Oakland Athletics: Billy Beane shares plans for deadline additions

The Oakland Athletics performed a familiar task on Monday afternoon in trading away yet another fan favorite, but this time the move isn’t being met with quite as much vitriol. With a clear plan in place for the future and the promise to build around the core they’re bringing together via these trades, the A’s Executive Vice President Billy Beane laid out the team’s plans for their new additions.

The Oakland Athletics were going to get heat on Monday no matter what happened. It’s the old damned if you do, damned if you don’t scenario. A catch 22. The A’s needed to trade away Sonny Gray either yesterday, which they did, or during the offseason in order to start truly preparing for the rebuild that has been put off for a couple of seasons.

Some fans reacted emotionally, and who can blame them? Two years ago it was Josh Donaldson being moved and then becoming the AL MVP the following year with Toronto and then nearly every other All Star that was on that 2014 squad followed suit. Just a couple of weeks ago it was trading away beloved Sean Doolittle (and in turn his arguably more beloved fiancé Eireann Dolan) to the Nationals. The A’s can’t have nice things.

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With Gray on the move, that leaves Marcus Semien as the team’s longest tenured player, and he has been with the club since December of 2014. But with Jorge Mateo, James Kaprielian and Dustin Fowler now in the A’s system, the A’s having some building blocks to add to Sean Manaea, Matt Chapman and Franklin Barreto among others.

According to Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle, Mateo will be reporting to Double-A Midland and manning shortstop. Richie Martin, Oakland’s number 27 prospect, has played all 85 of his games at short this season with Midland, so seeing how playing time works out will be interesting. Mateo had been seeing some time in center field this season with Trenton, but it appears as though Billy Beane has visions of a Mateo/Barreto middle infield in the nearish future.

In the same article, Slusser mentions that Kaprielian, who underwent Tommy John surgery in April, “should be throwing by next month and potentially pitching in games before the middle of next season.” The highest level Kapreilian has reached is High-A, and even if he were to re-start there, he’s still two or three years away from the bigs.

Fowler, most known for the season-ending injury he sustained in his big league debut at the end of June, should be ready for spring training and has a real shot to make the A’s opening day roster and man center field. Of course, how his knee heals will play a big role in how that ultimately shakes out.

With the medium-term plan seemingly to have Mateo and Barreto at short and second, does that leave Chad Pinder as the team’s right fielder? He has impressed out there after spending nearly all of his time in pro ball playing up the middle.

Next: Astros stay quiet at the deadline

Does this trade make other prospects expendable down the line as the A’s figure out who their core players are? Players like Yairo Munoz (#14), the aforementioned Richie Martin (#27) or Max Schrock (#19) may not be the type of pieces to bring back a player like Sonny Gray, but looking ahead, not all of them are going to fit on the 25-man roster if Mateo and Barreto pan out, and that’s not even mentioning Marcus Semien, who has reportedly had preliminary discussions of a contract extension with the A’s. There is a glut of middle infield depth that will likely be used to acquire some arms or outfielders down the road, but hopefully before A’s fans become too attached.

Yesterday the bandaid was ripped off. Now the healing process can begin.

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