Oakland Athletics

Four fans attending Monday's game between the Oakland Athletics and Toronto Blue Jays at RingCentral Coliseum in Oakland, California, suffered non-life-threatening injuries after getting hit by bullet fragments from "celebratory gunfire" outside the stadium.

According to the Associated Press (h/t ESPN), the injuries occurred after the game as fans from the crowd of 24,403 gathered on the field for a Fourth of July fireworks show.

A's manager Mark Kotsay commented on the situation:

"I think if it wasn't Fourth of July, it would be more alarming. Any time during Fourth of July, I can remember this growing up, it's never safe but people tend to do things that aren't in the ordinary. That's firing weapons in the air in terms of celebration. It's really unfortunate that we had that happen here in the Coliseum and there were people injured. I know we've reached out to those people."

An investigation is ongoing regarding the shots that were fired, and the Oakland Police Department has offered a $20,000 reward for information that leads to one or more arrests.

The Athletics defeated the Blue Jays 5-1 on Tuesday on the strength of eight innings of one-run baseball hurled by starting pitcher Cole Irvin.

The injuries at the Coliseum occurred on the same day as a deadly shooting in Highland Park, Illinois, at a Fourth of July parade. Twenty-one-year-old Robert E. Crimo III has been charged with seven counts of first degree murder.

Oakland Athletics starting pitcher Frankie Montas was forced to exit Sunday's 2-1 loss against the Seattle Mariners after just one inning.

After the game, A's manager Mark Kotsay told reporters that Montas has been diagnosed with shoulder inflammation and is considered day-to-day after he experienced tightness in the back of his shoulder and "didn't feel like he could get fully extended."

Montas' outing on Sunday began with him surrendering a leadoff home run to Mariners outfielder Julio Rodriguez. Montas threw a total of 13 pitches, eight of which went for strikes, but he didn't look like his usual self.

Robert Murray of FanSided reported that Montas' velocity on Sunday was "93-94 mph and topped out at 94.5 mph," while he typically throws at 96-97 mph.

The loss dropped Montas' record to 3-9 this season; he had nine losses total in all of 2021. The 29-year-old right-hander has a 3.26 ERA, but he hasn't gotten much run support this season. In Montas' nine losses, the A's managed to score just 11 runs total.

Oakland has lost six of its last seven games and has the worst record in the majors at 26-55. The A's are rebuilding after trading away much of their core during the offseason.

Many expected that Montas would be shipped away as well, but Jon Heyman of the New York Post reported in April that Oakland had a high asking price for him and could choose to keep him until the Aug. 2 trade deadline.

The A's will return home to begin a three-game series against the Toronto Blue Jays on Monday.

Several MLB owners ripped the Oakland Athletics for fielding a non-competitive team and hoarding revenue-sharing money to turn a profit this season.

“The idea of revenue sharing is not to make money, it’s to field a competitive team,” one owner told Jon Heyman of the New York Post. “That money is supposed to go toward player salaries. [The A's] took the money and put it in their pocket.”

The A's are making $9 million via revenue sharing this season and $20 million in 2023.

Rather than use that money to acquire players, Oakland spent its offseason jettisoning first baseman Matt Olson, third baseman Matt Chapman and starting pitchers Chris Bassitt and Sean Manaea in trades. The team signed just two players, second baseman Jed Lowrie and catcher Stephen Vogt, for a combined $1.7 million.

The A's were included in the revenue-sharing program on a temporary basis due in large part to their struggles landing a new stadium in the Oakland area. The RingCentral Coliseum opened in 1966 and has been the franchise's home since 1968; it's the fifth-oldest stadium in Major League Baseball.

While ballparks like Fenway Park, Wrigley Field and Dodger Stadium have undergone major overhauls aimed at modernizing the historic fields, the Coliseum is widely regarded as a relic. The park has an extensive history of stadium issues causing game delays, including sewage leaks and power outages.

Some within MLB point out that the Athletics are still losing money despite the revenue-sharing system, thanks in large part due to investments made in attempting to find a new stadium and a lack of revenue at the Coliseum. The A's are averaging only 8,283 fans per game this season, by far the lowest mark in baseball.

Oakland currently sits at 22-43 and is 18 games out of first place in the AL West.

