Times are changing for the Athletics. Getting ready for a new ballpark site in Las Vegas, the Athletics and owner John Fisher introduced the team's new president of baseball operations, Taylor Smith, on Wednesday afternoon. It's the first time in what Fisher estimated as 70 years that the club has hired someone from the outside to lead the baseball operations department. 

One of the first questions that Fisher fielded was whether the club would also be hiring a general manager to work in tandem with Smith, who at 31 years old is the youngest head of baseball operations in MLB.

"That is a definite possibility," Fisher said. "Taylor literally just started on Monday and is working to get to know the organization better. But that's something that's a distinct possibility."

One possibility there would be to promote from within, giving the role to someone like Billy Owens, who has served as an assistant GM with the A's and has been with the organization since 1999. If there is someone who could expedite getting Smith familiar with the organization, it would be Owens. He also interviewed for the role that Smith ended up earning. 

Part of Smith's process will be surrounding himself with people whose experience complements his own so that the front office can cover more ground. 

"I would like to think that I do a good job of knowing what I don't know, or at the very least, knowing that I do not know what I do not know," Smith said. "Then making sure that I surround myself with the people that can complement me in that regard." 

During his opening statement, Smith noted that in this industry, you're competing with 29 other teams at three things: acquisitions, development, and in-game strategy. 

"Our goal is to be better than those 29 teams at each of those three things," Smith said. 

When it comes to assessing the franchise's current players, Smith noted that the position players get most of the attention, but also mentioned that he's excited about the pitching side as well.

"Jacob Lopez was awesome in the second half," Smith said. "[Jack] Perkins and [Gage] Jump seem like they're on the precipice of getting to that next level. [Luis] Severino provides that veteran leadership, and J.T. Ginn is coming off the best year of his career. I think there's a lot to build on there." 

He was also asked what his plan is to improve the club's pitching staff, given that the team finished ranked 29th in MLB with a 5.53 ERA in 2026. 

"I would start by saying that I think the pitching was a little unlucky last year in some of the outcomes on balls in play," Smith said. "I think it's a staff that will progress [in 2027]. In general, I think acquiring pitching is still something where you can be very opportunistic across the league. You can have an evaluation system set up to identify talent that's being undervalued across the league and go out and get it." 

One of the biggest questions for the A's moving forward will be how they make additions to the roster moving forward, given that they're moving into a brand-new ballpark with unknown park factors. We've seen how the pitching staff has struggled the past two seasons when being removed from the pitcher-friendly Oakland Coliseum and placed in a hitter-friendly Sutter Health Park.

Smith says that he believes in tailoring the roster to the home ballpark, because that creates an opportunity to find players that will be more valuable to them than to other teams. 

As for how the ballpark itself will play, he mentioned that the elevation will be a factor, but the comparison at the moment would be Chase Field in Arizona. Right now the Diamondbacks' home ballpark ranks second in elevation in MLB behind Coors Field in Colorado. The A's new ballpark in Vegas will take over that spot from Arizona. 

Of course, the team and the front office won't know how the new ballpark will really play until they arrive in Las Vegas. 

Ultimately, when the team arrives in Las Vegas in 2028, Smith has one vision for the club.

"I want it to be a competitive team," Smith said. "We're gonna do everything we can to get it in that spot."