Should The A's Go With A 6-Man Rotation?

With the pitchers and catchers reporting, the A's will have to decide their rotation for the upcoming season in the coming weeks. The club signed Luis Severino and traded for Jeffrey Springs to add to an already depth-filled rotation this off-season.

Severino and Springs join JP Sears, Mitch Spence, Osvaldo Bido, Joey Estes, JT Ginn, Brady Basso, and Hogan Harris as potential rotation arms to open up the 2025 season. Ginn, Basso, and Harris are most likely not going to start the season in the rotation--but after their solid 2024 campaigns, they will certainly earn themselves looks in Spring Training.

Between Severino and Springs specifically, they both can possibly come with injury problems. Allowing them to get an extra day of rest--especially at the beginning of the season, could help preserve their arms and aid them in making it through the entirety of the season healthy. The extra rest days for them also allows the team to give Sears, Spence, Bido, and Estes starts as well.

With Osvaldo Bido looking to earn a rotation spot, that would push one of Spence or Estes out of the starting rotation. Estes pitched over 127 innings last season, and Spence pitched over 151 innings. If the A's tried out a six-man rotation, they could keep both Estes and Spence, and allow Bido to also join the A's starting rotation.

New A's pitchers Jeffrey Springs and Luis Severino have had shortened seasons recently due to injuries. Between the 2023 and 2024 seasons, Springs has made just 10 starts due to injuries sidelining the left-hander. A's GM David Forst said when Springs was acquired that he didn't see a reason why Springs couldn't toss 160+ innings in 2025.

As for Severino, from his 2019-2021 seasons, he only appeared in 7 games. Keeping these top-of-the rotation arms healthy will be super important for the club this upcoming season, because when they are healthy, they are both very impactful pitchers.

This wouldn't be the first time the A's experimented with a six-man rotation. Just two seasons ago, the club brought in Japanese right-hander Shintaro Fujinami. With injury concerns and wanting to keep him comfortable, the team wanted Fujinami to only pitch once a week. This pushed the A's to utilize more starting pitchers to keep Fujinami's arm healthy.

Unfortunately for that A's team, that six-man rotation didn't last very long, as Fujinami would struggle as a starter for Oakland, and was he ultimately moved to the bullpen. This caused the A's to move back to a classic 5-man rotation.

The idea of letting the team give the starting pitchers an extra day of rest will certainly help the A's preserve their key arms. Especially for pitchers like Jeffrey Springs, and it will also let them continue to assess their younger arms throughout the season, which may be tricky when the team needs to make room for Ken Waldichuk, who is due back from injury around midseason this year.