CAN A NEW BALLPARK STOP ROSTER PURGE?
Oakland Athletics say Howard Terminal will stop them from massive teardowns
The warning signs were there. Loud and clear.
Once the 2021 season ended in disappointment, Billy Beane and David Forst knew they'd be dismantling another contender. Publicly, they warned fans that ownership's budget would dictate their future.
Before the lockout, A's owner John Fisher lofted to baseball operations a $50 million payroll budget as a working number, according to league sources, nearly $100 million below league average. That meant more than $40 million would need to be cut from the 2021 payroll, putting the A's 29th among the 30 teams in spending.
Though A's fans are used to absorbing these blows, the big trades hit hard as ever. Matt Chapman, Matt Olson, Chris Bassitt and Sean Manaea — all due for significant raises in their waning years of arbitration eligibility — were flipped for a prospect haul that should bump the A's slipping farm system back up into the league's top tier.
“I was hoping it wasn't a surprise. We were open in November when we started
discussing that this was going to be the reality,” Forst, the A's general manager, said. “Why this year? It's because we're at this point in the stadium discussion where we're hoping that we get some answers. But we aren't there yet, and in the meantime, we're at the point in our cycle where we have
to be looking ahead and making sure that we're restocking the team.”
This has been the A's modus operandi for 20 years. The only way to break this cycle, team officials claim, is to create new revenue streams with a new ballpark.
“The ballpark is the key to having a larger payroll so we can compete more effectively with bigger market clubs, have a better fan experience and retain players,” A's president Dave Kaval said. “You will see a completely different business model based on this revenue potential when we have our new building.”
The A's claim a new ballpark will allow them to finance teams and players that will create a better product. But now is the time for A's fans to ask: Is a new ballpark enough to fulfill that promise?
From a baseball standpoint, probably. After 20 years, A's baseball operations has team-building down to a science, continuously spawning successful teams that deserve more financial support. New ballpark revenues would allow them to offer competitive extensions and explore a wider variety of free agent options to supplement their core instead of flipping players whose talent becomes expensive.
Operating on a shoestring budget this year, even, the A's have managed to reallocate some funds for new technology throughout their minor league affiliates and with the big league team. Director of Baseball Systems Rob Naberhaus was promoted to an assistant general manager position to reinforce “more of a voice in our internal technology
investments,” Forst said.
“I wouldn't say we were falling behind,” Forst said. “We just want to make sure we are not falling behind.”
A's business operations, though, might not be as reliable.
In the short term, the A's can break from their norm if they can break ground at Howard Terminal — or elsewhere. Ownership is expecting revenues from naming rights, corporate sponsors and corporate suite sales to hit before a grand opening, with that money going directly to the on-field product, Kaval said.
Kaval also said the payroll would be “certainly north of $100 million” once a ballpark is approved.
“All this stuff will dramatically increase our revenue base and close the $200 million gap in revenue shortfall compared to other teams, and maybe even pull us even,” Kaval said. “If that happens with David, Billy and the higher payrolls we can support, I think we can be extremely competitive and be a team with potential to win it all.”
The A's reported $40 million in operating losses last year after the pandemic season, but the franchise valuation climbed to $1.18 billion, according to Forbes.
Make no mistake, Fisher is mandating a payroll cut because of plummeting revenues — he doesn't want to spend money where money isn't being made. On the flip side, look at the New York Mets; they lost $96 million in operating income and have committed
$256 million in payroll for 2022. And this is where some concern should bubble.
Teams all operate differently, but a constant in sports remains that Fisher seems to disregard: Happy fans will pay to see their team play. Decades of the A's cycling through fan favorites, snapping contention windows shut prematurely, has given fans every reason to divorce themselves of this fandom.
A's fans are disheartened, the fan base eroded to its bare bones.
Need some statistical proof? The A's attendance averaged 8,767 per game in 2021, ranked 29th out of 30 teams to see a playoff contender that had made the postseason the three prior years. They ranked 24th in 2019, 27th in 2018 and 29th in 2017.
Asked if ownership has had any concerns about filling a potential new ballpark, Kaval said the organization feels “confident” an improved fan experience and on-field product will generate a more engaged fan base.
“But certainly, we are sympathetic and empathetic of the trials over the last 25 years and the cycles we've had to work with because we don't have a stadium,” Kaval said. “The outcome of it not being resolved has been a challenging environment where there's player changes.”
Despite Kaval's promises, the A's woeful history tells us Fisher may not see the value in spending to keep fans engaged during rough patches. Just look at
Fisher's other team, Major League Soccer's San Jose Earthquakes.
The Fisher-Kaval team built the Earthquakes' new home, now known as PayPal Park, in San Jose in 2015 with hopes of revitalizing a team that had struggled since being reinducted into MLS seven years prior.
But over the last five seasons, the Earthquakes have ranked 17th out of 22 teams — excluding the five teams that came into the league after 2018 — in total team spending. Kaval, who was replaced as the Earthquakes president in 2017, noted the team's spending has gone up every year. True, but their total spending has been below league average consistently.
In an anonymous poll of MLS executives conducted by The Athletic, Earthquakes ownership was deemed the group that “holds the sporting side of their club back the most” out of all teams.
“Quakes owner John Fisher has been near the bottom of the league in spending and San Jose has been almost uniformly unsuccessful since the club returned to the league in 2008,” the report reads. “There aren't many resources and there doesn't appear to be much TLC, either.”
A cut-and-dried solution to an issue that's plagued Oakland for decades seems too good to be true. Kaval is making promises on Fisher's behalf, but A's fans have every reason to wonder if those promises are enough.