I don’t think I can recall an off-season where so many teams announced that their primary focus was going to be to add starting pitching. Now it could just be that more teams are saying it out loud, because teams are always looking to add both quality and quantity to their rotation.
But seriously, I truly cannot remember a winter in which nearly every team has publicly indicated a quest for starting pitching. It has created the ultimate seller’s market where the “sellers” are the pitchers themselves peddling their wares.
This only makes David Forst’s already challenging job that much more difficult, as the A’s aren’t going to be winning any bidding wars any time soon. Due to the prohibitive cost and the A’s ballpark situation you can pretty much rule out, off the top, any of the free agent SP worth adding.
Where the A’s might be able to compete is in the trade market as they have some prospect capital that might appeal to teams. Of course asking a team to deal their quality SP when that same team has proclaimed they want to add starting pitching…with multiple suitors, the cost is going to be high.
Certainly the A’s might be players in talks around some intriguing “#2 SP type” trade targets, such as Pablo Lopez, Sandy Alcantara or Kris Bubic (if the A’s are sold on their health), Sonny Gray (if the A’s are ready to take on a lot of salary and can convince Sonny to waive his no-trade clause), or Freddy Peralta (if the Brewers do decide to move him in his last contract year).
But make no mistake about it, the cost in prospects for most of these guys will be steep for 1 year (Bubic or Peralta) or a health roll of the dice. Be prepared to cringe at the talent going the other way if the A’s get in on any of those guys.
So where does that leave Forst, trying to fill the “#2 SP” gap? One option is to gamble on the A’s internal options hoping Jack Perkins can hold up physically and join Luis Morales as “front of the rotation” talent, with Gage Jump in line for a mid-season call up. It’s asking a lot of pitchers who are young and inexperienced, but on the flip side they are already on the team and the talent is undeniable.
Another choice, and one I expect Forst to kick the tires on bigly, is to find the next Danny Haren or Jarrod Parker: a pitcher without the big league track record yet but who might be ready to step in and immediately make an impact. It’s going the “MLB ready” route rather than the “established SP on an expiring contract” one, riskier in one sense (lack of track record) but less risky in another (needs less prospect capital to acquire and comes with more service time guaranteed).
So today I ask, who could the A’s acquire this off-season who on the one hand is unproven enough to be attainable in a “seller’s market” but who has enough upside that he could, like Morales and possibly Perkins, jump (pun sort of intended) into a spot nearer the front of the rotation than the back?
Because that guy might be the right target for the 2025 off-season market, if we can just identify exactly who he is…