The A’s, it would seem, are once again defying all the obstacles — a bad stadium situation, limited payroll, no loyalty or commitment from ownership — and just going about their way winning ballgames.
Oakland has long battled with San Francisco in its fight to survive in the Bay Area and is now being told by MLB to be prepared to lose the Athletics to any number of other cities in far smaller markets.
The financially-challenged A’s remain at loggerheads with city officials over the funding for a proposed new waterfront stadium in downtown Oakland at the Howard Terminal site, but on the field, the team is once again in first place despite having lost their franchise shortstop Marcus Semien and All-Star closer Liam Hendriks to free agency last winter.
The stadium issue has been festering for years through aborted efforts on the A’s part to move to nearby San Jose, Santa Clara and Fremont before their latest effort to build a privately-funded $1 billion waterfront stadium. It came to a bit of a head last Tuesday when MLB commissioner Rob Manfred informed the team they had permission to look elsewhere, as in westernmost potential major league cities Las Vegas, Portland and Vancouver.
The directive from MLB said that rebuilding on the site of the Oakland Coliseum “is not a viable option for the future vision of baseball.” (The A’s have played there since 1968 when former owner Charlie Finley moved the team from Kansas City.) It was an obvious threat to the Oakland City Council to either approve the waterfront stadium deal or be prepared to lose yet another team after the Raiders and Warriors left for Las Vegas and San Francisco, respectively.
At the crux of the stalemate is the $855 million public funding commitment the A’s are seeking for infrastructure around the ballpark which a spokesman from the Oakland mayor’s office termed “at the high end of projects of this type nationwide.” Californians historically have been loath to support public funding of sports venues and it would appear the A’s Howard Terminal waterfront project is headed for the same fate. But the alternative relocation cities are even more problematic if not downright pipe dreams.
In Las Vegas with its transient population there is no stadium plan whatsoever. It would have to be a dome because of the incessant summer heat, and there has been no organized group to bring baseball to Sin City. It would also amount to the A’s leaving the 6th-ranked television market in the country to the 40th.
It’s probably also worth noting that Oakland has a long and rich baseball history, the Triple A-Oaks having been a charter member of the Pacific Coast League from 1903-1955. Two of the Yankees’ greatest second basemen, Joe Gordon and Billy Martin, played there before graduating to the Bronx, and Casey Stengel managed there before being hired by the Yankees in 1948.
As for Portland, though there’s been a very organized group, the Diamond Project, to bring baseball there, headed up by former Nike top exec Craig Cheek, although it is also the 21st-ranked TV market.
So it could be that Manfred’s missive was to exert pressure on A’s owner John Fisher to put some of his own skin in the Howard Terminal plan. Despite his billions, Gap magnate Fisher has invested almost nothing in the A’s, most recently allowing Semien and Hendriks to walk without even making them qualifying offers. It’s said Billy Beane, the architect of the A’s unlikely success the past two decades, has scaled back his involvement in baseball operations having grown weary of constantly trying to win with limited resources and losing his best players year after year.
And yet, here the A’s are, atop the AL West despite getting off to a horrendous 1-7 start and failing so far to adequately replace Semien or Hendriks. To replace Semien, the A’s acquired over-the-hill Elvis Andrus from Texas in a mutual salary dump deal for Khris Davis. Andrus is presently hitting .177. As for their closer, the A’s originally signed Trevor Rosenthal, who was quickly lost for the season with thoracic outlet shoulder surgery, and they’ve since been using a committee of Lou Trivino and Jake Diekman, who’ve been adequate but not nearly as dominant and overpowering as Hendriks.
They have only two regulars, Matt Olson and the finally physically sound Jed Lowrie, hitting over .250, and only two starting pitchers, Chris Bassitt and Cole Irvin, with ERAs under 4.00. They are ninth in the AL in runs, eighth in OBP, with the fifth most strikeouts, and as of Friday a minus 13 run differential.
So how are they doing it? Mostly by winning the close games. They’re a best-in-the-majors 9-3 in one-run games and 12-4 in games decided by two runs. They are probably also benefiting from overall mediocrity of the American League and the AL West in particular. But there can also be no underestimating the managing acumen of Bob Melvin, who in 11 years in Oakland, has quietly won two AL Manager of the Year awards, won three division titles and finished second three other times, all with payrolls consistently in the bottom third of baseball.
Last Thursday Brewers right-hander Corbin Burnes set a record with 58 strikeouts without a walk to start the season. The previous record had been 51 set by Dodgers closer Kenley Jansen to start the 2017 season. He also set another record, strikeouts without a walk at any point of the season (53) previously held by Greg Maddux. But look out Corbin, that one figures to be short-lived. The Yankees’ Gerrit Cole, with 56, has a chance to break that in his next start against Texas Monday…
The Rays, who struck out 40 times in three games against the Yankees last week, prior to the Mets’ arrival in Tampa Bay, are on pace to demolish the all-time record for whiffs in a season. With 16 strikeouts in their 9-1 win over the Yankees Thursday, the Rays lifted their major league-leading total to 413, which put them on pace for 1,700 over 162 games. The present one-season strikeout futility record is 1,595 by the 2019 Tigers…
All hail the Yerminator: When the White Sox lost Eloy Jimenez, their No. 2 run producer after Jose Abreu, for most of the season they had no idea where they’d be able to make up for that lost offense and they certainly never thought it might come from Yermin Mercedes, a journeyman 28-year-old Rule 5 draft pick from the Orioles in 2017 who was ticketed for a trip back to the minors as a DH. Instead, the Jimenez injury made for a place on the team for Mercedes who’s emerged as a hitting machine for the Sox, starting with becoming the first player in modern history to start the season with eight consecutive hits.
Going into Saturday, Mercedes was leading the majors with a .374 average that included five homers and 22 RBI in 33 games and they’ve already named a hamburger (Yerminator) after him in one of the local restaurants and Goose Island has named one of their brews (Rule 5 Draft) after him.