The fire sale in Oakland is likely to persist as Athletics right-hander Frankie Montas continues to generate interest from around Major League Baseball. 

The New York Mets, Minnesota Twins, Chicago White Sox, St. Louis Cardinals and New York Yankees are among the teams that have been linked to Montas recently, according to Jon Heyman of the New York Post. 

The news comes after The Athletic's Jim Bowden reported in April that Montas was likely to be dealt "long before" the August 2 trade deadline as the A's continue to shed payroll and talent in hopes of building for the future. 

Montas has been Oakland's best starting pitcher this season. The 29-year-old has posted a 3.67 ERA, 1.00 WHIP and 53 strikeouts in 49 innings across eight starts. It follows a 2021 campaign in which he made 32 starts and punched out 207 batters in 187 innings. 

If Montas is traded, the A's rotation will be down to Cole Irvin, Daulton Jefferies, Paul Blackburn and James Kaprielian. They have combined for a 7-10 record and 3.71 ERA this season.

Oakland has already dealt pitchers Chris Bassitt and Sean Manaea in 2022. In addition, the team also parted ways with third baseman Matt Chapman and first baseman Matt Olson. 

The teams that have expressed interest in Montas shouldn't be surprising. 

The Yankees have been one of the best teams in the league this season, having posted a 28-10 record, and are hoping to reach the World Series for the first time since 2009. Gerrit Cole and Luis Severino sit atop the team's rotation, but adding Montas could be a game-changer. 

Beyond Cole and Severino, the Yankees feature Jordan Montgomery, Jameson Taillon and Nestor Cortes. All have pitched well this season—especially Cortes, who sports a 1.35 ERA—but Montas would create depth and allow manager Aaron Boone to get creative. 

The Mets rotation has dealt with its fair share of injuries, including to Max Scherzer (oblique) and Tylor Megill (biceps), and it's still unclear when ace Jacob deGrom (shoulder) might return to the lineup. 

Bassitt, Carlos Carrasco and Taijuan Walker could use help while the injured trio sits.

Minnesota is in an injury pinch, too, so Montas would be an incredible pickup for the club. Bailey Ober (groin), Chris Paddack (Tommy John surgery), Kenta Maeda (elbow) and Randy Dobnak (finger) are all on the injured list, and the Twins need a proven pitcher who can join a group that includes Sonny Gray, Joe Ryan, Dylan Bundy and Chris Archer. 

Chicago, meanwhile, is less in need of a rotational piece, but Lance Lynn remains on the injured list and Montas would help lock down the rotation alongside Lucas Giolito and Dylan Cease. The same can be said for St. Louis,, which is without Jack Flaherty and could use the depth. 

The pitcher who co-leads the American League in WAR with Houston Astros ace Justin Verlander is probably not the one you think.

It's not New York Yankees sensation Nestor Cortes, who's seeing Verlander's 1.38 ERA and raising him a 1.35 ERA. Nor is it Toronto Blue Jays right-hander Kevin Gausman, whose relatively modest 2.40 ERA comes with a comical strikeout-to-walk ratio of 54-to-2.

Rather, the one AL hurler who's been as valuable as Verlander in 2022 is...Paul Blackburn?

That's his name, all right. I would say "don't wear it out," but probably only the most diehard Oakland Athletics fans are guilty of repeating Blackburn's name this season. And judging from the team's attendance, those are the only fans showing up to watch the A's.

All the same, the 28-year-old righty is performing like a true No. 1 starter. In seven starts, he's gone 4-0 and logged a 1.67 ERA through 37.2 innings. Though he's struck out only 29 batters, he's otherwise dominated the three true outcomes by permitting only five walks and one home run.

Since all this is coming from a guy whose previous five seasons in the majors produced a grand total of 30 appearances and a 5.74 ERA, you probably have questions. So, please allow me to guess what they are and attempt to answer them.

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Where Did This Guy Come From?

Put it this way: Without Blackburn, Mike Montgomery might never have been a Chicago Cub and, by extension, been the guy to record the final out of the 2016 World Series.

