Good morning A’s fans!
The reigning champion Los Angeles Dodgers lost last night, putting themselves into an 0-3 hole to the #1 seeded Milwaukee Brewers. This series was a battle between baseball’s highest payroll squad at $339 million and the sport’s 19th-ranked payroll. The fact that the Brewers are beating the Dodgers so handily goes to show that money doesn’t guarantee regular or postseason success (though it’s definitely easier to attain).
Meanwhile the Rays and Guardians are duking it out in the American
League and are bottom-dwellers among the sport’s spenders as well. If you were to combine the Rays, Guardians, and Brewers payroll, it still wouldn’t match the Dodgers’ payroll this season.
After two years it looks like Los Angeles’ time as champion is coming to an end and it’ll be a low-spending team that’s going to knock them off and be crowned the new World Series Champion. Will that affect the negotiations between the league and players this offseason as they strive for a deal? Or would both sides entrench even further and all but guarantee some lost games?
Either way, for now, the vast majority of baseball fans are ready to see a new team crowned champion. For the Guardians, it’s been 78 years since they’ve won it all. They just got their hearts broken recently in 2016 when they lost in extra innings in Game 7 of the World Series to the Chicago Cubs, who had an even longer championship drought, so for them it’d finally redeem their loss exactly 10 years ago.
As for the Rays and Brewers, neither of them have ever won it all. The Brewers are much older than the Rays as they’ve been around since 1970 compared to the Rays’ existence beginning in 1998, though the Rays already have them beat with two appearances in the Fall Classic (2008, 2020) compared to one for the Brewers (1982). If we end up getting a Rays-Brewers World Series, then one team will be hoisting the Commissioner’s Trophy for the first time.
While the World Series is getting closer and closer, MLB has begun it’s first round of announcing award nominees, beginning with the potential Gold Glovers this year. While the A’s had Luis Severino and Tyler Soderstrom as final three at their respective positions of pitcher and left field last year, there weren’t any A’s among this season’s nominees.
That’s not entirely surprising. The A’s haven’t had much luck in the defense department over the past few years, with Sevy and Sodey representing the sole Gold Glove nominees for the Green & Gold since 2022. With better health next year hopefully Soderstrom gets another nomination and gets joined by a teammate as well.
We got both LCS games going today, starting with the Rays and Guardians at 10 a.m. Have a great day everyone.
A’s Coverage:
- Pitching prospect Huggins growing his game with the help of this A’s Hall of Famer
- Phillies, Cubs executives reportedly among top Athletics GM candidates
- Fuld Rejection Offers Possible Clues To GM Search
- Matt Kleine, Rob Cerfolio Candidates In Athletics’ GM Search
- ’Be a sponge’: No. 19 prospect leads A’s Fall League group with do-it-all mentality
- Zack Of All Trades Tries To Get One More Win: In Court
- Important Dates For The Athletics This Offseason
- 12 A’s Players Out of Options Heading Into 2027
- How MLB’s Proposed Changes Would Impact the A’s
- A’s part ways with assistant hitting, quality control coaches
- After an outfield collision left him paralyzed, every gain in rehab is a big win for A’s Ryan Lasko
- Why 2027 Athletics Will Be Completely Different Team
- A’s Las Vegas ballpark cost rises to $2.1B, public funding delayed
- 2026: Year Of The “Didn’t See That Coming!”
- A’s Hoping Luis Severino Chooses to Stay
- Where the A’s Plan to Use Zack Gelof in 2027
- Drafting The Top AL Graduated MLB Prospects From 2026
- Devin Taylor: Athletics 2026 Minor League Player Of The Year
- Athletics 2026 MLB Draft Report Card
- Henry Bolte Is the A’s Next Budding Star
- Determining Athletics’ Offensive MVP for the 2026 Season
- Notes From Star-Studded Rockies-A’s Instructional League
- 2027 Infield Landscape Ever Changing
- “Fast Movers” Might Be Key To Contention
- Billy Beane comments on the job Mark Kotsay has done this season.
- Should Mark Kotsay return in 2027? A’s Players Weigh In
- What the A’s Hiring Mike Rizzo would Signal and the Questions it Would Raise
- Athletics Considering James Click For GM Vacancy
- Get the best of Athletics Nation on the new SB Nation app
MLB News & Interest:
- Clutch homers have Brewers 1 win away from 1st World Series appearance in 44 years
- 2026 Gold Glove Award finalists revealed
- Astros will not renew contract of manager Joe Espada
- Phillies hire Don Mattingly to 2-year deal as manager
- Chourio’s history-making 1st-pitch HR comes 1 year to the day after he did the same thing
- Updated Thursday start times: 1 ET (ALCS Game 3), 8 ET (NLCS Game 4)
- Guardians to start Gavin Williams vs. Rays’ Griffin Jax in Game 3
- White Sox To Pursue Starting Pitching This Offseason
- One stat from each farm system that caught our eye in 2026
- Previewing The Righty Relief Class
- He retired a decade ago, but Brewers wouldn’t be who they are now without him
- Phillies Not Retaining Kevin Long, Bobby Dickerson
- Today in Baseball History
Best of X:
AFL update:
Some love for a prospect in the AFL:
It’s been 20 years since the Athletics last played in an ALCS game:
Should the A’s bring Heim back?
Another point in favor of no salary cap:
Would you want the A’s to go after Dave Roberts?
Okay, this is good:
