{"id":641273,"date":"2026-03-24T20:18:16","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T20:18:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/641273\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T20:18:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T20:18:16","slug":"as-finalize-opening-day-bullpen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/641273\/","title":{"rendered":"A’s Finalize Opening Day Bullpen"},"content":{"rendered":"

The A\u2019s finalized their Opening Day bullpen last night, announcing that righty Jack Perkins<\/a> has been optioned to Triple-A. He\u2019ll likely remain stretched out as a rotation option in the minors, per Martin Gallegos of MLB.com<\/a>. That leaves righties J.T. Ginn<\/a> and Luis Medina<\/a> (the latter of whom is out of minor league options) as the final two members of the Athletics\u2019 initial relief corps this season.<\/p>\n

There are no 40-man transactions at play here, but it\u2019s notable that the hard-throwing Medina made the club, as he\u2019d have otherwise been designated for assignment. That was hardly a lock, given the manner in which the 26-year-old has struggled this spring. Medina has pitched 7 1\/3 innings and allowed six runs \u2014 good for a 7.36 earned run average. Small-sample ERA marks aren\u2019t particularly meaningful, but Medina was probably lucky to \u201conly\u201d surrender six runs. He\u2019s been tagged for six hits and walked a whopping nine batters (24.3%) this spring.<\/p>\n

Some rust for Medina is understandable, however. He didn\u2019t pitch at all last year after undergoing Tommy John surgery in August of the 2024 season. Medina has never had particularly sharp command, though this spring\u2019s struggles to locate the ball are obviously extreme even by his prior standards. He\u2019s walked 11.4% of his opponents in 149 2\/3 big league innings.<\/p>\n

The A\u2019s acquired Medina, JP Sears<\/a>, Ken Waldichuk<\/a> and Cooper Bowman<\/a> from the Yankees in the 2022 trade sending Frankie Montas<\/a> and Lou Trivino<\/a> to the Yankees. He\u2019s started 25 games for the A\u2019s and made another six relief appearances since, but opponents have roughed him up for a 5.35 ERA. Medina averaged 96 mph on his four-seamer while working primarily as a starter prior to surgery. He\u2019s been sitting 97.2 mph this spring while working in short relief.<\/p>\n

The rotation may not have panned out for Medina, but a pitcher with his velocity and a slider that has generated a huge 20.2% swinging-strike rate could have success in a bullpen capacity. The A\u2019s have invested more than a year in the right-hander\u2019s rehab from that UCL surgery, so despite the rocky spring, it\u2019s only natural that they want to give him some leash to see if he can round into form and give them a quality bullpen option. He\u2019s earning just $835K this year and is under club control through 2029.<\/p>\n

Ginn has had an even rougher spring. The former second-round pick came to the A\u2019s from the Mets in the trade sending Chris Bassitt<\/a> to Queens. He\u2019s been tagged for 17 runs on 18 hits, seven walks and four hit batters during Cactus League play. Ginn has fanned nearly a quarter of his opponents and been dogged by a sky-high .385 average on balls in play, but it\u2019s been an underwhelming spring regardless.<\/p>\n

Be that as it may, Ginn will get a crack at carving out a role in a wide-open bullpen landscape. He\u2019s pitched 124 1\/3 major league innings to date and carries a 4.85 ERA, 24% strikeout rate and 7.5% walk rate. Ginn\u2019s heater has ticked up a bit this spring, and he\u2019s been mixing in more cutters and changeups at the expense of his slider and sinker. He\u2019s a somewhat natural candidate for a multi-inning\/swing role, given his prior work as a starter. Even this spring, he\u2019s made four starts.<\/p>\n

The A\u2019s will enter the season with a committee approach to the late innings. Veterans Scott Barlow<\/a> and Mark Leiter Jr.<\/a> are the only A\u2019s relievers with real late-inning experience \u2014 the former as a closer and the latter as a setup man. It\u2019s been four years since Barlow pitched like a high-end closer, however, and while Leiter has continued to see leverage opportunities in recent seasons, he has a lackluster 4.66 ERA dating back to Opening Day 2024.<\/p>\n

Barlow, Leiter, Ginn and Medina will be joined by lefty Hogan Harris<\/a> and right-handers Justin Sterner<\/a>, Michael Kelly<\/a> and Elvis Alvarado<\/a> in manager Mark Kotsay<\/a>\u2018s Opening Day \u2018pen. Leiter, Barlow and Medina are the only three members of that octet who cannot be optioned to Triple-A, so there\u2019ll surely be something of a revolving door in the Athletics\u2019 bullpen early in the season as they cycle in fresh arms and look to find the optimal combination for Kotsay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The A\u2019s finalized their Opening Day bullpen last night, announcing that righty Jack Perkins has been optioned to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":641274,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2391],"tags":[537,5,631,26058,7146,4,3226],"class_list":["post-641273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-athletics","tag-athletics","tag-baseball","tag-j-t-ginn","tag-jack-perkins","tag-luis-medina","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-athletics"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116286004074749918","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=641273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641273\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/641274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=641273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=641273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=641273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}