A's say there is no guarantee that potential playoff games will be in Sacramento

Jason Burke | Sep 10, 2024

Aug 24, 2024; Oakland, California, USA; A general view of Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum as seen from behind home plate before a major league baseball game between the Oakland Athletics and the Milwaukee Brewers. Mandatory Credit: Robert Edwards-Imagn Images / Robert Edwards-Imagn Images

The Oakland A's are a team on the rise, holding a 32-26 record since July 1, the eighth-best mark in MLB over that stretch. The only team in the AL West with a better record in that time is the Houston Astros (35-25), so it stands to reason that the A's could be in conention for a postseason berth fairly soon. In speaking with some of the players in the clubhouse over the weekend, they feel that they could be playing in October in the next year or two.

Following the conclusion of the 2024 campaign, the A's will head up north to play for at least three seasons at Sutter Health Park in Sacramento, which would encompass at least one of those potential postseason appearances.

With the A's very relocation being made for greater financial gains for team owner John Fisher, the idea of the team staying put in Sacramento's 14,000 seat capacity ballpark for a potential postseason run seemed unlikely. We reached out to the A's to see if there is anything in their agreement with Sacramento that says that those potential games have to be played at Sutter Health Park, and this was their response.

"“Home” postseason games are not guaranteed to be played at Sutter Health Park. In the event a “home” postseason game occurs at an alternate location, A’s season ticket holders will have priority purchase access for tickets."

There are only two big-league ballparks that are within driving distance for fans in Sacramento, and that's San Francisco's Oracle Park, and the Oakland Coliseum, which the A's are in the process of leaving. If the Giants and A's make the postseason in the same year, putting together a postseason schedule for both clubs at the same venue could create some issues. The Coliseum would no longer have Clay Wood and his terrific grounds crew working on the field throughout the year. Yet, in order for the fans in Sacramento to have their priority access mean something, it would be hard to fathom another option outside of those two.

In fairness to the A's, the statement does not definitively say that there will be no postseason games played in Sacramento, but it does leave open the possibility for that to be the case. Like most things with Fisher, if you follow the money you can figure out which path he'll choose to take. The more lucrative path would be an MLB park. Either that, or he could charge ludicrous amounts for those games in Sacramento.

Another caveat that we feel obliged to throw in here is that with the way that Major League Baseball constructs the postseason schedule, if the A's were the second or third AL wild-card team, they wouldn't host a game in the first round, needing to win a series to get a game at home.

That all said, if you add in the fact that the A's won't be wearing Sacramento across their chests when the team heads out on the road for the next few seasons, this feels less like the A's are propping up Sacramento as a potential future permanent home of MLB, and are moreso using it as a rest stop on their way to a proposed future in Las Vegas.

Carmichael Dave, host of the Carmichael Dave Show with Jason Ross up in Sacramento said of the latest news, "This is one of the 100,000 problems in dealing with John Fisher, as (sadly) Oakland fans already know too well. Not only does the team not even have Sacramento on the jersey, but now they’ll be elsewhere for playoff games? We’re nothing more than a glorified Airbnb for this fanbase killer, and speaking simply for myself: it’s embarrassing.”

Back in June there was a news cycle that revolved around how many games the A's were requesting to play outside of Las Vegas each season, so this is nothing new for the team. According to the Nevada Independent, the A's agreed to seven games over two seasons with a maximum of four off-site home games in one season as part of their non-relocation agreement discussions with the Las Vegas Stadium Authority.

This potential relocation for the postseason would make financial sense for the club, but it's part of the same playbook that soured fans in Oakland many years ago after witnessing numerous teardowns of the roster while the franchise threatened relocation. What incentive would the fans in Sacramento have to root for this club if the most important games of the season wouldn't even be where they call home for the regular season? That disconnect from the fans is what has driven the franchise to this point in the first place, and it doesn't seem as though they've learned any lessons from previous missteps.