It is widely believed that one of the reasons Taylor Smith was the A’s choice for President of Baseball Operations is his strong resume around analytics and development, areas where the A’s have fallen woefully behind the curve.
Without a doubt Smith will be charged with making significant advances in how the Athletics, organizationally, scout, develop, and use available technology and data to inform not just decisions but development itself. Thing is, these improvements, however essential, are also
not highly visible.
We may hear about the acquisition not of a player, but rather a pitching analysis tool. We may read about the hiring of several new scouts, the expanding of a department, the key partnership with a lab or data analysis group. And while that will feel like progress, it isn’t the palpable improvement you would feel if the team signed Tarik Skubal to an 8 year deal.
If Smith wants to engage in the best optics he will make a splash directly on the field, the kind every fan can see, hear, and taste — the shrewd addition of the next Drew Rasmussen or Nick Martinez or Bryan Baker, all cast off by their previous organization with their talents not fully realized.
Moves involving the 40 man roster, the top 30 prospects lists, especially 2027’s 26 man roster, will have the best optics at least in the short term. A new hire trying to establish credibility and trust is often tempted to weigh optics more strongly than a secure veteran with street cred. Billy Beane presented poor optics when he dealt Tim Hudson and Mark Mulder away in the span of less than a week; he also didn’t care because he was confident that in the end his wisdom would be vindicated.
It’s quite possible that Smith’s best early moves will be a series of under-the-radar ones, reshaping and rebuilding, internally, how the A’s approach identifying talent and how they help young players to approach their potential.
In a perfect world you could even imagine that the pieces are already in green and gold, and that the task isn’t to identify better talent but rather to take Luis Morales and Jack Perkins, Luis Medina, and the group of fire balling relievers, and bring them to their 95th percentile ability on the mound.
We will find out soon because in all likelihood there will be no trade or signing activity from December 1st until close to whenever spring training might begin. This means that if Smith intends to be active in retooling the roster with an eye on competing in 2027, we will almost certainly see it play out in November.
For now, as we await the conclusion of the World Series, plus a 5 day waiting period, for transaction season to open, Smith is left to mull over to what extent he wishes to prioritize good optics or whether the best fixes, even if not the quickest ones, are less visible to the public eye.
Today I seek not so much your opinion on how Smith should balance the more visible optics with the less visible “infrastructure work”. Today I ask how you predict Smith will balance it. They are, potentially, two very different questions.
