On Sunday afternoon, the Athletics finished up their week in Las Vegas with a 23-9 spanking by the Colorado Rockies at Las Vegas Ballpark, home of the A’s Triple-A affiliate. This blemish was just a footnote in what has been a successful week for the soon-to-be Las Vegas-bound franchise.
The Sin City residents had to love what they saw from their future home team in taking the series against a terrific Milwaukee Brewers team and an awful Rockies club. The A’s homered 20 times in the Las Vegas series, and fans can get used to that.
Nick Kurtz homers (Cary Edmondson-Imagn Images and FansGraphs Baseball)
This lineup can rake, and the altitude is part of what the team’s brain trust had in mind when building it. Nick Kurtz homered four times and drove in seven runs. Tyler Soderstrom hit three home runs to go with his seven RBIs. Athletics catcher Shea Langeliers had a couple of home runs and three RBIs.
Those homegrown stars should be household names in baseball once the team starts in Vegas. By then, they should be good enough to lead the A’s to contention.
Yes, expectations will be high. The Athletics have been rebuilding with the idea that Las Vegas will get a finished product, and the city won’t want to waste time with anything subpar. Signing stars such as Jacob Wilson, Brent Rooker, Lawrence Butler, and Soderstrom to extensions should offer assurances that it will be different. The team anticipates Langeliers and Kurtz will sign extensions by then, too.
Heading to Monday’s game against the Pittsburgh Pirates at Sacramento, the Athletics are 35-36, a game out of first place in the AL West. Baseball experts pegged them as a wild-card playoff team based on this offense at the start of the season.
In a sport that rewards mediocrity, the Athletics should be good enough to make the playoffs, even if they can’t pitch, and that remains their biggest concern.
The team’s core should gain plenty of playoff experience over the next two years, which should serve them well as they head to the pinnacle. Seeing these hitters get a chance to play in October should be something Vegas locals can look forward to starting this year for a preview of what’s to come.
It’s easy to understand why there’s excitement about the A’s coming to their new home soon. It’s not just that the city is getting baseball, but it could also celebrate a championship in the team’s first year there. It’s rare that it ever happens.
It’s going to be interesting how the Athletics go about pitching in Vegas. After successfully developing pitchers in Oakland’s pitcher-friendly ballpark for many years, the Athletics will now be pitching at high altitude, even though they will be playing in a dome. The pitchers will have to make adjustments, and it won’t be easy. It can wear on them. J.T. Ginn has promise, but other than that, it’s barren right now on the mound.
The A’s front office has long known how to find and develop talent, so solutions can be found as they attack this problem, though that does not make the challenge any smaller.
It will be interesting if A’s owner, John Fisher, starts spending money on building a championship team. Yes, he signed his core players, but he needs to do more. How about spending money to get free agents? How about making a big move at the trade deadline?
Fisher is more than fine with building a team to win on a low payroll, since it’s good business for him, but that doesn’t guarantee a championship. It’s rare in baseball to see a team win a championship that way, and that reality should not be ignored.
For some reason, I like to think Fisher could be pushed out of baseball by the time the team is in Vegas. It’s hard to believe baseball and Vegas want him around the franchise after all the nonsense he created in Oakland, where he never spent, and then moved the team out of Oakland from spite.
In an ideal situation, Vegas Golden Knights owner Bill Foley would buy the Athletics from Fisher and serve as the team’s benefactor. That’s the best way for this team to move forward and achieve its goals.
The A’s will be a team watched with intrigue as the season progresses, with the idea that a championship will be celebrated on the Strip in the fall of 2028.
