Could the Athletics Make the Postseason in Wake of Houston Astros Trade?

Jason Burke | Dec 16, 2024

Sep 14, 2024; Anaheim, California, USA; Houston Astros outfielder Kyle Tucker (30) celebrates with teammates after hitting a home run during the 9th inning against the Los Angeles Angels at Angel Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jason Parkhurst-Imagn Images / Jason Parkhurst-Imagn Images

The Athletics stated goal for the 2025 regular season is to reach .500, an 81-81 season. That would be a 12-win improvement over the season they just had, and light years ahead of where they were in 2023. It's a lofty goal, but it feels attainable given that the club went 32-32 in the second half of this past season and has continued to add on this winter.

Last year the Houston Astros won the American League West (surprise, surprise) with an 88-73 record, their fewest wins since 2016, outside of the Covid-shortened 2020 campaign. Last season was also the first time that the Astros didn't reach the ALCS after seven consecutive appearances in the series. Houston has been fighting decline for awhile now, and it looks like they could potentially be ready for a down year by their standards.

Alex Bregman is a free agent, and he has been a huge part of that club since he was drafted in 2015 and made his MLB debut in 2016. He's been with the Astros through all of the winning seasons in recent years, and his bat, coupled with his glove, have been enormous for Houston. He's racked up 39.6 bWAR over his career while hitting .272 with a .366 OBP across nine seasons.

The Astros made a big trade on Friday that may have signaled that they are out of the running to re-sign Bregman, bringing in third baseman Isaac Paredes.

In order to get Paredes, the Astros had to trade away one of the best hitters in baseball in Kyle Tucker. The 27-year-old outfielder is entering his final year under team control, and will be playing out the 2025 campaign with the Chicago Cubs.

While Paredes appears to be a fit for Houston and soon-to-be-renamed Minute Maid Park, Tucker has been a top-10 bat in baseball since 2020, posting a 143 wRC+, which is Mookie Betts/Ronald Acuña Jr. territory. The trade itself is meant to provide stability for the franchise long-term, but their chances in 2025 may take a hit.

This past season he dealt with an injury, which limited him to just 78 games, but he was still able to accrue 4.2 fWAR and post a 180 wRC+, which was just a tick below the production of National League MVP Shohei Ohtani in a smaller sample size.

The Astros will make moves to replace these two players, but they have been such key cogs into everything that Houston does that it's tough to see a scenario in which they end up being a better team in 2025 that they were in 2024 without spending gobs of money.

Paredes may do a nice job of replacing Bregman at third base, given that they had similar levels of production in 2024, but there isn't a player out there that is both available and comparable to Tucker.

Obviously there is still a lot of offseason left before Spring Training, but as things stand right now, the AL West could be winnable for a team besides Houston. The question from there is how many wins it would take to secure the AL West title.

The 88 wins that Houston put up last year were the fewest needed to secure a division title in baseball, with the Seattle Mariners providing the biggest threat in an 85-win campaign. While the Mariners have a tremendous pitching staff, they just haven't been able to find their way offensively.

They will likely enter 2025 as the odds-on favorites to win the West, but they have had a knack for not making the postseason nearly every year for the past two decades. Until they change that narrative, it'll hang around.

The Texas Rangers are just a year removed from winning the World Series, but they also present plenty of questions with an aging roster. The Los Angeles Angels are making moves, but they also won just 63 games last season. If Mike Trout is healthy, and Anthony Rendon is healthy and producing, then they'd have an outside shot at around 80 wins.

That brings us to the A's, who are a team on the rise. As of right now, it's unlikely that they'd be able to leap to the top of the division by 2025, but they do have a lot of young, unproven talent on the roster, and if they get a full season of second half Lawrence Butler, JJ Bleday takes another step forward, and Zack Gelof proves that 2024 was an aberration, then the A's could be in business.

Of course, they'll be playing in a minor-league ballpark in West Sacramento, which could end up helping them as they tailor their roster to some of the park's quirks, or it could be their downfall as one too many soft fly balls leave the yard for the other team.

The A's winning the West isn't necessarily likely, but there is enough talent on the roster that if you squint, you could see a path for them to be in contention in September. If it takes 85 wins in this division, that's a number this team could achieve if things break right. Maybe adding Jeffrey Springs the day after Houston sent Tucker away was a sign of the team's intentions.