Meet your 2025 sleeper postseason hopeful: The A’s of Sacramento

MESA, Ariz. — For the past few years, the A’s have been viewed as the ugly stepchild of Major League Baseball. The team’s decision to leave Oakland following the conclusion of the 2024 season has loomed like a dark cloud over the organization. Meanwhile, the team’s roster was extremely young, undermanned and unprepared to compete, and their chances of turning things around appeared remote.

But there’s a different energy in the air at A’s camp this spring, and it isn’t just because the team will be playing in a new city in 2025. It’s also because, after an offseason of investment in the roster, there’s a real belief that this season could be the starting point of a new era of A’s baseball.

This time of year, there’s discussion around the industry about the team to look out for in 2025, and there’s a common refrain emerging about which team that might be. Meet your sleeper postseason hopeful for 2025: the A’s of Sacramento.

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“It’s hard not to hear it in this day and age, when it’s instantaneous and in your hands, information that comes across the phone, but that’s a good thing,” manager Mark Kotsay said of the buzz around his team. “[Our players] are somewhere new right now, but that’s exciting. It’s exciting for them, and I think it’s exciting for us to have those expectations.”

You can tell when a team knows it’s going to be good, and inside the A’s clubhouse, there’s a quiet confidence. It’s not cocky or arrogant, but there’s a feeling that these players are fully aware of the season they’re embarking on and the potential for what could come of it.

Youthful exuberance comes with its own share of energy, and youth has been the name of the game for the A’s over the past few seasons. At times, their age showed, and the sheer lack of big-league experience could be seen in their play. But last season, there was a shift in a positive direction as the team’s young core of position players began to tap into their potential.

The player who has helped ignite the team’s offensive outlook the most is All-Star designated hitter Brent Rooker. Rooker followed a strong 2023 season with the best year of his career in ‘24, clubbing a team-high 39 homers and establishing himself as one of the game’s most feared power hitters. He was rewarded by the club with a five-year, $60 million extension signed over the winter.

As Rooker has established himself as one of the game’s best hitters, he has quietly become this team’s leader, a role that is particularly crucial for a team that’s still very young.

“I just want to help teach guys from my experience: the things that I’ve experienced, situations I’ve been in, the things I’ve gone through and the things I’ve overcome,” Rooker told Yahoo Sports. “I want to use those experiences to relate to guys wherever they’re at in their career — create a culture in this room that cares about one another, that cares about working, cares about improving and is ultimately hungry to find out how good we could be.”

But the responsibility of powering the team’s offense no longer rests solely on Rooker’s shoulders. As the team went through its rebuild, the A’s stockpiled plenty of young talent. At the big-league level, that now includes the likes of center fielder JJ Bleday, catcher Shea Langeliers, right fielder Lawrence Butler and projected starting shortstop Jacob Wilson.

It was a tale of two seasons for Butler in 2024, as the young outfielder struggled at the plate to start the year, which resulted in his being sent back to Triple-A at the end of May. But after he returned mid-June, he was one of the best young talents in the game the remainder of the season, slugging 20 homers with an .896 OPS over an 84-game stretch and earning AL player of the month honors in June.

This season, Butler is viewed as one of the game’s potential breakout stars. The growth that he experienced last year is something he envisions carrying over to this season, when he and the A’s hope to surprise some people.

“I just wanna be myself,” Butler told Yahoo Sports. “Everybody tells me they love me for being me. I’m a fun guy. I love to have fun. … If I just continue to be me, have fun, play hard and feel good, then everything will handle itself.”

It’s not just the players at the top of this organization who are feeling the shift, either. Wilson, the sixth overall pick in the 2023 MLB Draft, is one of the pieces the A’s hope will fit right into their plans for the future — and the present.

The team’s top prospect hit .433 across three levels of the minors last season and was fast-tracked to the big leagues before a hamstring injury ended his season early. But even after experiencing only a taste of his new reality, he believes there are good things on the horizon.

“Rook hitting 39 homers last year and Law exploding onto the scene in the second half, we have a lot of great guys in here who are pretty exciting to watch on a daily basis,” Wilson told Yahoo Sports. “I think last year when I was coming in for spring training, I was just coming in as the first-round pick the year before — seeing what spring training is like, meeting all the guys who are on the big-league team and kind of just learning from everybody.

“Now we’re trying to prepare for an Opening Day, rather than just trying to get to know everybody. So the last 12 months have been kinda crazy. Going in this year, it’s a little bit different.”

Last season and throughout their rebuild, one major area of weakness for the A’s was their rotation. But after years of stingy offseasons, the organization began to invest in the starting rotation this winter, acquiring right-hander Jeffrey Springs from the Tampa Bay Rays to go with JP Sears, Osvaldo Bido and Joey Estes.

Still, the A’s needed a leader for their rotation, a frontline starter who could set an example and potentially start Game 1 of a playoff series. That guy was right-hander Luis Severino, who signed a three-year, $67 million deal this winter, making him the highest paid player in franchise history.

Severino’s arrival brings production on the mound following a season in which he went 11-7 with a 3.91 ERA and reinvented himself with the Mets. But on his new team, he has also stepped right into a new role as a leader in the clubhouse. One way the A’s right-hander has made his presence known among his teammates is getting his fellow starters fitted for customs suits, a tradition he began last year in New York and brought to the A’s this season. The gesture mimics the experience Severino had with Hall of Famer CC Sabathia as a young player with the New York Yankees.

“CC was a huge guy for me,” Severino told Yahoo Sports. “When I got to the big leagues, he took me under his wing, showed me how it was done. He got me a couple suits. [Dellin] Betances, [Ivan] Nova, [Michael] Pineda — I learned from those guys. So I want to lead. I want to be a good example. I want the young kids to see me and say, ‘I want to be like Sevy.’ I want to be that type of guy who wants to encourage young guys to just go out there and compete.”

Across A’s camp in Mesa, the talent level has obviously increased significantly from where it was during the team’s down years. But the other reason this team could be on the verge of its first winning season since 2021 is that the landscape of the American League has changed.

The AL West is no longer the top-heavy juggernaut it was for the past seven years. The Texas Rangers might be the division’s team to beat this season, but the Houston Astros have undergone significant changes to their roster (and not for the better). Add the lack of moves by the Seattle Mariners and the Los Angeles Angels pulling up the rear, and the door has opened for the A’s to take a step up in this division and contend for a postseason berth.

Not only that, but after what the Royals and Tigers achieved last season, who’s to say the A’s couldn’t be this year’s version of those teams? You could make the argument that they have more talent overall. And we’ll see right away what this team has, as they open the season with series against the Mariners, Cubs, Padres and Mets in the first four weeks.

Of course, there are no guarantees in baseball, and neither player nor team development is linear, but the A’s don’t appear to be frightened by the challenge.

“We feel like we’re close to being able to do some things in this league,” Rooker said. “We know we still have work to do. We still have improvements to make, both as individuals and as a team. We’re going to keep working daily to do that. But the energy has definitely shifted this year. The expectations are higher, and we think deservedly so.”