At the trading deadline the A’s were sellers, something that was decried in May by the baseball gods when they sentenced the team to an inexplicable 1-20 stretch. Outside of that time the A’s are 48-43.
The A’s indeed sold, shipping star closer Mason Miller to the Padres for wunder-prospect Leo De Vries and 3 pitching prospects.
Meanwhile the A’s former neighbors, the San Francisco Giants, became unexpected sellers when a great season turned positively “May A’s” on them at a most inopportune time: the 2 weeks leading up to the deadline.
These developments are the basis for Saturday’s potpourri, which you can stir in a butter churn and pretend you are Nick Kurtz.
Miller Trade
This trade reveals the split personality a fan like me can have. The fan in me is sad to lose one of the most exciting pitchers in the game, one who actually attracts the attention and envy of fans and writers across the country, one who put the A’s on the map when they are so often overlooked.
But the cold analyst in me loves the trade, as most pundits do, and it’s hard not to get excited about what Leo De Vries might become even if it’s a bit down the road because he’s only 18. The comps to Francisco Lindor do not appear to be far fetched. Plus, the pitchers the A’s got back were a worthy trio to roll the dice with.
The perception, of course, is that the A’s had to be willing to get worse for 2026 in order to get better long term. But that may be a false narrative in that if the A’s only get a touch worse at closer, and improve enough elsewhere, it could be a net gain not a net loss.
How can that happen? One way is that a recently acquired prospect such as Braden Nett or Henry Baez could be spun in the off-season to add a 3Bman or lefty-mashing OFer, or even a plus reliever.
Another way is that the A’s can produce a solid closer a number of ways between now and March, 2026. Just in theory they already have 4 pitchers who could potentially become quality closers. If they wanted to (and they don’t) the A’s could put Jack Perkins or Luis Morales in the closer’s spot and both have the tools to excel. If Elvis Alvarado or the just-acquired Eduariel Nuñez can refine their command enough, both have the stuff to close, as we’ve seen recently with Alvarado during a nice run.
But the A’s next closer doesn’t need to be in the organization right now and he could be plenty good. The free agent market will have several quality closers looking for teams and the A’s will have the payroll flexibility to make a very competitive offer, even an overpay in dollars and/or years. Ryan Helsley and Raisel Iglasias are two examples, even Tyler Rogers who hasn’t closed but is one of the league’s best relievers.
Or the A’s can explore the off-season trade market with a plus reliever in mind. They have certainly deepened the farm, especially on the pitching end, and have some appealing young arms to offer teams whose bullpens are deep but need help in their current or future rotation.
Ironically a team the A’s could talk to this winter is the San Diego Padres. Once they have this “all in” 2025 season in the rear view mirror, the Padres may feel they have enough depth with Robert Suarez and Mason Miller that they can deal another electric arm in Jeremiah Estrada in order to improve elsewhere on the diamond — or rebuild the farm they just decimated with their deadline deals. Estrada (66 K in 48.2 IP, 2.59 ERA) is a stud whose addition would make Miller’s loss sting a lot less.
So just saying, don’t give up on the 2026 team — if this 7-1 stretch, achieved without Jacob Wilson or Denzel Clarke or Max Muncy, has shown anything it’s that when the A’s pitch the A’s win. There is an incredibly talented core of position players in the current mix and a lot of pitching talent arriving.
Closers can be developed, found, or signed or dealt for. It’s one spot and now the A’s need to figure out how best to fill it.
A Giants Step Back
I don’t bring up the Giants for schadenfreude as the headline suggests. More it’s to remind myself and all of you that some of the aggravating things we see with the A’s are not unique to the green and gold.
Coming out of the All-Star break the Giants had a 12 game run to the trading deadline. Neck and neck with the Padres and others for the third and final wild card spot, and still very much alive in the NL West, the Giants just kept losing to end July on a 2-12 skid, 2-10 after the ASB.
And as the month closed they perfected the art of the devastating loss. Their last 5 games, in which they were 0-5, they lost by a total of 7 runs: 3 one-run losses and 2 two-run losses.
But it got even more A’s-y than that. The Giants played with the fundamentals of a bad Little League team. In the Pirates series (a 3 game sweep) Heliot Ramos alone was a one-man wrecking crew on the bases — wrecking his own team, that is.
One game Ramos was on 2nd base with 2 outs when a dribber to 3B was an infield hit. Except Ramos started for 3B, then stopped, and then for some reason decided to start again and run to 3B, where of course the tag was waiting for him because that’s exactly where the fielder and the ball were.
Then the next day Ramos outdid even himself. He was again on 2nd this time with a runner also a 1B and 1 out. A pop up between 3B and home invoked the infield fly rule. When Ke’Bryan Hayes let the ball drop onto the grass the batter was still out and the runners had no obligation to go anywhere.
Apparently Ramos either didn’t know or forgot the rules because he started to run to 3B even though he had no chance to actually make it. Far from being “forced” to run the base he was fully entitled to was 2B — the base he was about 20 feet from when he was tagged out to end the inning.
The Giants’ slide also featured outfield communication fails, cut-off man fails, and an entire “0 for the series” 0 for 24 RISP fail. Sound familiar?
So it’s not just the A’s who show a complete lack of fundamentals, clutchiness, or ability to win games that are presented to them for the winning. Maybe it’s just a Bay Area thing now.
The A’s will try to get their 8th Ginn, I mean win, in 9 games tonight against Zac Gallen, who is exactly 8 times better than Riley Pint. First pitch is 7:05pm.