Melvin's Experience Could Play Well for A's

Bob Melvin enters the season as the Major League's longest tenured manager. That, plus the A's abundance of talent, could lead to big things in Oakland in 2020.

Bob Melvin finds himself in an unusual role this season.

The A’s manager is the longest serving manager with a single team in Major League Baseball entering the 2020 season. It’s a title that migrated across San Francisco Bay with the Giants’ Bruce Bochy having retired last year after 13 seasons at the helm.

Melvin joined the A’s midway through the 2011 season, taking over from Bob Geren. In his eight full seasons with Oakland, Melvin has brought home two AL West champions and three runners-up, each of which made the playoffs.

That kind of stability in an organization is far from the norm. There are 10 teams with new managers this year, and fully 15 teams have made managerial changes in the last two seasons.

There are two new American League West managers this time around, Dusty Baker with the Astros and Joe Maddon with the Angels. Elsewhere in the AL Ron Roenicke with the Red Sox and Mike Matheny with the Royals are in their first years on the job. In the National League, Gabe Kapler with the Giants, Joe Girardi with the Phillies, David Ross with the Cubs, Derek Shelton with the Pirates, Luis Rojas with the Mets and Jayce Tingler with the Padres are new.

It should be noted that the Astros’ sign-stealing scandal, first outed by A’s pitcher Mike Fiers, led to three of the changes. Baker is in with the Astros after A.J. Hinch was fired, Roenicke is the interim manager after Alex Cora was let go by the Red Sox and Rojas was called on by the Mets after they’d hired another first-timer, Carlos Beltran. Cora and Beltran were coaches with the Astros in 2017, the year of the sign-stealing scheme.

Meanwhile, Melvin was the AL Manager of the Year in 2012 and 2018 (and before that in 2007 with Arizona). He’s won 90 or more games with three different franchises. Does all this bode well for the A’s?

It does, and not just because of the stability in the manager’s office. There is stability on the roster. The A’s didn’t have to make many moves during the offseason. Thanks to a productive minor league system, Oakland has a loaded lineup and a quality starting rotation.

This is a team that’s built to win now, which hasn’t always been the case for Oakland, which had three consecutive last-place finishes in the AL West. And Melvin’s history has been that he’s won when he’s had the talent. He did it in his first managerial job in Seattle in 2003, and he led the Diamondbacks to 90 wins in 2007 after two sub-.500 seasons.

This team is loaded with talent. Just ask first baseman Matt Olson, who loves playing for Melvin and who says the A’s are “coming at you” in 2020.

Olson isn’t alone. The fact is that players like playing for Melvin. They did in Seattle and Arizona, and they do in Oakland. It’s not a measurable statistic in the era of analytics, but it can’t be overlooked.

There’s no telling if 2020 will be Melvin’s finest hour. But the with his experience and still and the roster of quality players he has at his disposal, it very well could be.