Inside The As

A's GM David Forst says they plan to keep Brent Rooker

Jason Burke

Aug 30, 2024; Arlington, Texas, USA; Oakland Athletics outfielder Brent Rooker (25) reacts as he rounds the bases after hitting a home run against the Texas Rangers in the seventh inning at Globe Life Field. Mandatory Credit: Tim Heitman-Imagn Images
Aug 30, 2024; Arlington, Texas, USA; Oakland Athletics outfielder Brent Rooker (25) reacts as he rounds the bases after hitting a home run against the Texas Rangers in the seventh inning at Globe Life Field. Mandatory Credit: Tim Heitman-Imagn Images / Tim Heitman-Imagn Images
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The Athletics are hoping to reach the .500 mark in 2025, and holding onto one of the ten best hitters in baseball this past season would seem to be a good starting point for how the team plans to reach those new heights. That's why, according to Jon Heyman, A's GM David Forst said that the team is not planning to move Brent Rooker.

As we wrote about just a few days ago with Mason Miller, the A's front office is genuinely trying to build a better club for 2025, and so moving some of their most attractive trade chips would be counterintuitive to reach the goals that the team has.

Rooker, who just turned 30, hit .294 with 39 homers and 112 RBI in 2024, and is one of the American League's Silver Slugger finalists. After posting a 127 OPS+ in his breakout, All-Star campaign in 2023, the A's DH surpassed those marks in a big way this past season by posting a 165 OPS+. The difference between a 127 and a 165 OPS+ is the difference between a player having a nice season and establishing themselves as an elite bat in the game.

Over the course of the season, he also mentioned that he feels he has another level to reach for his game.

In his first season of arbitration eligibility, Rooker is projected to make $5.1 through the process by MLB Trade Rumors. Much like Miller, Rooker is one of the best players at his position, and he's very much cost-controlled for the club next season. Having him for $5.1 million is nearly the same as having Vlad Jr. or Bobby Witt Jr.'s bats for the same price. For a team like the A's to have that level of production available to them and to be able to afford it, there's no way they're trading a key cog like Rooker this winter.

The only reason this comes up at all is because of the A's long track record of trading away good players, though each of those trades came at different times for the franchise and were more or less predictable. It's not very often that a deal they make is completely shocking. Moving Rooker would at the very least be surprising.

Of course, some A's fans aren't believing Forst just yet.

Not to defend the Donaldson trade at all, but the team was at a different point in their competitive window at that point, following the 2014 season. They'd just lost the AL Wild Card game to the Kansas City Royals and the club's mojo was running out. Sure, the A's could have signed Donaldson long-term, but that's not necessarily how John Fisher likes to roll. The A's were going to need to re-tool, and moving Donaldson and nearly every other All Star the team had that season was the direction the team went. They also traded Jeff Samardzija that winter, landing Marcus Semien and Chris Bassitt among others in a deal that helped the team in the rebuild process.

This winter the A's are coming off a 69-win season and are on the upswing, hoping to build for better days. Brent Rooker's continued success will help them get there a whole lot sooner.

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Jason Burke
JASON BURKE

Jason is the host of the Locked on A's podcast, and the managing editor of Inside the A's. He's a new father and can't wait to take his son to his first baseball game at the Coliseum. 

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