For years, the worst-kept secret in Main League Baseball was that the Oakland Athletics can be shifting out of Oakland. Regardless of quite a lot of completely different plans to build a new stadium, it appeared fairly clear that proprietor John Fisher by no means had any
intention of staying. He additionally didn’t present a lot curiosity in fielding a great
crew.
Fisher grew to become managing accomplice of the Athletics in 2017 and since
then, the crew has been – to place it kindly – one of many thriftiest within the Majors.
In actual fact, over the past seven years, the membership completed with the bottom or second-lowest
payroll 3 times. For 2023, the A’s had been lifeless final, with a payroll of simply over
$43 million. To place that into context, the New York Mets had the best payroll, over $334 million.
Along with not making an attempt to create a aggressive crew,
Fisher didn’t appear to care about making any upgrades to the Oakland Coliseum,
even when it meant folks had been encountering wild animals:
