Caught in between: Oakland A’s Mark Kotsay navigates baseball’s toughest managerial job (2024)

The Oakland Athletics were 3-16 when Mark Kotsay gathered his players for a team meeting. It wasn’t to discuss their historically bad start to the 2023 season, or the difficult road series that awaited them in Texas.

News had broken that, after 55 years in Oakland, the A’s had agreed to buy land in Las Vegas with an eye toward moving the franchise there by 2027. It put an already young and struggling team under even more intense scrutiny.

And Kotsay was the person every player looked to for answers.

“It was less of, ‘Hey guys, we’re going to get through this,’ because that wasn’t going to ring authentically,” said former A’s closer Trevor May. “What we responded to really well was, ‘Hey, this is happening. Here’s what’s going on. We’re going to keep you apprised of the situation so you don’t get blindsided.’

“He said, ‘At the end of the day, we’re just going to keep playing and doing our best to get ready to play. That’s all we can do right now,’” recalled May.

Rewind six years from that moment, back to 2017. The A’s had just announced their “Rooted in Oakland” advertising campaign, accompanied by a press release where the first sentence included a commitment to find a new ballpark in their home city.

The message was clear: The franchise wanted to stay. Commercials followed. So too did massive signs plastered around the aging ballpark’s outer perimeter.

“When they say, ‘Rooted in Oakland,’ that’s how I felt about taking this job,” Kotsay said this winter. “And still really how I feel.”

Kotsay, a Southern California native, played in Oakland for four seasons, as part of a 17-year major league career. He coached for the A’s for six years in various capacities. And now, the 48-year-old is entering his third season as the A’s manager. A man who has dedicated much of his professional career to a team and city that he loves faces the unenviable job of overseeing that team’s departure, shoved into the role of this chaotic organization’s most front-facing spokesman.

While team owner John Fisher and president Dave Kaval recede from public view, it’s Kotsay who speaks for them. It’s Kotsay who speaks for his players. It’s even Kotsay, at times, who speaks for the fans.

It’s a nearly impossible task. Land mines are lurking in every direction. He serves people who all view this team’s situation from different perspectives.

This has been the reality ever since that day last April when the land deal was announced. So, with no other choice, he gathered his team that day and gave it to them straight.

“I think what I’ve shown is that my character hasn’t changed,” Kotsay in an interview with The Athletic last week. “This being my 28th season at the major-league level, people have a clear picture of my character and what I stand for. I’m committed to this job. I’m committed to the players on a daily basis.

“When I go to bed and when I’m done with the day, that’s what I want to feel,” Kotsay continued. “I want to achieve greatness in this role. And I’m hopeful to have many more years to chase that and accomplish that.”

By nearly any measure, Kotsay has the hardest managerial job in baseball. It’s no secret that the A’s have always operated with a small budget. Even Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill could tell you that.

But payroll decreased from $83.8 million in 2021 to $47.8 million in 2022, as the organization relentlessly traded away its top players. Matt Olson was dealt to Atlanta two hours before Kotsay addressed the team at his first spring training in 2022; they shipped Sean Murphy to the Braves after the campaign ended.

Ownership has raised the cost of attending games while worsening the product on the field. As a result, attendance is dismal. And their continued existence in Oakland feels untenable.

The only semi long-term commitment the team has made, is, in fact, to Kotsay. His 2025 team option was picked up last year. The team doesn’t know where they’ll play games that season, but they do know who will manage them.

Kotsay’s job is to manage the unmanageable — a bad team with a complicated future, all while serving as a middleman between a city he loves and bosses who appear otherwise ambivalent.

“The 30 jobs, they’re not created equal,” said Dodgers manager Dave Roberts. “Given the history of the Oakland A’s, their storied history, and where they’re at right now in a state of flux — It’s one of the harder jobs in baseball. And Mark? He’s handled such a delicate situation brilliantly.”

Kotsay takes an active role in roster building. He spent a day last week in Oakland for meetings about this year’s draft. He is also a part of the front office’s recruitment of free agents.

