Welcome back to Chapter 3 of Managing the Show!
Chapter 2 left off with the dismal end results of season 1 but touched on a glimmer of hope for the future.
A potential core has emerged for the next wave of A’s baseball, but there is a serious lack of power at the plate and firepower in the bullpen. Secondly, the rotation is decent, but could also use some added support if there is an opportunity to do so this offseason. It’s a team that finished over 20 games out of first place, so excuse me for quietly saying the whole team needs to improve.
Let’s get started with free agency. The biggest names available this offseason include Kyle Tucker, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Framber Valdez, Ryan Helsey, Zac Gallen and Dylan Cease.
Considering all that, I made my first offseason move extremely early as I extended my star ace, Shane McClanahan to a massive extension to avoid arbitration for next year and to lock him up for another 10 years for $260 million.
This is by far the biggest contract ever dished out in Athletics’ history. It took me out of the running for some elite free agent names, but I was forced to get creative and find other ways to fill in these bigger holes.
The lack of productivity and revenue from a team playing in a minor league stadium locked me out of all the big names in free agency. Side note, I absolutely hate the new free agency setup in Franchise mode. I can only show interest in 3 players at a time and as you simulate through the phase, other players are signing and the players you selected could drop out of your budget as other internal arbitration offers are accepted.
But I digress.
Overall, here is a rundown of all I could do with a limited budget:
Signed Gleyber Torres – 3 years $39 million.
Signed Christopher Morel – 2 years, $7 million.
Signed Zach Jackson – 2 years, $1.9 million.
Signed Alex Lange – 1 year, $918k.
I had to work with what was available to me. I was forced to make some creative trades to improve now, and all I can do now for Free Agency is just hope to revisit it next year with better results. Hopefully a year in a new stadium will boost revenue.
Massive trades were happening across the league. Dylan Crews got moved to St Louis, Edwin Diaz was sent to Chicago and other names like Ozzie Albies and George Kirby have also been sent packing. There is no sensible consistency to the computer trades, and it has allowed the Braves to build a super team with Framber Valdez and Freddy Peralta joining an existing rotation of Spencer Strider and Spencer Schwellenbach.
Enter the A’s.
Don’t you dare let me into the bargain basement, baby. I called up the pitching-loaded Braves and acquired AJ Smith-Shawver for practically nothing. I then made a series of following moves to acquire young speedster, Xavier Edwards and some added bullpen help in Trevor Megill and Will Vest.
I do not need these flashy trades like everyone else is making. I just need some young studs with a ton of potential.
With these trades, I feel like I have lowkey put together a winning product. Lange, Jackson, Megill and Vest add so much to the bullpen while guys like Gleyber Torres and Christopher Morel can slightly boost infield production. We will also be giving Jac Caglianone a fully extended run at 1B to start the season, so a massive mystery awaits on that front too.
The roster is ready for 2026, but there is still one massive project that we worked on this offseason.
The A’s are moving and Sacramento is a thing of the past. There were many options to consider here including Nashville, Salt Lake City and Portland. Also, Las Vegas did have our verbal commitment when we moved to Sacramento, but that was another regime of A’s baseball who was desperate to leave Oakland. It was not my A’s.
And that is exactly why I decided to bring baseball back to the beautiful city of Montreal.
I told Vegas to kick rocks as I instead focused on a market of fans that are actually hungry for a team. A fanbase that so badly misses the glory days of the Expos and holds nothing but anger for the league that took them away. I made a passionate case to Manfred and his team and was able to get all the needed approvals.
Montreal has a massive population of over 4 million people and has a beneficial location that is welcoming to local fans in surrounding areas. It is very close to big American cities and, of course, more and more Canadian baseball fans, which is good for international growth of the game.
In just a miraculous span of 6 months, I had a 44,000-seat stadium built in the heart of Montreal and it will proudly serve as the home of Montreal Athletics. I kept the name in place, and I even kept the same color scheme and jerseys too.
Side note, I literally had to create the existing A’s jerseys from scratch instead of having an option to keep my already existing jerseys, so a lot of time was spent making these. Also, the game glitched and removed the yellow piping design of my green jerseys so that was an unforgivable programming error on behalf of The Show.
The stage is set for 2026. My team has a home, a core of young players and some welcome new additions looking to take us up a level. Projecting playoffs seems aggressive, but not entirely unrealistic. The league has been completely flipped upside down and it can be our time to strike.
Let’s Go A’s.
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