Athletics GM David Forst claims payroll will increase this offseason as team relocates to Sacramento

Athletics general manager David Forst told reporters on Friday he anticipates the team’s big-league payroll increasing this winter as the franchise relocates from Oakland to Sacramento, California, as part of a multi-year layover. (The Athletics will eventually move to Las Vegas, Nevada, once construction on a planned ballpark off the Vegas Strip is complete.) Forst acknowledged that free-agent recruitment will be interesting given the club’s nomadic state, according to Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle. 

Of course, Forst claiming that payroll will go up means nothing until it actually does increase. Even then, don’t expect the Athletics to be confused for anything approaching a high roller. The Athletics’ $61 million Opening Day payroll was the lowest in Major League Baseball, according to Baseball Prospectus’ data. The only players on the A’s roster who earned more than $3 million with the team and finished the year in town (pitchers Ross Stripling and Alex Wood) are each slated for free agency. The A’s will have a few players either entering or progressing in the arbitration phases of their career (slugger Brent Rooker included), but they effectively have zero guaranteed obligations on the books for the 2025 season.

Still, don’t count on the Athletics making a play for Juan Soto, Corbin Burnes, and the like. Their pool of potential signings is likely to be limited to players who want an opportunity — be it any employment at the big-league level or for the kind of role that a team without serious competitive aspirations can offer — and who will be willing to take a one-year deal and overlook those aforementioned circumstances. (The Athletics could also absorb money in trades from teams looking to shed what they perceive to be bad contracts — such arrangements would, in most cases, be executable without the player having a say in the matter.)

The Athletics will play their home games for the next few seasons at Sutter Health Park, home of the Triple-A River Cats. Enhancements are already being made to the park’s facilities, including the assembling of a new clubhouse structure. Nevertheless, it seems unlikely that the quality of life there will match what players can and do find at other facilities that were built with big-league clubs in mind. Besides, there’s also the matter of the extreme temperature that players will be exposed to — Sutter Health Park is a rare professional facility with artificial turf and no dome.

“The players association is currently discussing a wide range of issues with the league, including playing surface conditions and game times, with the intention of scheduling as many games as possible at night,” a union spokesperson told the San Francisco Chronicle in July. “Our priority is to ensure that players’ health, safety, and other rights are prioritized.”