Tag: Sacramento A’s

The A’s are already failing at free agency

Sacramento has already cost the A’s a free agent pitcher that made sense for them.

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The A’s can say that they don’t want to be known as the Sacramento A’s all they want, but the thing is, that’s where their home games are. And the players that they might want to sign know this, and on top of the A’s not being a very good team and not offering competitive contracts to basically anyone for years and years now, it’s going to impact their player acquisition.

In fact, it already has. Walker Buehler, a free agent for the first time after seven seasons and eight years with the Dodgers, would have been the perfect fit for a team like the A’s on a short-term deal. Buehler missed 2023 after undergoing Tommy John surgery, and pitched pretty poorly in 75 regular season innings after returning, allowing nearly two homers per nine innings while posting an ERA of 5.38. He was better in the postseason, but we’re also talking about 15 innings there: he had plenty left to prove, especially with his 2022 just being a league-average campaign.

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Notes: A’s stadium(s), newsletter housekeeping

Another loss for Schools Over Stadiums, issues in Sacramento, and a note about scheduling.

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The news isn’t great for Schools Over Stadiums, the political action committee formed to attempt to stop the Oakland A’s from becoming the Las Vegas A’s. The Nevada educators who formed the PAC were dealt a blow last week by a state district court judge who rejected their lawsuit over the constitutionality of the public subsidies the team would receive to build a new ballpark.

Judge Kristen Luis did not rule on “the merits of the claims,” per the Los Angeles Times’ Bill Shaikin, but instead, stated that whether or not the money the A’s were receiving from the public coffer was constitutional could not be determined until said money was actually made available to the A’s. And it won’t be unlocked for them until they secure the private financing that they need to pay for the rest of the stadium.

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Why are the A’s allowed to be this way?

The A’s are moving to Sacramento temporarily, so let’s remind ourselves of why this is happening at all.

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On Thursday, it was announced by the A’s that they would be spending the 2025-2027 seasons (and possibly 2028’s) playing their home games in Sacramento, at a Triple-A stadium. Not just in terms of what team already plays there, but also in terms of its facilities, per former player Trevor Hildenberger.

The move isn’t fully official, since the Players Association still has a say in whether those facilities are going to be on par with what’s required (which might require forcing them to be improved somehow, perhaps), but that’s not the focus of today’s wonderings. Let’s unpack some social media posts from yesterday. Nothing dramatic happened, it’s just to set the scene of the question being answered.

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