Do the A's Time to Build a Winner Before They Get to Las Vegas?

The Athletics are playing better down the stretch, but their hopes for the postseason have long vanished. With a 59-88 record, they'll be looking to avoid baseball's worst record while already having the inside track at holding MLB's worst run differential. Their current -187 differential ranks last in the sport, while the Colorado Rockies -154 is the next-closest.

Obviously the club has dealt with a slew of injuries to key players over the year, with DH Brent Rooker (48 games), first baseman Nick Kurtz (99 games), shortstop Jacob Wilson (80 games), left fielder Tyler Soderstrom (109 games), and catcher Shea Langeliers (93 games) all missing significant time. 

For a team that was built to slug home runs, missing the top five bats in the lineup ended up sinking the season. The pitching hasn't helped much over the course of the full season, posting a 5.37 ERA (29th) this year, but that was more or less to be expected after minimal additions were made during the offseason. 

On the field, there are questions of whether the A's will have the in-house talent to compete for a postseason berth next season. The answer to that may depend on what kind of steps forward the pitching staff takes, and how healthy the roster can remain. 

On June 19, the A's were 38-38 and had been largely healthy for most of the season, though they were already missing starter Luis Severino and Rooker by that point. In July, the rest of the injuries piled up.

From that date in June to now, the club has gone 21-50. They showed they can hang around .500 with a largely healthy roster as-is, but some pitching upgrades would put them in a better position to contend. Being a .500 team would be enough to have them challenging for a wild-card berth this season. 

Heading into the offseason, there will be moves that have to be made, but who will be making those decisions is still up in the air. 

Aside from the on-field product, there have been plenty of changes taking place elsewhere. The biggest change this winter will be a new GM being hired to replace longtime GM David Forst, who was fired not long after the trade deadline. This was just a couple of weeks after they fired longtime pitching coach Scott Emerson. 

The A's are also reportedly gutting a number of minor-league positions as the season winds down, which will lead to even more change. 

Former Astros GM James Click is the only publicly known person linked to the GM job at this time. 

All of this leads to extra work that has to be done before the A's arrive in Las Vegas, in addition to getting the actual ballpark built. This added instability after some of these people have been in place for decades is certainly interesting timing, given the organization's need to nail this relocation. 

On the one hand, if current employees don't want to relocate to Vegas, there is no way to make them. They would have to be let go at some point anyway, and doing so now would allow the A's more time to find a path forward.

At the same time, this is a lot of change to undergo at once, and the need for the A's to be a contending team in 2028 is real. The organization will only be given so much leeway when they get to Nevada, and they're going to have to show competence and competitiveness immediately before they become an afterthought in the self-proclaimed sports and entertainment capital of the world. 

You have a relocation of a franchise, big structural changes to the organization itself, and the fact that the ballpark factors are a complete unknown. That is the recipe the new GM will be dealing with, in addition to navigating an expected lockout this offseason and assessing the team's own roster needs. 

There is a lot on the line for owner John Fisher in the coming years, and he's acting like it.