The Cubs originally drafted Blackburn out of Heritage High School in Brentwood, California, with the 56th pick in the 2012 draft. Largely on account of his above-average curveball and ability to throw strikes, he went into 2016 ranked by Baseball America as the organization's No. 19 prospect. He then further boosted his stock with a 3.17 ERA in 18 starts through July for its Double-A affiliate.

That's when the Cubs decided to cash Blackburn in, sending him to the Seattle Mariners in a four-player deal that brought Montgomery back to the North Side. The rest, as they say, is history 108 years in the making.

Just months later in November, the Mariners flipped Blackburn to the A's for Danny Valencia. Baseball America only considered him the team's 23rd-best prospect going into the subsequent spring, but he made an impression on Bob Melvin. The former A's skipper told reporters it "wouldn’t surprise me at all" if the then-23-year-old Blackburn debuted in 2017.

That event indeed came to pass on July 1, 2017, and it begat the start of a successful 10-start run that saw the Bay Area native pitch to a 3.22 ERA over 58.2 innings. Best of all was when he got to take it to the Mariners with 7.2 innings of one-run ball in just his second start.

"Your first start is kind of an out-of-body experience, and then your second start is about performing," Melvin said. "And certainly against the team he was with, got traded from, gets to pitch against them ... a really, really good performance from him."

Alas, Blackburn's fun run ended with a literal bad break when he got hit by a comebacker on the right wrist on Aug. 22. That proved to be his final appearance of the season.

So it went in 2018, when he came down with a forearm strain in spring training and didn't make his first appearance until June. Though his arm recovered, he was hardly able to sustain his productivity from '17 as he got lit up for a 7.16 ERA over six appearances with Oakland.

Blackburn subsequently made only five appearances in the majors across 2019 and 2020, and the A's even designated him for assignment in February 2021. He stayed in the organization, but only resurfaced in the majors to get knocked around again for a 5.87 ERA in nine starts as a fill-in for Chris Bassitt after the veteran righty was struck by a line drive in August.

Blackburn seemed ticketed for a similar role as an emergency option in 2022, but that changed when the A's opened up two rotation spots with trades of Bassitt and Sean Manaea.

Blackburn might have earned one of those the old-fashioned way, but that's not exactly what happened. He served up nine runs on 13 hits and five walks in 8.2 innings during the spring, and thus only opened the season in Oakland's rotation because injuries took James Kaprielian and Brent Honeywell out of the running.

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So, How's He Doing This?

As for how Blackburn went from just lucky to be in the A's rotation to competing with Verlander, Cortes and Gausman for the AL Cy Young Award, to understand it requires an appreciation for the craft of pitching.

At no point during his prospect days was he billed as a prototypical major league ace, and he still doesn't resemble one now in spite of his ace-like numbers. He's sitting at an average of only 91.7 mph even after improving his fastball velocity. His whiff rate, meanwhile, is barely above average in the 52nd percentile.

Yet one thing Blackburn has always had is a deep arsenal of pitches. And even more so in 2022 now that he's added a slider with well-above-average movement vertical and horizontal movement, thereby expanding his repertoire to six distinct offerings:

“I think it’s just going to give me more swing-and-miss to righties," Blackburn said of his new slider. "I feel like that’s just kind of what I’ve needed to get done over the last couple years and I haven’t been able to do that."

So far, so good. The 26 sliders Blackburn has thrown to right-handed batters have yielded six swings and misses and only one hit on four balls in play.

His best pitch even in the worst of times, Blackburn's curve is holding opposing batters to one hit in 22 at-bats in its own right. Between that and his slider, it's fair to say that his ability to spin the ball is a key part of his success.

Paul Blackburn, Nasty 3 Breaking Ball K (with Two Swords). ⚔️⚔️ pic.twitter.com/GifEUnXHRU

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) May 10, 2022

Blackburn has also spoken about throwing his curveball, slider and his other secondary pitches with a "fastball mentality." With a certain aggressiveness, in other words, which especially shows in how he's throwing first-pitch strikes a career-best 64.8 percent of the time even as he's only leading with his sinker in 35.2 percent of 0-0 counts.

