9:52am: The As announced Kotsays extension. 9:42am: The As and manager have agreed to a three-year contract extension, Martin Gallegos of MLB.com. The new contract spans the 2026-28 seasons and gives the As a club option over the 2029 campaign. The As exercised a 2025 club option on Kotsay back in November, but he was unsigned beyond the current season prior to this new agreement. Kotsay, 49, has helmed the As since 2022 and was the teams bench coach and quality control coach for the five prior seasons. He also spent four seasons of 17-year major league career in green and gold including perhaps the best season of his career, in 2004, when he hit .314/.370/.459 as the Athletics everyday center fielder. Though Kotsays managerial record is an ugly 179-307, win-lo s records rarely tell the full tale of a managers succe s (or lack thereof). Thats all the more true of a rebuilding club. The As have made virtually no effort to field a competitive roster throughout Kotsays tenure. The focus has been on culling payroll, acquiring/developing young players and, from a bigger picture standpoint, finalizing the relocation proce s thats currently landed them in West Sacramento. The idea is to move to Las Vegas for the 2028 season, which would be Kotsays final guaranteed year on the current contract. Expectations for Kotsay will rise during his second contract with the club. The As have spent more on the 2025 roster than at any point in recent seasons, due in part to foster interest with a new temporary fanbase in Sacramento but more so due to the threat of having their status as a revenue-sharing recipient revoked for the second time in the past decade. The As have signed , , , and in free agency, and they swung a trade to bring left-hander over from Tampa Bay as well. Those acquisitions, plus Andrew Knapp Jersey a five-year extension for slugger , have added $162MM in new long-term money to the teams books, including more than $45MM for the upcoming 2025 season. While the Athletics roughly $74MM payroll and $106MM luxury-tax number still sit at or near the bottom of the league overall, its still a small uptick from recent seasons; from 2022-24, the As ran payrolls between $50-65MM and never reached even an $85MM CBT number. The new additions will join a burgeoning core of interesting young hitters. The late-blooming Rooker is the Athletics lineup cornerstone, but outfielders and have blo somed at the plate, while prospects , and have shown varying flashes of upside at shortstop, second base and first base, respectively. doesnt get on base much, but his 29 homers in 2024 were second among all major league catchers, trailing only division-rival (34) up in Seattle. On the pitching side of things, lefty looks like a solid innings eater at the very least, while closer has emerged as one of the games premier bullpen arms. The As wont enter the 2025 season as a favorite in the AL West by any stretch of the word, but theyre in a better position that any point since their latest rebuild kicked off even though the slate of trades shipping out , , , , , , and others hasnt actually yielded many of the clubs current core contributors. (Langeliers came over in the Olson swap; Bleday was acquired for Puk.) For the time being, the focus in West Sacramento will largely be on coaxing further development from Butler, Bleday, Wilson, Gelof, Soderstrom and looming first baseman of the future . Before long, however, the As will likely be expected to take a legitimate step forward particularly if payroll continues to rise ahead of the planned move to the Las Vegas Strip. Ownership has clearly determined that Kotsay is the right person to spearhead those efforts and that such continuity will yield similar gains to the ones enjoyed in 2024, when the As improved by 19 games over their 2023 record due largely to improvements from players already in house. Jim Davenport Jersey