Their track record of being cheap is world-renowned.
The Athletics — formerly of Oakland, currently of Sacramento, futurely of Las Vegas — are best known by the majority of non-baseball fans as the stingiest franchise in professional sports. It is a penny-pinching penchant made Hollywood famous by Brad Pitt in “Moneyball.” The analytical ingenuity lionized in the film was necessary only because of ownership’s refusal to invest in anything resembling a normal MLB payroll. And so, for most people, the A’s are a caricatured symbol of sporting frugality.
It is indeed a reputation well-earned.
During their final decade in Oakland, the A’s never once cracked the top 20 in MLB payroll. Their highest ranking was 21st in 2014, when they spent $91.6 million, and their biggest payroll expenditure was $98.6 million in 2019, good for 25th league-wide. Mostly, though, the organization settled in the bottom five of spending, seeking success through a cycle of trading established, soon-to-be-expensive veterans for cheaper, younger talent. And as the club began to (somewhat purposefully) neglect its stadium and fan base in Oakland as part of its ploy to skip town, the payroll dwindled to an embarrassing level. Owner John Fisher became a villainous recluse unwilling to fund a competitive on-field product.
So why, as the team prepares to play the next three seasons at a minor-league park in Sacramento, are the Athletics acting like high-rollers this winter?
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Thus far this offseason, the Green and Gold have committed $70 million to free agents, the ninth-most in MLB, according to the incredible work of FanGraphs’ Jon Becker. Most of that sum belongs to Luis Severino, who received a three-year, $67 million deal, the largest contract in A’s franchise history. But the club also swung a trade with Tampa Bay for starting pitcher Jeffrey Springs, an oft-injured veteran righty with two years and $21 million left on his contract.
Then, earlier this week, the A’s announced a five-year, $60 million extension with designated hitter Brent Rooker. The 30-year-old slugger was quite simply one of MLB’s best hitters in 2024, finishing in the top 10 in most major statistical categories. Now he’ll be with the organization as it journeys from the Bay to Sacramento and then, presumably, to Las Vegas.
In total this winter, the A’s have nearly doubled the money they’ve allocated to players under guaranteed salaries, from $25.6 million in 2024 to a projected $49.1 million ahead of 2025. Their overall payroll figure isn’t significantly higher than it was a year ago, but people around the game anticipate that the club’s spending this offseason isn’t finished.
USA Today’s Bob Nightengale reported in November that the team plans to carry a payroll of around $100 million next season. If that’s to be believed, the A’s, currently at approximately $64 million, have a ways to go.
There are two main forces pushing the financial aggressiveness, one simple and one multi-tentacled.
The kinder, more straightforward reading goes like this: The A’s, in an attempt to drum up fan support in Sacramento and Las Vegas, are actually investing in the on-field product. Even an average three years in the California capital could get fans in Southern Nevada excited about the club’s planned desert arrival in 2028. Securing a player such as Rooker gives future A’s fans in Vegas something to watch and care about before the team shows up.
But that dynamic, while a fortunate byproduct, is not the biggest factor driving the organization’s offseason. That’s because the A’s, according to the current collective bargaining agreement, need to enter 2025 with a payroll around $105 million in order to receive the $70 million in revenue-sharing funds that they are expecting.
Let’s explain.
In order to assure some level of financial equity, MLB distributes revenue-sharing payments to some of its smaller-market teams. The CBA describes the system as follows:
“A principal objective of the Revenue Sharing Plan is to promote the growth of the Game and the industry on an individual Club and on an aggregate basis. Accordingly, each Club shall use its revenue sharing receipts in an effort to improve its performance on the field.”
The A’s, in the previous CBA, were in something of a timeout due to their uncertain stadium situation. As such, they were weaned off revenue sharing heading into 2022. The most recent CBA, signed before the 2022 season, reestablished the A’s as a revenue-sharing team but did so gradually. 2025 marks the first year that the club is set to receive the entirety of its allotment, which, according to a report from The Athletic, is around $70 million.
For the A’s to cash that check, they must, according to the CBA, have a payroll more than 150% of the revenue-sharing amount. If that doesn’t happen, the A’s open themselves up to a potentially debilitating grievance from the players’ association. For a franchise desperately trying to establish some level of continuity and calm, such a grievance could threaten the timeline of their move to Vegas.
And so, the A’s are spending.
The payroll figure used for luxury-tax purposes — and, therefore, the one involved in these calculations — is about $19 million higher than the raw total of the contracts added up because player benefits and contributions to the pre-arb bonus pool are included. But no matter how you crunch the numbers, the A’s are still a significant move or two away from surpassing their magic number.
It all makes for a bizarre scene, especially when you consider that some free agents, understandably, don’t want the Athletics’ money. Why spend the next three years playing outside on turf in 95-degree heat in a minor-league ballpark when you could choose not to?
That’s part of why the A’s have had to get creative with payroll additions and will need to continue to do so. Only so many players will take the cash and endure the rest.
