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Wednesday, August 17, 2022
The Oakland Athletics continued to reshape their roster amidst a dismal season, as they released veteran shortstop Elvis Andrus, the team announced.
Andrus, who turns 34 next week, is earning $14 million this year, the final guaranteed season of his $120-million contract originally signed in 2015.
Infielder Sheldon Neuse was recalled from Triple-A Las Vegas in a corresponding roster move.
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1. Doug Jones threw harder than me Posted: August 17, 2022 at 01:55 PM (#6092033)So I don't understand it, other than the A's are trying to purge the roster of anyone who can hit.
They had benched him to make sure he didn't get to the magic number but he was raising holy hell so they just let him go to find another home now. He should be in reasonably high demand. This is the kind of move you could see the dodgers doing. I'm guessing he ends up on Cubs or Rockies who seem to like fallen angels.
Btw. Lamet stunk up the show last night for Colorado.
Yes they didn't want him to get the $15 million player option for next year if he got to 550 PAs. I assume they shopped him everywhere before the deadline but no one wanted him.
I have liked him as a player. He was a lot of fun last year when the team was fun, and seemed to really be playful with his teammates--he and Chapman often were messing with each other in funny ways, and he seemed to get really excited when Marte brought his reckless (in a good way) attitude to the team last year. And this year he's been solid and professional as everything has dissolved around him.
Narrowly, they need to see if Nick Allen is their shortstop of the future, and having Allen mess around at second didn't make sense. And clearly the team didn't want Andrus to get his option. So the only choices were elder statesman playing sometimes but not much, or release, once there wasn't a trading partner.
Well, burned once more for not reading the article :-(
Anyhow, yes he was one of the bright spots on the A's. Seth Brown isn't arbitration eligible next year, Sean Murphy is. So I guess they play their new catcher now and dump or trade Sean Murphy. Seth Brown will join the long list of underperforming Athletics first-basemen who hang around way too long, with Daric Barton, Dan Johnson and Yonder Alonso.
Ha!
[Andrus] was raising holy hell
Really? I hadn't heard that. Who reported this?
He had an OPS+ 11 points above his career average, and was 4th on the team in WAR. That doesn't make him A-rod, but he's no Johnny Lemaster either. As for raising holy hell, it's was clearly a kneecapping cheap shot by ownership. One should not be shocked by that, and surely he wasn't, but I'd be pissed too.
AKA "the Red Sox gambit"
So there's probably no way it happens.
It’s going to be interesting. Murphy will still be cheapish next year and won’t be a free agent until after the 2025 season.
Right or wrong, the As seem to be rebuilding for 2024, so if they’re right—and they’ve done all this before—he’d be part of their next real teams.
Absent Langeliers, it’s clear to me they’d hold him. They didn’t worry about arb1 or arb2 years in the past.
Langeliers presents a problem. He can move to first. And also be ready if Murphy gets hurt. That is valuable
So I assume they’re only trading Murphy for something more valuable to them. Some team on a win-now trajectory and an opening and catcher and a very strong prospect who is blocked on that team? The As need players at second and third. I’m not sure there is a fit like that or how many teams want to trade a seemingly strong prospect there for Murphy. His trade value would be pretty high. The fit though isn’t clear to me
Brown is 3 times better this year and costs about 1/5 the cost and is cost controlled for longer. O'Neill had a fluke year last year. How do you value that?
Throwing in some extras with O'Neill seems like it would balance out.
For a catcher who's heading toward about 4-5 WAR, depending on the system, and is currently the MLB's 2nd ranked catcher and is not a free agent until 2026...it's much harder to figure out what's the equivalent return.
I honestly don't know.....
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