Blackburn is also just plain throwing more strikes the old-fashioned way. At 47.0 percent, his rate of pitches in the strike zone is the highest it's ever been. It's not as easy to measure the quality of his command, but he's clearly adept at working on the outside of the zone against both left-handed and right-handed batters:

All in all, Blackburn's approach to pitching contains multitudes. The effect is not unlike if the A's had simply kept Bassitt, who similarly thrives on a deep repertoire and unpredictable sequencing and location patterns, and changed his name to Paul Blackburn. 

“He mixes all of his pitches, throwing to locations, keeping guys guessing, keeping everybody off-balance, pitching to contact, being efficient," A's catcher Sean Murphy said of Blackburn. "All the good things you could say about a pitcher.”

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But Can He Keep This Up?

If this question can be taken more specifically to mean "Can Blackburn maintain an ERA in the 1.00s?" then the answer is a pretty blatant no.

Even still, the forecast doesn't seem to be for a regression back to the utter ineffectiveness that defined Blackburn's last four seasons.

His 2.94 expected ERA may be a fair deal higher than his actual ERA, but it's still good for 14th among all pitchers who've had at least 100 balls put in play. At No. 15 is none other than Bassitt. At No. 12, just ahead of fellow A's hurler Frankie Montas, is reigning National League Cy Young Award winner Corbin Burnes.

This speaks to just how harmless the majority of balls in play off Blackburn have been. Slightly over half (50.9 percent) have been ground balls. The 21 fly balls off him have averaged just 303 feet in distance, a full 10 feet below the leaguewide average of 313 feet.

If anything, those numbers understate the difficulty that batters have had driving the ball against Blackburn. By launch angle, his average mark of 3.2 degrees is behind only Framber Valdez and Logan Webb. There's also virtually no difference between his actual (1.0) and expected (0.9) home runs allowed.

It also helps Blackburn's cause that A's manager Mark Kotsay isn't tasking him with writing checks that his arm can't cash. He's maxed out at 88 pitches and has gotten a third trip through the lineup in just five of his starts.

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How Long Will He Remain an A?

Unfortunately for A's fans, there just isn't any avoiding this question any time the team produces a new star.

Unless you count Marcus Semien despite his value-killing walk year in 2020, you have to go all the way back to Barry Zito in 2006 to find the last time the A's actually held on to a star player until free agency called his number. Since then, many others—up to and including Bassitt, Manaea, Matt Olson and Matt Chapman this past winter—have left town via trades during their arbitration years.

As he's under club control through 2025, this won't necessarily be Blackburn's fate in the near future. But at the same time, anyone who says it can be ruled out completely has too much faith in the organization's commitment to fielding a competitive team.

The A's deliberately punted on contending when they held their fire sale after the Major League Baseball lockout lifted in March, so it's no great surprise that they are in the AL West cellar with a 16-23 record. Once Montas is inevitably traded, Oakland's timeline for returning to contention figures to get even longer.

It's conceivable that the A's will be a contender again before Blackburn's club control is up, yet the complication there is that he's eligible for arbitration for the first time next year. That will result in his salary being measured in millions rather than thousands. If they want to keep their payroll below the $50 million threshold, the A's might not find that palatable.

It thus wouldn't be surprising if the A's shopped Blackburn this winter or even this summer. As a controllable late-bloomer on a team that's going nowhere fast, he has a profile similar to that of Doug Fister when the Mariners traded him to the Detroit Tigers in 2011.

No matter when it happens, a trade of Blackburn would give A's fans yet another reason to be fed up with the organization. The silver lining for everyone else, though, is that such a thing would bring greater exposure to a pitcher who deserves to have it.

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Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference, FanGraphs and Baseball Savant.

Starting pitcher Frankie Montas is likely the next star player to be on the move as the Oakland A's continue their roster teardown. But at least one team reportedly won't pursue the right-hander.

Jon Heyman of the New York Post reported the Chicago White Sox have moved on from negotiating with the A's and that Montas wasn't even the pitcher they were trying to acquire.

"Reports of the White Sox’s involvement were exaggerated," Heyman wrote. "The South Siders made an attempt to land Indiana product Sean Manaea, but sources say of any talk regarding Montas: 'That ship has sailed.'"

Heyman added there is "nothing hot" regarding Montas at the moment and that Oakland could choose to hold on to him until the Aug. 2 trade deadline. The team would likely require a substantial package to deal Montas, who "is seen as a potential superstar by some," per Heyman. 

