Oakland A’s had one big trade chip … and they whiffed

If you have a rebuilding team, especially one with budgetary constraints (such as the Oakland A’s), you don’t get a lot of opportunities to really jump-start the rebuild. You’ll get a lot of high draft picks, but those take years to develop and you have to nail a bunch of them to build a real contender. That’s why, when you get a chance to make a trade that nets you multiple core players, you have to get it right.

As an example, when the Cleveland Guardians traded Francisco Lindor, they got an entire double-play combo in return, including Andres Gimenez, who actually posted a higher WAR than Lindor did last season at the age of 24. A similar impact came when the White Sox in 2017 unloaded veterans Jose Quintana, Chris Sale, and Adam Eaton in deals that netted Yoan Mocada, Dylan Cease, Eloy Jimenez, and Lucas Gioloto, a big part of the core that led the Sox to the postseason in 2020 and 2021.

The urgency of making the most of a productive player when you trade him is why the Pittsburgh Pirates show no inclination to trade Bryan Reynolds. That doesn’t mean Reynolds will be on the roster come Opening Day. It just means that they understand they can’t trade him unless they get a package that changes the trajectory of their rebuild.

Sean Murphy was that guy for the Oakland A’s, and the franchise didn’t take advantage of the situation

After a 102-loss season, with severe budget constraints and a farm system that is average at best, Oakland had two paths back to contention. One was to start drafting better; the other was to get a king’s ransom for Murphy. The second option is now out the window.

Maybe the lesson here is to play hard to get. The Guardians never publicly said Lindor was on the market. Sure, he was a year away from free agency, and everyone knows Cleveland wouldn’t pay what he was likely to get on the open market. Publicly, though, they acted as though they were willing to milk one more playoff run and then let him go. And they might have been, if there were no offers on the table that they liked. That’s the stance the Pirates are taking with Reynolds as well.

Oakland, on the other hand, did everything but give Murphy’s jersey number away to signal that he wasn’t in their plans. Their trade talks were discussed as publicly as Aaron Judge’s offers from the Giants and Yankees. They clearly intended to get offers from every team that needed a catcher and play those against each other … but they never really got offers. They named a package that would be acceptable and watched potential trade partners balk, until the Braves said yes to a deal that won’t really make the A’s better now or in the future.

Maybe that’s okay. Maybe the A’s are thinking there’s no point in trying until their stadium issues are resolved. Maybe they will just stockpile draft picks until they get a new place to play, either in Oakland or somewhere else. Then they will have all the revenue they need keep guys like Sean Murphy and build a team around him.

They should probably ask the Marlins how that new stadium idea works out. Miami was the last team to try to convince its fan base that a new stadium was all that stood between the franchise and sustained success. That lasted about half a season before the Marlins suddenly became a small-market team again.