Thinning Market Creates More Limited Directions For A’s

It’s not that the A’s aren’t trying, it’s that they’re not getting to the finish line very often. It’s their version of the Giants’ higher profile failures luring Bryce Harper, Shohei Ohtani, Aaron Judge — names slightly more familiar in the average household than Ha-Seong Kim and Merrill Kelly.

What is coming out is the offers the A’s have made, or may have made, to free agents who chose to sign elsewhere. We know the A’s offered Kim a 4 year/$48M deal only to have him return to the Braves on a one year, $20M deal. Another “west coast team” reportedly offered Kelly 3/$50M but he re-signed with the Diamondbacks instead.

Meanwhile, starting pitchers and relievers are coming off the board at an increasingly rapid pace leaving precious few free agent options still on the board. Here’s where the A’s are most stuck:

Their most pressing need, despite the desire to improve at 2B and further fortify the bullpen, is to add starting pitching, but that happens to be the need most teams are expressing. Not only does that create a ton of demand for the available supply, it also means very few clubs are open to trading a good SP. And if they do, they have the leverage to demand back someone of Tyler Soderstrom’s caliber in return.

So what options remain for the A’s to improve their pitching staff, having added only Mark Leiter Jr. so far, with many good free agent SP/RP fits gone and free agents predictably hesitant to select Sacramento as their next destination?

“The Perkins Solution”

If only they could clone Jack Perkins with a bionic health chaser. Sadly the A’s don’t have 2 Perkinses but they do have one.

Slot Perkins into the rotation, and with his #2 SP upside you have multiple starters with at least the potential to exceed the upsides found with Luis Severino, Jeffrey Springs, and Jacob Lopez. Then you can focus on trading for a plus reliever, which costs less in capital than trying to wrangle a mid-rotation SP.

Anoint Perkins as the closer and you have suddenly transformed the bullpen, allowing the likes of Leiter Jr., Hogan Harris, and Elvis Alvarado to serve more appropriately in set up roles.

Which route the A’s go may depend partly on whom the team can or cannot acquire. Had they signed Kelly, for example, it might have naturally pushed Perkins to the bullpen. If they are able to add a plus reliever they would have more reason to see Perkins through as a SP — assuming they think his body can handle it.

Tradez

Free agency is going to be an uphill battle for a while, but the trade market is always buzzing and much groundwork was undoubtedly laid at the Winter Meetings.

As noted, a deal for a reliever might be more doable than one for a quality SP, especially if you aren’t trading for an established closer but instead transforming a middle reliever (or failed SP) into a closer’s role.

One name I recently threw out there is the Padres’ Jeremiah Estrada. My reasoning is that with rumblings of the Padres and Mets discussing deals that included Mason Miller, but with Miller still entrenched in San Diego right now, clearly the Padres are open to trading from their bullpen — not both Miller and Estrada but one or the other.

Estrada only has 4 career saves but has “closer’s stuff and then some”. His K/9 IP rates each of the last 2 seasons are 13.32 and 13.87 with decent BB rates (3.33, 3.39) and his fastball consistently sits at 97-98 MPH. He is also only 27 and under contract control through 2029.

Yet because Estrada doesn’t have a “closer’s resume” he is valued at “plus middle reliever” stock. BTV is far from a “be all and end all” calculating model, but it would have you believe that Estrada for Mason Barnett and Colby Thomas, or Tommy White and Colby Thomas, is a fair value swap.

A hitch might be that the Padres’ main motivation right now is to shed salary and a “reliever for prospects/MLB ready talent” trade doesn’t accomplish this goal. A conceivable win-win to address this would be for San Diego to add Jake Cronenworth and shed much of his salary in the process.

Disclaimer: By my own admission, I am pretty clueless around trade suggestions. But they’re still fun. I don’t know what would fly in the real world, but according to BTV’s model the following would be a fair deal for both sides:

A’s receive Jeremiah Estrada, Jake Cronenworth and $15M (paying Cronenworth $45M over 5 years from 2026-30)

Padres receive Colby Thomas, Tommy White, and Mason Barnett, shedding $45M from Cronenworth’s contract

From the A’s point of view, they solve 2B now and for a while (for as long as Cronenworth’s defense is good enough), they add a reliever who immediately becomes their best reliever and likely closer and who is controlled for 4 years, they open the door for Perkins to start while maintaining a solid bullpen, they get Cronenworth at an acceptable AAV for their budget and his value, and they don’t have to part with any of their top 5 prospects (De Vries, Arnold, Jump, Nett, Bolte).

From the Padres’ point of view, they shed $45M, get an MLB ready outfielder who was a top 5 A’s prospect when he qualified, get two additional prospects who are ranked #7 and #9 on MLB Pipeline — one of whom has already reached the big leagues — and trade from a position of strength (bullpen) while gaining a total of 18 cost controlled seasons.

Now there are probably exactly eleventeen reasons why this particular trade idea won’t fly, but perhaps it’s unridiculous enough that either there is a version of it that makes sense or at least it demonstrates the capacity for the A’s to find a trade route to address some of their remaining needs. Your thoughts are most welcome.

Overseas

One final thought is that the overseas market is not necessarily as hard a free agent sell as the MLB one. While there is more bust risk, contracts tend to be more affordable as a result. With the 4/$48M to Kim known, it’s clear the A’s are willing to put out that kind of dollar commitment and it might be enough to land a SP with mid-rotation upside from halfway round the globe.

So options are dwindling by the day but they still exist and without question David Forst and company are pounding the pavement hard right now trying to close some deals. So far without much to show, but perhaps soon a Christmas/Hanukah/Kwanzaa/Human Fund present will be arriving…