Reddick ‘would love to stay,’ but no deal in sight
OAKLAND — Josh Reddick tries not to pay much attention to trade rumors like the ones hitting the internet on Thursday suggesting the Cubs are interested in picking up the right fielder from the A’s before the Aug. 1 trade deadline.
The Cubs can join the club. The Royals and Giants are interested, too, and the A’s, now 42-54 after a 7-3 loss inflicted Thursday on Sonny Gray by Tampa Bay, has Oakland solidly locked in last place and a likely candidate to start moving players before the deadline.
Reddick is less concerned
about the teams who are interested in him than he is about how much the A’s are, or aren’t, interested. The free agent-to-be and the club have batted around a contract extension, but talks have been mired for months now with Reddick looking for a four-year deal and the A’s unwilling at least so far to go beyond three.
And it’s not just length of contract. It’s size of contract, too. The A’s are willing to go as high as $12 million, or perhaps $13 million if squeezed. The Reddick side is looking for a package worth something in the $14 million range. Compromises have been worked out on larger differentials, but for the moment there is no movement.
“It’s kind of disheartening something hasn’t been worked out so far,” Reddick said. “We’ve been four months into it. It is what it is.”
He wants to stay with the A’s, but he seems more resigned than ever to the possibility it might not happen. Even if there’s no trade now, there is free agency available at season’s end.
“I would love to stay here,” Reddick said. “But if things can’t be worked out the way they should be, then I’m not really somebody wanted here.”
Manager Bob Melvin wasn’t in the room to hear his right fielder say that, but he wants Reddick’s name in his lineup card for the foreseeable future. He admits to no inside knowledge on the state of any trade talks.
He particularly doesn’t like ones concerning Reddick.
“I don’t follow it too closely,” the manager said. “I hope he’s not traded.”
The A’s front office isn’t talking, but insiders suggest that it would take a monster package to pry Reddick loose. If he’s not traded, the A’s still have their No. 3 hitter and a Gold Glove-winning right fielder. They’d probably be willing to make him a qualifying offer at the end of the season to lock him in for 2017 at about $17 million, willing to pay the money if he accepted the offer or to take the draft choice after the first round that comes with it should he leave.
Reddick, who said his agents, Seth and Sam Levinson, have urged him not to worry about negotiations and just play baseball, said he does what he can to avoid listening to the trade talk. And he said thinking about getting a qualifying offer from the club this winter is a bridge too far.
“I’m not too sure,” Reddick said when asked about what he might do should a qualifying offer come his way. “I haven’t talked with anyone about it. Right now, I’m just focused on 2016 right here.
“This game is hard enough without adding that stuff on. I’m still here.”
The game is getting harder all the time for Gray, who for much of the first three months of the season was highly coveted as a possible trade deadline pickup. But the A’s aren’t willing to trade him, and even if they were, they wouldn’t get what he’s worth, because he’s in the midst of the worst season of his big league career.
Thursday was the fourth time he’s allowed seven runs in a start. He lasted just five innings and fell to 4-9 with a 5.49 ERA.
Gray said health isn’t the issue, that he feels good. And he says his confidence isn’t gone, but “when I need to make a pitch or get a double play,” it doesn’t happen.
“Obviously it’s tough mentally,” he said. He thought he was making progress, but Thursday “was a giant step back.”
Jesse Hahn, who struggled in the big leagues earlier this season, going 24 with a 6.49 ERA, will be promoted to start Sunday’s game.
Lefty starter Rich Hill said he played catch Wednesday and Thursday with a padded covering over the blister on his left middle finger. He and the A’s are hoping he’ll start by the end of the month, if he’s not traded first.
Center fielder Jake Smolinski hit a three-run homer to give the A’s a 3-2 lead in the second. Smolinski, who is getting a chance to play center field on a semiregular basis, has started six of Oakland’s seven games since the All-Star break and has a .313 average
The A’s bolstered their bullpen by calling up righthander Zach Neal so they’d have someone who could pitch a lot of innings for them, if needed. They were. He threw three scoreless innings in relief of Gray.
The A’s are hoping that disabled reliever Sean Doolittle will be able to throw sometime next week, but he hasn’t been deemed ready to do sock throws — which are exactly what they sound like — and so there’s no guarantee that will happen as soon as Oakland would like. For more on the A’s, see John Hickey’s Inside the A’s blog at ibabuzz.com/athletics. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/JHickey3.