The A’s made another minor depth addition late yesterday evening, bringing back left-handed reliever Matt Krook on a minor league deal, per Bill Moriarity of A’s Farm:
This’ll be Krook’s second go-round with the A’s after he began last season in the system. For the second time in as many years he’s inking a minors pact with the Athletics and he’ll presumably get an invite to Spring Training and a fair chance to compete for a spot in the bullpen.
The 31-year-old is a veteran of nine years in professional baseball and three years in the majors, though he’s made just eight career appearances in the big leagues. Krook began the 2025 season on the farm with the Aviators and looked good in 12 contests in Triple-A, continuing his strong minor league career. That got him a promotion to the A’s where he made it into just three games before getting DFA’d and claimed by the Cleveland Guardians, with whom he’d remain in Triple-A for them the rest of the season.
The A’s must really see something they like in Krook if they’ve gone out and gotten him early in two straight off seasons. The current makeup of the bullpen is severely lacking in left-handed depth and Krook fills that need. He may end up making just as many or less appearances for the A’s as he did this past season and he’s out of options but you can never have too much pitching, especially left-handed pitching.
We wrote about Krook and his 2025 season and time with the Athletics recently during our Season In Review series. For an even more in-depth read about the new depth piece take a quick read!
Another look at the two lefty relievers recently signed:
The organization is losing a quality baseball mind to Kansas City: