Oakland Athletics

Oakland Athletics prospect Peter Bayer spoke out about the organization's decision to stop paying minor leaguers after May 31. 

Speaking to Jared Diamond of the Wall Street Journal, Bayer said he's "completely lost respect for everyone" in the A's organization who was involved in the decision and it "will be hard to go back to that team and hear them talk about how they care about their minor league players." 

Bayer also noted "a lot of people feel the same way," but they won't say it publicly. 

In an email to Oakland minor leaguers obtained by Sports Illustrated's Stephanie Apstein, general manager David Forst said the team would stop giving them their weekly $400 stipend at the end of the month:

"Unfortunately, considering all of the circumstances affecting the organization at this time, we have decided not to continue your $400 weekly stipend beyond May 31. This was a difficult decision and it’s one that comes at a time when a number of our full-time employees are also finding themselves either furloughed or facing a reduction in salary for the remainder of the season. For all of this, I am sorry."

Per ESPN's Alden Gonzalez, the A's will also furlough their professional scouts next week, and amateur scouts will be furloughed at some point after the 2020 MLB draft (June 10-11). 

Oakland became the first team to announce it was stopping payments to minor leaguers. The Athletic's Dennis Lin reported Wednesday that the San Diego Padres will continue to pay their minor league players through August. 

Bayer was a ninth-round draft pick by the Tampa Bay Rays in 2016. The right-handed pitcher was traded to Oakland in May 2018 for Wilmer Font. He posted a 3.38 ERA in 37 appearances out of the bullpen for the High-A Stockton Ports. 

The Oakland Athletics will reportedly stop paying their minor league players in June.  

Jeff Passan of ESPN reported the news Tuesday, noting the American League West team will stop providing a weekly stipend of $400 to minor leaguers at the end of May with the season suspended because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Passan noted other teams could make similar decisions in the coming days and suggested this is "a bad sign to start."

Alex Coffey of The Athletic noted the minor league players will still receive benefits, while Stephanie Apstein of Sports Illustrated pointed out the team called this move "a difficult decision" in an email to the players.

In April, Forbes reported the average team in the league increased in value by four percent from 2018. The Athletics are one of the least valuable teams in baseball (26th) according to the report, but they were still listed as worth $1.1 billion. 

Passan put the worth of the team and owner John Fisher into perspective compared to what the Athletics would need to pay their minor leaguers at $400 a week:

This decision comes as Major League Baseball and its players association battle over the financial system that will be in place if the game returns for a shortened 2020 season.

Jon Heyman of MLB Network reported the league shared a financial proposal with the players Tuesday that dropped the idea of splitting revenue 50-50, which did not sit well with the union, and instead suggested players would receive a percentage of their prorated pay with those making more money slated to see bigger reductions.

While it was not the 50-50 revenue split that players were adamantly against, especially since the two sides agreed to prorated salaries in March, Passan and colleague Jesse Rogers reported the highest-paid players in the league would make less than 40 percent of their full salaries under the league's latest proposals.

Passan provided a look at how the proposed salaries would compare to even fully prorated ones:

Evan Drellich and Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reported the players association is "disappointed" in the latest developments and "massive" proposed salary cuts.

The Oakland Athletics are set to become the latest MLB franchise to furlough several employees because of lost revenue from the coronavirus pandemic.

Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reported there will be "widespread" cuts across the organization, and some who remain will be asked to take pay cuts.

The Los Angeles Angels previously announced furloughs of non-playing staff beginning June 1, including their scouting department and many minor league staffers. The Tampa Bay Rays, Pittsburgh Pirates and Cincinnati Reds are among the organizations that have also instituted furloughs.

Bob Nightengale of USA Today reported scouts have been informed their furloughs will last through Oct. 31.

The Athletics have been among the most financially strapped teams in baseball for much of their recent existence. Their payroll regularly ranks among the bottom handful in MLB, and the Oakland Coliseum is considered perhaps the worst ballpark in the league.

The franchise hasn't paid its rent for the Coliseum because of the pandemic. 

"The Joint Powers Authority has been unable to make the Coliseum available for use by the A's," a team statement read. "The A's look forward to when the City and County feels it's safe to lift the current directives, and the A's are granted access to the facility to play."

John J. Fisher, who owns the Athletics, has a net worth of $2.1 billion.  

The Oakland Athletics have not made their $1.2 million rent payment due on April 1 for use of the Coliseum because they are unable to pay, Coliseum Authority interim executive director Henry Gardner told David DeBolt of The Mercury News.

"They said because they haven't used it, they were not able to generate revenue and they have no ability to pay," Gardner said.

That payment is an annual one, though Gardner said negotiations could occur to help prevent the organization from facing additional late dues.

"We recognize that we've all been upended in a number of ways," he said "Maybe there are some things we are willing to negotiate and waive but we can't just say no rent."

Coliseum Authority board member Ignacio De La Fuente was less forgiving, saying the situation was "not the city's fault, not the county's fault or the state's fault. I'm going to make sure we do whatever we can to make them pay."

He added: "It's just an excuse to try to not pay when the city needs the money the most."

An attorney for the Athletics told DeBolt, however, that it's unknown if the stadium would be available to the team at this time, as it's possible it could be utilized as a coronavirus patient site.

Major League Baseball is currently on hiatus because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and if the sport returns, it is expected to be a shortened season without fans in the stands. That will further deplete the revenue the MLB and the Athletics generate, bad news for a franchise that is already the fifth-least valuable in the league, per Forbes.

Even if that's a factor in the Athletics missing rent, it's hard to imagine the city of Oakland won't push hard to recoup the $1.2 million it's owed.

The next time anyone tells you athletes have to be in peak form to achieve greatness, let former MLB pitcher Dallas Braden tell you the story of his perfect game with the Oakland Athletics.  

Speaking to Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle, Braden said he pitched that day with a "raging, skull-rattling hangover" after drinking the night before. 

"There are things you don't do," he explained. "Partaking in libations or adult beverages, that was something I never did before a day game. The night before Mother's Day, though, I did. We were getting after it a little bit."

May 9 will mark the 10th anniversary of Braden's perfect game against the Tampa Bay Rays. It was also Mother's Day, a date that Slusser noted is difficult for Braden because his mom, Jodie Atwood, died when he was in high school. 

"Until that day, I had never treated a start or the day before a start the way I did that day," Braden said. "It's not like I was telling myself, 'Let's get crushed and tomorrow will be awesome.' It was more like, 'Let's just forget about tomorrow.'"

Braden told Slusser that his grandmother, Peggy Lindsey, stopped at his house to check on his dogs before the game. 

"She walked in, saw the aftermath of the night before and saw I was still in bed," he said. "She knew, though, you're not talking to me at all the day I'm starting—she knew the drill. So she just got back in the car. She was in Oakland before I left the house, she was at the Coliseum before I'd gotten out of bed."

Though a few people noticed Braden showed up to the ballpark later than usual, most didn't know what was going on. Pitching coach Curt Young said he had no idea until he was contacted by Slusser about the story.

"Oh my gosh, that's the kind of stuff you're glad you don't know at the time," Young said. "I'm not looking for that kind of stuff and didn't really see anything like that."

In the first six starts of the 2010 season, Braden had a 4.14 ERA and 1.19 WHIP. He had never thrown a complete game in 52 career starts up to that point. 

Braden proceeded to shut down the Rays, who entered the game with an MLB-best 22-8 record, for nine innings. The Arizona native struck out six and needed 109 pitches to throw the second perfect game in A's history. 

Former MLB pitcher and Oakland Athletics special assistant Matt Keough has died at the age of 64, the team announced Saturday.

A's Executive Vice President of Baseball Operations Billy Beane contributed the following statement:

"Matt was a great baseball man and a proud Oakland A. He had an incredible passion for the game and we were lucky to have him and his wealth of knowledge alongside us for the years he worked as a Special Assistant. He left an unforgettable impression on everyone he touched in baseball. Our sincere condolences are with the entire Keough family tonight."

