As Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reported, A’s GM David Forst is in the final year of his contract with the Athletics. The expectation is that he will be back, as Forst and A’s owner John Fisher are reportedly in discussions over his future with the club.
Forst has been with the A’s for decades, sitting alongside Billy Beane in the front office as the team’s assistant general manager beginning in 2004, while being hired initially as a scout in 2000.
When Beane was promoted to President of Baseball Operations in 2015, Forst took over as GM. Beane took on a senior advisor role for the club following the 2022 campaign, leaving Forst in charge of the entire operation.
At that point, the A’s were in full rebuild mode, and would be trading catcher Sean Murphy shortly thereafter. The team’s on-field success hasn’t been quite as great as his predecessor just yet, but the club does appear to be coming out of the rebuild, and is fully expected to be in contention in 2026, following the emergence of Nick Kurtz, Jacob Wilson, and Tyler Soderstrom this season.
That new trio, combined with established bats like Brent Rooker, Shea Langeliers, and to a degree Lawrence Butler, should give the A’s plenty of firepower to contend next season.
The big question when it comes to Forst is how much he wants to stay. By all accounts the answer has been that he’s in this for the long haul (including Las Vegas) in the past.
From ownership’s perspective, he’s doing his job within the budgetary restraints that have been set before him. The trajectory of this club should be in a really good spot when they are expected to land in Las Vegas in 2028 as well, and there isn’t much that you can ask for from a GM than having a product that is excelling on the field for the big unveiling.
While the A’s have fallen short of the postseason for the fifth straight year in 2025, Forst has also had to mold a roster not only with limited resources, but also with the Vegas relocation looming overhead making it more difficult to lure free agents, and the green and gold playing in West Sacramento for the first of three seasons this year.
When you don’t even know your home ballpark’s park factors, it’s harder to target guys that can have a big impact on your team. We’ve seen the A’s perform better at home as the season has gone on, and part of that has been from learning how the field plays.
Part of what has helped bring this team success has been the relationships within the clubhouse, and if ownership decided to bring in a new GM at this point in the rebuild/relocation process, they likely wouldn’t have the same chance for success as Forst, given that he’s familiar with the interpersonal dynamics of the club already.
While there are some fans that will blame Forst for certain deals that have been made and the lack of a return for some fan favorites in recent years, he’s also made some key acquisitions that have set this club up for the future, like bringing in Brent Rooker as a waiver claim, adding No. 3 prospect Leo De Vries in the Mason MIller deal, and getting Jacob Lopez as an added bonus in the Springs trade.
Rooker has been carrying this team for the past three seasons, swatting 30+ home runs each year with the club, while Lopez showed in spurts that he could be a top-of-the-rotation type pitcher that helps the club reach that next level. De Vries figures to be the one that pushes them over the edge into serious contenders in the near future.
The club is on the right path, and it has Forst’s fingerprints all of it.