Well, baseball season is over and the long boring offseason has begun. Now we get a moment to breath, relax, and reflect on the year that the Athletics just had. We’ll begin taking a look back at the guys that played for the A’s this past season and see how they did, and what next season holds in store for them. We’ll get to the stars of the team but first let’s look back at longtime Athletic Seth Brown’s final year in the Green & Gold.
How was he acquired?
‘Brownie’ as he was affectionately known among A’s fans was originally
drafted by the club in the 18th round way back in 2015. It took him four seasons to rise through the minors, finally making his big league debut on August 26th, 2019. It’d be a couple more seasons before he finally got an extended look in the big leagues. While he was older for a rookie at 28, Brown still hit 20 homers in his first full season, showing off that power that he’d displayed in the minors.
Brown would ultimately spend four years as a lineup regular with the A’s, highlighted by his 2022 season when he slashed .230/.305/.444 with 25 home runs, good for a 117 OPS+. From there however Brown took a step back each of the next two years, culminating in getting removed from the roster in mid-2024.
What were the expectations?
The lefty slugger eventually earned his way back to the big leagues later that season after demolishing Triple-A pitching for a couple of weeks. He looked much better on his return, hitting .271 with nine home runs during the final two-and-a-half months of the season. That was enough to convince the A’s to offer Brownie another contract and they brought him back for the coming 2025 season for $2.7MM, with the hope being that he could be a veteran presence on a young team, provide a left-handed power bat off the bench, offer some positional flexibility and possibly turn into a mid-season trade chip.
2025 Results
His seventh season with the A’s did not get off to a good start and he never really got going during the early part of the season. Only being deployed in a part-time role, Brown could never get into a groove in the batters box and it showed in his .185/.303/.262 slash line. The writing was on the wall and the club finally elected to move on from their most senior member of the team by DFA’ing him near the end of May.
And just like the year before, Brown demolished Triple-A pitching and earned his way back to the big league roster just a couple of weeks later. Unfortunately for him, an elbow injury put him on the shelf and the A’s would go on to place him on waivers just a few days later. Brown would elect free agency and go on to join his second career organization when he signed with the Arizona Diamondbacks. He’d play well for their Triple-A affiliate for a month but ultimately never got the call back to the big leagues.
2026 Outlook
Brown is currently a free agent during the winter for the first time in his career. The 33-year-old is free to sign anywhere he wants but he’s almost assuredly set to sign a minor league pact this offseason. He’s a positionally flexible player that has left-handed power so some team will pick him up as a depth option, but that team likely won’t be the rebuilding A’s.