Montas has made two starts in 2022 and has a 1-1 record. He's pitched 11.1 innings with 12 strikeouts and a 4.76 ERA. 

The 29-year-old is a rising star who looks like he is on his way to becoming an ace of a starting rotation. He went 13-9 last season with a 3.37 ERA and 207 strikeouts in 187.0 innings of work. It was his first time recording 10 or more wins in a season.

Montas made his major league debut with the White Sox as a relief pitcher in 2015. Chicago traded him to the Los Angeles Dodgers later that year, and the Dodgers sent him to Oakland the following summer.

In addition to trading Manaea, the A's gutted their core this offseason by shipping away Chris Bassitt, Matt Olson and Matt Chapman in exchange for prospects. It wouldn't be a surprise if Oakland continued to make moves throughout this season.

Let's be rational. Though there's technically a non-zero chance of Kyler Murray jumping ship from professional football to professional baseball, it's so close to zero that it's arguably not worth taking seriously.

Yet now than ever before, the irrational baseball fan still has reason to hope.

It's been four years since the Oakland Athletics drafted Murray, then a toolsy outfielder for the Oklahoma Sooners, with the No. 9 pick in the 2018 draft. He immediately became one of the top prospects in the team's system, with Baseball America writing that he projected to thrive on "plus power, plus speed and a plus glove."

However, 2018 was also the same year that Murray won the Heisman Trophy as Oklahoma's starting quarterback. That begat his full-time commitment to football, which begat the Arizona Cardinals drafting him first overall in 2019. In three seasons since then, he's milked both his arm and his legs for yards and touchdowns to win the Offensive Rookie of the Year and make two Pro Bowls.

But as good as it's been for both sides until now, the relationship between Murray and the Cardinals now seems like the coldest thing under the Arizona sun. To wit, all mentions of the latter have been scrubbed from the former's Instagram:

Arizona QB Kyler Murray has unfollowed the team & removed all Cardinals-related content from his Instagram.

The only recent content was a picture of himself at the Pro Bowl and a story re-share of a Mike Evans post that said "always wanted to catch a pass from the Texas legend." pic.twitter.com/ltcQTvJcPA

— The Athletic (@TheAthletic) February 7, 2022

You don't go doing something like this on accident, so Murray the football player is clearly dissatisfied about something.

Meanwhile, the A's still hold the rights to Murray the baseball player. And if you're wondering how he would look if he were to trade his Cardinal red for Oakland's green and gold, well, here you go:

👀⚾️ pic.twitter.com/xOlwaLBhTq

— FOX Sports: MLB (@MLBONFOX) February 7, 2022

The rational baseball fan sees this for what it is: a tease. Even if this was the best of times in the baseball world, it wouldn't be realistic to expect the 24-year-old Murray to throw away the pigskin and reach for the cowhide. And with MLB's lockout showing no signs of ending soon, these are certainly not the best of times in baseball.

"That may be," the irrational fan says. "Yet it could still happen. In fact, it should. Nay, it must."

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Splitsville for Murray and the Cardinals?

Mind you, the irrational fan couldn't be so bold in their thinking if there wasn't so much uncertainty surrounding the Cardinals and Murray. 

As ESPN's Josh Weinfuss wrote in January, the team itself could be at a crossroads with head coach Kliff Kingsbury. Though the team has undeniably improved in his three years on the sidelines, the 2021 Cardinals carved out their own niche among Kingsbury's teams that have started strong only to fade.

And for his part, Murray wasn't blameless in this.

He missed three games in November with a sprained ankle and was then largely ineffective in Arizona's last five regular-season contests. Kingsbury expected his quarterback to rebound with the "game of his life" against the Los Angeles Rams in his playoff debut. Instead, he had six yards rushing, 137 yards passing, no touchdowns and two interceptions in a 34-11 loss.

In so doing, Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk argued that Murray undercut his chances for a contract extension worthy of, say, Josh Allen's $258 million deal with the Buffalo Bills. Further, Jess Root of USA Today noted that the Cardinals are looking at a salary cap crunch.

