Athletics Planning on Retaining Most of Baseball Operations Staff

Despite a COVID-19 plagued season that saw dramatic drop offs in revenue, the Oakland Athletics will be retaining about 90 percent of the A's baseball operations staff for the 2021 season.

Despite a bad year revenue-wise thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Oakland A’s will head into 2021 retaining the vast majority of their scouting staff.

According to a report in the San Francisco Chronicle, franchise owner John Fisher is opting to retain approximately 90 percent of the team’s baseball operations staff for the 2021 season.

After a year with no fans in the stands at the Coliseum – and consequently no revenue – many clubs have reduced staff sizes, some of them dramatically. In the last week, the San Francisco Giants let go 50 people in an organization-wide trimming.

According to the Chronicle some long-time and well-known members of the A’s baseball ops department won’t back in 2021 including Rich Magnante, Kevin Mello, Hiram Bocachica, Aaron Nieckula, Javier Herrera and Carlos Chavez.

Magnante, who’d been with the club for a quarter century as scout, minor league manager and coach, is probably best known for signing Cy Young Award winner Barry Zito and Rookie of the Year winner Bobby Crosby.

Mello, the team’s NorCal amateur scout, won’t be back. He’s best known for signing reliever Blake Treinen and the team’s 2020 No. 1 draft pick, Tyler Soderstrom.

The team is expecting a contraction of the minor leagues as Major League Baseball and the minor leagues reach a new deal, and minor league staffers like Bocachica, Nieckula, Herrera and Chavez were victims of that.

Another loss came with Texas-based scout Chris Reilly having left to take a job with the Boston Red Sox. Reilly is best known for signing Oklahoma outfielder Kyler Murray, who ultimately chose to play football at Oklahoma and is now with the Arizona Cardinals.

Follow Athletics insider John Hickey on Twitter: @JHickey3

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