 2024 MLB Draft, and there are a number of players that could be interesting additions to the A's farm system. We will know a little later on Tuesday which pick the A's will have via the Draft lottery.
For now, it's likely that Forst attempts to go the trade route in order to land the veteran starter he's been after this off-season since they'd have no say in the matter. That, or he could solely go after players on one year deals.
This can't be a fun situation for Forst to be in, and he's surely going to try his best to put out a better product in 2024, but John Fisher just keeps tying Forst's hands with how he does business. The A's could have been perennial World Series contenders if it wasn't for their owner.