Rather than go all in on Murray—and take a great deal on faith in the process—the Cardinals could simply keep him on his current contract for 2022. Maybe then they would extend him. Or, they could simply trigger his fifth-year option for 2023.

Judging from Murray's Instagram stunt, however, he would just as soon be paid now. That's understandable even sans context, but there is the possibility that it's a now-or-never calculus.

Between his relatively diminutive 5'10", 207-pound frame, his recent ankle injury and overall decline of his ground game in 2021, it's fair to wonder if Murray is already be past his peak as a dual-threat quarterback. Instead of risking it all on evolving as a pocket passer, he perhaps should be looking to cash in now.

To this end, one wonders if mingling with other stars at last weekend's Pro Bowl inspired clandestine talk of a possible trade. If not that, Murray's social-media scrub is surely meant to defibrillate some life into extension talks.

Either way, reaching for still more leverage by threatening to walk away to pursue a career in baseball is the next logical step. And whereas the rational baseball fan might see it as such, the irrational fan wouldn't deem it an empty threat.

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Why Baseball? Why Now?

"Well, why not baseball?" the irrational fan says. "And why not now?"

If nothing else, Murray's love for the game seems intact. Along with football and Esports, he still considers baseball one of his three athletic specialties. And as he told Darren Urban of AZCardinals.com in June 2021, he hasn't given up hope of playing baseball again.

"I know everybody around [the organization] probably feels different about it," he said. "But me personally, I played the game my whole life. If I ever had the opportunity, for sure, I would definitely go for it."

After experiencing growing pains at the collegiate level and in the Cape Cod League in 2017, it was as a redshirt sophomore for the Sooners in 2018 that Murray teased what kind of baseball player he could be. In 51 games, he slashed an impressive .296/.398/.556 with 10 home runs and 10 stolen bases.

M3 | Kyler Murray gets all of it for his 10th home run of the season.

OU 5, Kansas 0 pic.twitter.com/nUKEJcFLRF

— Oklahoma Baseball (@OU_Baseball) May 18, 2018

This was even though Murray might not have been giving it his all on the diamond. According to Baseball America, this was not out of laziness but because he was saving some of himself for football "by not cutting loose on throws or on the bases."

Though this made it difficult to scout Murray's present abilities, it did allow for big dreams about his future as a ballplayer. Of the comps that were thrown around, the one comparing him to a Hall of Famer and general baseball legend was justifiably caught his attention.

“The big one is Rickey Henderson,” Murray said in June 2018, shortly after the draft and his signing of a $4.6 million bonus.

Granted, Murray is bound to have rough edges after not playing any competitive baseball over the last four years. On the plus side, he's come into his physical prime. Though he's officially only 12 pounds heavier than the 195-pounder whom the A's drafted in 2018, that's likely a conservative estimate.

So if Murray were indeed to take up a bat and glove again, it could be that his power and speed would sufficiently mask any deficiencies he might have with, say, his pitch recognition and strike-zone discipline. If not the next Henderson, he might at least be a Trea Turner or Bo Bichette.

This is to say that Murray wouldn't necessarily have to languish for years in the minor leagues if he were to leave the gridiron behind. Particularly not, that is, if two proposals make it into baseball's next collective bargaining agreement.

Through the promise of draft picks, one would incentivize teams to more quickly promote their best young players to the majors. Through cash bonuses, another would allow young players to earn substantially more than the league minimum during their pre-arbitation years.

Best-case scenario? Murray jumps to baseball, spends his age-24 season in the minors and is then on Oakland's Opening Day roster for his age-25 season in 2023. He'd make good money for six years, and then be in a position to make a fortune in free agency after his age-30 season in 2028.

Heck, a big payday might even come before then. The A's aren't known for handing out big-money extensions, but that could change if they move into the state-of-the-art ballpark they're trying to build at Howard Terminal in Oakland. Though far from a done deal, it could hypothetically be built and opened within the decade.

What kind of money are we talking about? Well, it's baseball. So, big money. Potentially more than Murray can make in the NFL.

That $258 million deal that Allen signed with Buffalo? Not bad, but it only contained $150 million in guaranteed money. That's less than Javier Baez just got from the Detroit Tigers, and he's not even a superstar.