Keough played an integral part in the team's transformation from league laughingstock to playoff contender in the early 1980s.

The A's finished last in the American League West with a 54-108 record in 1979, capping three straight years of finishing in the division basement or the next level up.

However, under the managerial leadership of Billy Martin, the A's engineered a 29-win improvement in 1980, good enough to finish second in the West. Keough, who went 2-17 with a 5.04 ERA in 1979, improved to 16-13 with a 2.92 ERA just one year later. He earned AL Comeback Player of the Year honors for his efforts.

That feat is more remarkable in retrospect considering that Martin used his starting pitching staff as much as possible, with the 1980 team's five starters all pitching between 211 and 290 innings.

The A's combined for 94 complete games, with Keough contributing 20. To put that number in perspective, no MLB pitcher had more than three last year.

The A's then took another big step in 1981 by winning the AL West in the first half of a strike-shortened season. That was in part because of a group called the "five aces" in Keough, Rick Langford, Steve McCarty, Brian Kingman and Mike Norris.

They swept the Kansas City Royals in three games in the AL Division Series before finding themselves on the opposite end of the same result against the New York Yankees in the AL Championship Series.

Keough was a tough-luck loser in the third and deciding game, giving up just one earned run in 8.1 innings.

He played one-and-a-half more seasons in Oakland before being traded to the New York Yankees in 1983. Keough also pitched for the St. Louis Cardinals, Chicago Cubs and Houston Astros before making his final MLB pitch in 1986.

Keough then played four years for Nippon Professional Baseball's Hanshin Tigers from 1987 to 1990 before calling it a career.

The Oakland Athletics announced Friday that former minor league player Miguel Marte died this week at the age of 30 from complications brought on by COVID-19. 

Marte was a Dominican Republic native who joined the A's organization in 2008 and played through the 2012 season.

Marte—who played catcher, first base and outfield—primarily played in the Dominican Summer League, Arizona League and New York-Pennsylvania League, and never advanced beyond A-level baseball.

In 227 games across five minor league seasons, Marte hit .251 with 16 home runs, 117 RBI, 79 runs scored and four stolen bases.

His best statistical season came in 2011 with the Arizona League's AZL Athletics, as he hit .299 with six homers and 26 RBI in 39 games.

The coronavirus pandemic has had a profound impact on the baseball world, as the 2020 MLB regular season was scheduled to begin in late March, but then put on hold when MLB decided to follow in the footsteps of the NBA and NHL by suspending play.

While MLB officials have maintained their desire to have a season and belief that it will happen in some capacity, no concrete plans have been announced.

The Athletics posted a link to a GoFundMe page where fans can donate money to help support Marte's family; the team donated $1,000 to the fundraiser.

Soon after Michael Jordan's first NBA retirement in 1993, he joined the Chicago White Sox. But it wasn't his only MLB option.

Former Oakland Athletics general manager Sandy Alderson—now an executive with the team—told ESPN's Buster Olney on the Baseball Tonight podcast (h/t Jimmy Hascup of USA Today) that he tried to get Jordan to sign with the Athletics by offering him a spot in the majors:

"If you recall when Jordan stopped playing basketball and decided to try baseball and ultimately went down the Birmingham Barons—the Chicago White Sox affiliate. When I heard that was happening—or about to happen—I called the agent right away and said, 'Hey look, I understand he may be going to Double-A. I don't even know who the 25th man is on our major league team right now. I will sign him and put him on the major league roster. He'll be part of our 25-man team. Tomorrow.'"

The White Sox—owned by Jerry Reinsdorf, who also owns the Chicago Bulls—weren't thrilled with Alderson, and he was even accused of tampering. 

"It ended up creating some discussion because I ended up getting a phone call or a message from the White Sox saying, 'Hey what is going on here? This guy is going to be part of the White Sox organization,'" he told Olney.

Alderson wasn't afraid to think outside the box as a general manager. He also signed former NFL quarterback Tim Tebow to a minor league contract when he was the general manager of the New York Mets, a decision he defended while talking with Olney.

