Don’t get me wrong: seasons like the magical 2012 A’s campaign don’t around very often. So you don’t get to use logic like, “Hey the team kind of sucked in May then too, so I guess the division is ours in 2025!”
But some parallels are worth noting, such as the truth that what you see in May is not always what you see in August and that the team riding high today can be the team that can’t buy a team tomorrow.
The AL West
The first thing that stands out about the AL West in 2025 is its collective mediocrity. The teams have come to it in different ways, but their paths have generally merged at the 1/4 mark.
The Texas Rangers got off to a fast start, but have fallen to the .500 mark with an offense that has been among MLB’s poorest. You can expect their hitting to improve over the last 120 games, but at the same time will Jacob deGrom make 32 starts and will Tyler Mahle boast a 1.47 ERA?
So far this season the Rangers have alternated winning games 2-1 and losing them 3-2. Going forward they may alternate winning games 6-4 and losing them 5-3. It all adds up to a .500 team.
The Seattle Mariners then assumed the mantel of the division’s hottest team, surging to a 21-14 record (.600) on the strength of surprisingly good hitting. But while they tried to play “Freaky Friday” with the Rangers, their luck was bound to run out. Jorge Polanco is not, in fact, going to hit .400 and JP Crawford won’t surpass Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak.
Bryce Miller and Emerson Hancock have not been good in Seattle’s rotation, but the pitching will improve with the return of George Kirby and likely some returns to form by those currently struggling.
Trouble is, as this happens the hitting will find its norm in a lineup that features too much Dylan Moore, Miles Mastrobuoni, Ben Williamson, and Rowdy Tellez. Seattle has lost 5 of its last 6 and is creeping ever closer to the .500 mark that defines the AL West.
As for the Houston Astros, still my pick for “the team to beat,” in contrast to Seattle and Texas they have not really streaked one direction or the other. They have just been utterly mediocre for 40 games, winning 20 and losing 20.
Hunter Brown has pitched like an ace but the back of the rotation looks more holey than holy. Last night’s lineup did not feature a single hitter with an OPS of .800 or higher. The Astros have not found a place for Jose Altuve to play where he doesn’t give back his value on defense.
Point being, the AL West continues to look like a division in which 86 wins could be enough and that makes all the .500 teams — including the A’s — highly relevant.
2012’s Lessons
The first lesson from 2012 is that your record, and your roster, in May is but a snapshot in time. It may not represent the team you take to the finish line in August and September.
The 2012 A’s ended May with a record of 22-29 and finished June at 37-42. 3B was a revolving door of an ineffective Josh Donaldson (who hit about like Max Muncy) and a washed up Brandon Inge trying to recapture the fountain of youth. 1B did not feature Brandon Moss until June. The rotation saw additions at the halfway point, such as AJ Griffin making his big league debut towards the end of June.
The 2025 A’s, as currently constituted, are talented but also deeply flawed. It starts with defense, where their efficiency ratings and OAA are at the very bottom of MLB. But if the A’s hang in there for a bit, and no one takes off in the division, the A’s could find themselves, in the second half, still very much in the thick of the AL West race only with a much different — and improved — roster.
It starts with Denzel Clarke taking over CF. The good news is that he is a terrific CFer who would instantly turn the position from a glaring defensive weakness to a true strength overnight. The bad news is that Clarke cannot be rushed to the big leagues and while he is putting up some impressive offensive stats (a .442 OBP and 18 BB against 22 K), he is still a work-in-progress.
Jack Perkins starts tonight for Las Vegas and could potentially be a factor in helping the rotation just as Gunnar Hoglund has begun to do. Nick Kurtz is getting his feet wet and when he settles in, look out. And Muncy has the chance to return with a vengeance just as Donaldson did for the 2012 “Miracle A’s”.
The 2012 A’s were 5 back with 9 to play. These 2025 A’s currently sit just 1.5 back with 120 to play. It’s a long season and during this run of especially tough series it’s about “hanging in there”. Halfway through this challenging 12 game stretch, thanks in large part to their peers, the A’s are doing just that.
Will anyone truly assert themselves in the AL West and set the bar at 90 wins or better? At the moment it doesn’t look particularly likely. Can the A’s be the team that improves the most in the second half from where they sit today? That’s the big question — but if A’s history tells us anything, it’s that you shouldn’t count them out until New Year’s Eve. That’s when the ball drops and you check to see where Josh Hamilton is.