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As MLB Inches Forward, Athletics Begin Bringing Back Their Area Scouts

After Major League Baseball gave the go-ahead, the Oakland Athletics have begun bringing back area scouts who'd just been furloughed. Plans are to have more scouts return on July 1, Aug. 1 and Sept. 1.
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There is no 2020 baseball season, at least not yet.

But the Oakland A’s are acting as if they very much expect there to be one in the very near future.

Back in April, the A’s announced that most of their scouts were going to be furloughed through Oct. 31. Some of the furloughs were on June 1, the others were set for June 16, once the five-round Major League Baseball draft was in the books.

The draft has come and gone, and now the team has announced that they are taking a different path. Talking on the club’s A’s Cast Wednesday, general manager David Forst said that some area scouts were never furloughed and the rest are scheduled to return sooner than expected.

Neil Avent (who covers North Carolina & South Carolina), Jemel Spearman (Georgia & north Florida, Anthony Aliosi (Alabama, Florida Panhandle & Tennessee) and Tripp Faulk (D.C., Delaware, Maryland, Virginia & West Virginia) were the first area scouts to get the news that they were back, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

"I can now go out on the road," Avent told @AthleticsFarm. "I am so happy to get to go to some games."

 The move came because the MLB front office in New York has lifted its in-person scouting ban, which means that scouts are able to travel in small numbers – no more than three scouts from any one organization – to look at potential players in prospect showcases.

“That was a big thing for us,” Forst said in the interview. “It was highly publicized that a lot of our scouts were scheduled to be furloughed after the draft. With MLB lifting the ban on in-person scouting, we were able to work with (A’s owner John Fisher) and create a schedule for all amateur scouts to come back to work.

“What we ended up with was a handful of the area guys not furloughed at all, and over the course of the summer, on July 1, August 1 and September 1, those guys are going to get back to work and be able to cover amateur events.”

Forst gave a hat tip to Fisher, saying “That was a really good outcome. John worked with us on it, and we appreciate that.”

Fisher, who owns about a 90 percent stake in the A’s, has opened up the A’s wallet of late. About 10 days ago he reversed an earlier decision to stop paying stipends to A’s minor league players after May 31. Rather than extending the minor leaguers just through June, he guaranteed the stipends, $400 per week through the season’s end.

Forst acknowledged that it had to be difficult for the club’s scouts to work the draft knowing they were going to be out of work.

“It was tough for some of those guys to go through the draft process knowing that, basically a couple days later, that they were going to be out on furlough,” Forst said. “I’m glad we were able to least make a little dent in that.”