"Notwithstanding a bunch of criticism at the time and to some extent that still exists, but Tim I thought had more legitimate potential over time because he was committed to the sport as opposed to being a distraction from something else," he said. 

"One of the great things about baseball is we all have to keep in mind it's entertainment," he added. "It's a game. Let's not get too carried away. Let's not be super serious here."

Granted, the counterargument to putting a player like Jordan on an MLB roster immediately or giving Tebow an extended run at the minor league level is that it deprives a more deserving player of that opportunity. Tebow has hit .223 with 18 homers and 107 RBI in 287 minor league games at the Single-A, Double-A and Triple-A levels. At 32, his chances of ever playing at the MLB level are slim to none.  

Jordan, meanwhile, hit .202 with three homers, 51 RBI and 46 runs in 127 games for the Double-A Birmingham Barons. He would not have cut it in the big leagues, at least not in his first season, though he did show potential.

The manager of the Barons at the time, Terry Francona, believes Jordan would have reached the majors had he stuck with baseball. 

"He had it all," Francona told ESPN's Steve Wulf in 2019. "Ability, aptitude, work ethic. He was always so respectful of what we were doing and considerate of his teammates."

"I do think with another 1,000 at-bats, he would've made it," he added. "But there's something else that people miss about that season. Baseball wasn't the only thing he picked up. I truly believe that he rediscovered himself, his joy for competition. We made him want to play basketball again. And he made me a better manager."

Webster Garrison, a minor league manager in the Oakland Athletics system, is breathing on his own for the first time since being diagnosed with COVID-19.  

Nikki Trudeaux, Garrison's fiancee, wrote on Twitter that he is "off the ventilator" and is "breathing 100% on his own and his oxygen saturation level is at 100%."

On March 27, Trudeaux wrote on Instagram that she and Webster tested positive for the virus, and she was unable to be by his side when he was admitted to the hospital and placed on a ventilator. 

The A's didn't officially identify Webster, but said in a statement last month that a member of their minor league coaching staff tested positive for the coronavirus:

"We want to extend our sincerest thoughts and prayers to our colleague for a speedy recovery. We are committed to providing him and his family with support and care. Every person on our team plays a critical role to our success and we look forward to his return to the field when he is healthy.

"During this pandemic, the health and safety of our players, employees, and community is our top priority. We are in this together and will get through this together. We are following MLB suggested protocols, CDC guidelines, and local public health recommendations for care. Finally, out of respect for this individual's privacy, at this time, we will not comment further regarding his situation."

Garrison's MLB career lasted five games with the A's during the 1996 season. He has had a successful transition into coaching, spending the past 21 years with the organization as a coach or manager in the minors. 

Last season, Garrison managed Oakland's High-A affiliate in Stockton.

Webster Garrison is on a ventilator in a Louisiana hospital to treat COVID-19, his fiancee Nikki Trudeaux told the Associated Press' Janie McCauley on Wednesday. 

Garrison is a coach and manager in the Oakland Athletics' minor league system.

Trudeaux has been providing updates on Garrison's improving condition on Twitter:

The 54-year-old played briefly for the Athletics in 1996.

Trudeaux first confirmed she and Garrison had COVID-19 in a Facebook post on March 27:

"I know we all are so overwhelmed with emotions right now. I am physically suffering from this virus as well. I am blessed to be able to cry out to God and ask for healing of my body and lungs unlike so many others. This man, my fiance, Webster Garrison, the love of my life, is on a ventilator in the hospital, fighting for his life, and I can't even be at his side! I'm asking, pleading, and begging you to help lift him and the entire world up in prayer! At 10pm every night our family and friends call out his name in prayer! Please join us!!!!! I love y'all!!"

Garrison has received support from people in and around the A's organization:

The A's announced over the weekend that an anonymous "minor league staff member" had been diagnosed with COVID-19 and was "under hospital care" (h/t CBS Sports). No name was given by the team.

Garrison managed the Stockton Ports, Oakland's Class A Advanced affiliate, in 2019. He has spent 22 years within the Athletics organization.