A's Falling Further Behind After Texas Rangers Big Trade Addition
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After seeing how the A's finished out the 2025 campaign, the optimism is high surrounding this club going into the 2026 season. And with Spring Training just around the corner, we have a pretty good idea of who will be on the team. Yet, after the Texas Rangers added yet another big arm to their already stellar rotation, the A's are going to have to answer back before the season begins.
On Thursday, the Rangers added Mackenzie Gore from the Washington Nationals, and he has shown ace-like stuff at points in his career. He finished last season with a 4.17 ERA (3.74 FIP) in 159 2/3 innings of work, and also posted a career-high 27.2% strikeout rate. He's a legitimate pickup for the Rangers, and helps them pull further away from the A's heading into 2026.
The A's calling card as currently constructed is their offense. They have plenty of guys that can hit for average, power, or both, and they look like a group that is going to give opposing pitchers a hard time most nights. That said, the pitching staff also finished with a 4.71 ERA last season, ranking them No. 27 in baseball.
The only addition that they have made to the pitching staff this winter has been righty reliever Mark Leiter Jr., who finished last season with a 4.84 ERA (3.55 FIP). In essence, he's taking the spot of Sean Newcomb in the 'pen, and the lefty held a 1.75 ERA (2.69 FIP) across 51 1/3 innings with the A's last season.
According to FanGraphs' Depth Charts, here is how the A's are projected to fare in both pitching and hitting compared to the other teams in the AL West, followed by their rank in each category among all MLB clubs.
Batter WAR | Pitcher WAR | |
|---|---|---|
A's | 24.8 (12th) | 10.7 (26th) |
Mariners | 27.9 (6th) | 17.1 (7th) |
Astros | 27.3 (9th) | 14.9 (17th) |
Rangers | 24.3 (13th) | 16.2 (12th) |
Angels | 17.8 (28th) | 13.3 (22nd) |
According to these projections, the A's have the third-best offense in the division—with Texas right behind them—and the worst pitching staff in the West. That's not going to be a formula that makes them competitive late into September, which is the club's goal this winter. They want to be pushing for a postseason spot, but these projections have them right where they finished last season.
The addition of Gore, who is projected for 2.8 fWAR this season, made the difference between the A's and Rangers' pitching staffs going from a manageable difference (2.7) to a fairly sizable one (5.5). The problem is, the sure-impact free agent starting pitchers are all either likely to be out of the A's price range (Framber Valdez) or not interested in playing in Sacramento.
That leaves the A's two paths. The first would be to continue to skew towards the offense, adding yet another bopper to an already solid lineup. Eugenio Suárez is projected for 2.6 fWAR this season, and should also be within the team's financial constraints. Third base is also the only offensive position that the A's have a potential opening.
The other path would be to not do anything and bank on the moves that the club has already made and the young arms that are bound to debut this season. Two of the A's top prospects are left-handed starters in Jamie Arnold (No. 38 prospect in MLB on Pipeline) and Gage Jump (No. 60). Each has the potential to ascend to the A's rotation at some point in 2026.
The other key factor to remember with some of these projections is that they're based off track records, to a degree. For a team like the A's, they're young and unproven at the big-league level. They also don't know when a Gage Jump or a Braden Nett may make their MLB debut, so it's tough to factor in their contributions to the staff.
For Jump, he was basically un-hittable for most of the summer, posting a cumulative 3.28 ERA after slowing down towards the end of the season. Perhaps the A's are looking at a quick dip in Triple-A before promoting him to the big-league rotation? The same could go for Nett, Kade Morris, or a number of prospect arms.
The A's have that information, while the projections are doing their best to guesstimate playing time across the board. Perhaps the A's lack of movement is a sign that they plan to be aggressive with pitching promotions this season?
Of course, that would also mean that they would have to follow through and produce for the club, but that is one way to make the pitching projections look completely wrong. Depth Charts has Jump penciled in for 28 innings and a 4.42 ERA, putting up 0.3 WAR. If we had to guess, we'd say he'll have more than 28 innings with Sacramento this year.
The club could still use an upgrade to help close the gap, but they may have some firepower waiting in the wings, too.
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Jason has been covering the A’s at various sites for over a decade, and was the original host of the Locked on A’s podcast. He also covers the Stanford Cardinal as they attempt to rebuild numerous programs to prominence.
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