It's not even out of the question that Murray could top the $503 million superdeal that Patrick Mahomes signed with the Kansas City Chiefs. That's bigger than any individual MLB contract, but roughly equal to what Mike Trout's career earnings will be through 2030.

"So, come on in, Kyler," the irrational baseball fan says. "The water's fine."

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Of Course, It's Not Going to Happen

The rational baseball fan is right, though. 

It's nice to fantasize and all, but it doesn't move the needle on the realism of Murray quitting football so he can take up baseball again. That's regardless of whether he actually threatens to do so—which, to be clear, is strictly a hypothetical as of this writing.

Sure, maybe he could still find stardom and its accompanying riches in baseball. But the list of things that would have to go right in order for that to happen is not short. It's certainly far longer than what he has to do to achieve his on-field and financial goals in the NFL, which pretty much consists of just one item: more of the same, please.

But if you're a baseball fan—rational or irrational, it doesn't matter—go ahead and have this fantasy anyway.

It is, after all, harmless fun and just plain something to think about in positive terms. That makes it unlike anything actually in the baseball world right now. As long as the lockout persists, it's a frozen wasteland wherein the denizens occupy most of their time arguing about money. The specter of fans being permanently disillusioned by it all is very much there, but it might as well be the doomsday comet from Don't Look Up.

In other words, it's a time for baseball fans to take what they can get. And right now, there isn't a better game in town than The Curious Case of Kyler Murray and the Cardinals.

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Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference and Pro Football Reference.

The Oakland Athletics have found their next manager after agreeing to a deal with Mark Kotsay, according to Jon Heyman of MLB Network.

Terms of the deal were not immediately disclosed.

Oakland's managerial job became open when Bob Melvin agreed to a three-year deal with the San Diego Padres.

AJ Cassavell of MLB.com noted the A's didn't receive compensation for the move because they gave the 60-year-old permission to interview with the Padres. 

Melvin leaves big shoes to fill in Oakland after a successful 11-year run with the organization. He took over the Athletics on an interim basis midway through the 2011 season after Bob Geren was fired. 

Only Hall of Famer Connie Mack has more wins than Melvin's 853 in A's franchise history. He led them to six playoff appearances and three division titles in Oakland. 

Kotsay is familiar with the organization having spent four seasons in Oakland as a player from 2004-07. 

After his playing career ended, he moved into the coaching ranks and was hired by the San Diego Padres as their hitting coach in 2015. 

The 46-year-old spent one season with the Padres before being hired by the A's as their bench coach. He was named their quality control coach in 2017 under Melvin and spent five seasons in that role. 

The Oakland Athletics are reportedly casting a wide net as they look for their next manager.

Britt Ghiroli and Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reported Mark Kotsay, Matt Quatraro, Will Venable, Joe Espada, Marcus Jensen and Darren Bush have all either interviewed or will interview for the position. Kotsay, Jensen and Bush are all part of the Athletics' organization.

The position is open because Bob Melvin left the team to become the manager of the San Diego Padres.

Oakland isn't the only team reportedly interested in some of these candidates.

Adam Berry of MLB.com reported the New York Mets requested permission to interview Quatraro, who is the bench coach for the Tampa Bay Rays. Berry noted Quatraro previously interviewed for the manager position with the San Francisco Giants, Pittsburgh Pirates and Detroit Tigers.

Elsewhere, Anthony DiComo of MLB.com listed Espada, who is the bench coach for the Houston Astros, as a potential candidate for the Mets as well.

Kotsay stands out as someone who played from 1997 through 2013 for the Florida Marlins, Padres, Athletics, Atlanta Braves, Boston Red Sox, Chicago White Sox and Milwaukee Brewers. He was with San Diego for a time after his retirement and is currently the third base coach for Oakland.

Venable also played from 2008 through 2016 for the Padres, Texas Rangers and Los Angeles Dodgers. He was on the staff for the Chicago Cubs after his retirement but is currently the bench coach for the Red Sox.

The Athletics are also looking to bounce back in 2022 after missing the playoffs at 86-76 during the 2021 campaign.

It was the first time the American League West team missed the postseason since the 2017 campaign, although it is still trying to win the World Series for the first time since the 1989 season.