With Mark Kotsay extension, Athletics seize a rare chance at stability
MESA, Ariz. — The Athletics on Monday worked out as a full team for the first time this spring, and for the first time in their Sacramento era. They marked the occasion by projecting a sentiment that's been rare around the club in recent years: stability.
Just before taking the field, Athletics players and staffers packed into a news conference to watch manager Mark Kotsay receive a three-year extension, with a team option for 2029. Kotsay, who took over for the 2022 season, is now in line to manage the team not only through its expected three-year stopover in Sacramento, but through at least the first planned season in Las Vegas in 2028 as well.
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The upcoming season will be the franchise's first since a bitter departure from Oakland. When spring training ends, they'll move into a minor-league stadium in West Sacramento, Sutter Health Park, which they will share with the San Francisco Giants' Triple-A team for at least three seasons, and potentially a fourth if the team's new stadium in Las Vegas is delayed. Owner John Fisher said Monday groundbreaking there remains expected in June.
'Mark and I have talked a lot over the last few years about how very few, if any, have kind of gone through what we experience,' Athletics general manager David Forst said. 'Starting with player transition, to stadium transition, to city transition. All these things are unique. … There's a stability that Mark brings to the clubhouse every day, a passion and just an honesty and integrity that everybody who's around him knows he believes in what he's saying.'
Mark Kotsay Press Conference https://t.co/EcYzUiiEpx
— A's Cast (@athleticscast24) February 17, 2025
Guiding players through not one but two relocations amounts to a manager's job that could be compared to only one other in baseball. The Tampa Bay Rays will also play in a minor-league stadium this season, their displacement owed to the damage Hurricane Milton caused to St. Petersburg, Fla., and surrounding areas in October. However, the Rays, unlike the A's, could still remain in their home city long term, while many A's fans remain badly hurt because the team has left.
'It was clear that even in the toughest of seasons, which we've had, being able to see how Mark handled it,' Athletics owner John Fisher said after the press conference, 'you could sort of say, 'Wow, if he can handle these things when we're only winning 50 games, imagine what he can do when we have some more resources on the team to show what we are capable of.'
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With a young team that won just 69 games last year, Kotsay is one of the most recognizable faces around the Athletics. The 49-year-old has a long history with the team, including four seasons as a player from 2004-07, and six seasons as a coach, starting in 2016. Kotsay was named Bob Melvin's replacement as Athletics manager in December 2021, at a time when the team's interest in Las Vegas was still fresh to the public. Since then, little else has been as important in the role as patience.
'When you start out, you really think you know everything and you go full tilt in a direction, and it might not be right,' Kotsay said. 'And over the last three seasons, I think going into this year, I understand the word patience, which has always been a part of the vocabulary, but now I understand also … being more demanding. There's a balance to that.
'As players get older, they lose the skill set sometimes. As managers get older, I think we only gain more skill set to be better at what we do.'
In his opening remarks, Forst said the new contract 'guarantees' that Kotsay 'will be the manager of this team through our time in Sacramento and into the future of this franchise in Las Vegas.'
To laughter, Kotsay later noted the job famously lacks much certainty. But for a franchise that is still seeking its footing after so much tumult, an announcement that in other settings would be routine — simply that the manager has been re-upped — struck a different tone.
'I've always wanted to lead this group to a World Series championship, and that's the goal,' Kotsay said. 'I am fully of the mindset that we can make this happen and really disrupt an environment of playoff baseball in Sacramento.'
(Photo of Kotsay in September: Steph Chambers / Getty Images)
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