It’s all given him a better perspective on the challenges of winning with the current iteration of A’s baseball. Beyond the day-to-day ups and downs, Kotsay’s 110-214 record is an unavoidable reflection of those challenges.

“Knowing how long it’s going to take to get that back to .500 or above,” Kotsay said. “Yeah, it’s painful.”

And not just for him. Kotsay said his 16-year-old son has a hard time with it because he’s on social media, where criticism proliferates alongside news articles with depressing headlines.

But no matter how involved he is, how is Kotsay supposed to fix any of this? How do the A’s convince players to sign with a bad Oakland team that, as of now, has no established home beyond next season?

“The one thing about Oakland is, you’re gonna get an opportunity,” Kotsay said. “If you’ve had some success or are coming off an injury, that does paint a good landscape for you to come in and build yourself back up.”

That sounds closer to a pitch from an independent league team, not a bona fide major-league franchise with a rich history of prosperity. But what else is the manager of the Oakland A’s supposed to say?

The A’s have signed three free agents this offseason, pitchers Osvaldo Bido, Trevor Gott and Alex Wood. They might not finish 50-112 again — Kotsay said expectations are higher in 2024 — but not much has been done to improve the roster.

Even if the outside world sees the A’s record as a product of their situation, for Kotsay, the losing remains personal.

“I can never shake that,” Kotsay said. “Our character gets challenged at times. It’s not easy. No one accepts losing. No one in that clubhouse was happy about last year or the previous season. You use that as motivation. People say you have to go through failure to get better. We’ve been through a lot of failure. I do believe there are better days in front of us.”

One of the reasons Kotsay has maintained credibility with the fan base and his players is a willingness to stray from the company line.

Last season, A’s fans held a reverse boycott. They filled the stadium in a choreographed effort to ferociously criticize A’s ownership. Kotsay called that night — a thrilling win in front of 27,579 fans — “a great memory.”

When asked at the Winter Meetings about the 30-0 vote from owners to approve the A’s move to Las Vegas, Kotsay called it “sad.”

“I think it’s sad for the community of Oakland,” he said. “Sad for not just the fan base, but also for the employee base that’s had a long history here in Oakland.”

That’s not to say that Kotsay is vocally and publicly critical of his bosses. In one breath, he can express appreciation for the reverse boycott. In the next, he’ll defend his bosses’ efforts to keep the team in the Bay Area. And it’s not contradictory. His perspective is nuanced. And it comes from a year of threading a very difficult needle. He said Fisher and Kaval have not instructed him on how to answer questions.

May, for example, retired following the end of the season after a nine-year career and harshly criticized A’s ownership after he was no longer in their employ. He said the situation ate at him all season. When it came to Kotsay, however, he had a glowing review, one echoed by other former A’s.

“The things he’s dealt with his first couple years, he’s crushing it,” said Guardians manager and former A’s catcher Stephen Vogt. “The guys love him. We all loved him. He’s the most hard-nosed competitor I’ve ever been around.”

Kotsay interviewed with the Mets this offseason. Even if he believes the losses are his responsibility, it’s clear that decision-makers across the game don’t hold him accountable.

The job that Kotsay’s done can’t be measured in wins and losses. His successes aren’t tangible, merely anecdotal. He’s told Fisher and Kaval that he wants to be with the A’s long-term, and see this transition to wherever it takes them.

“I’d love the opportunity to be a part of this organization when we turn this thing around and really have success,” Kotsay said. “That’s my goal.”

When the A’s do leave Oakland, he believes the team’s tenure there should be properly honored. Even amid this organization’s fracture with its hometown, Kotsay said it’s important to him that there’s a measure of amicability in its waning days.

Because for a man whose career is rooted in the A’s, baseball in Oakland is about more than just his job. It may be the hardest job in the sport, but there’s no place he’d rather be.

With contributions from The Athletic’s Zack Meisel.

(Top photo: Gregory Shamus / Getty Images)

Sam Blum is a staff writer for The Athletic covering the Los Angeles Angels and Major League Baseball. Before joining The Athletic, he was a sports reporter for the Dallas Morning News. Previously, he covered Auburn for AL.com and the University of Virginia for The Daily Progress in Charlottesville.