A Former Giants Outfielder Has All the Incentives He Needs to Join the Athletics This Offseason .MH
He’d be a great bat to have in reserve for the Athletics
The Athletics don’t need a ton of help offensively, and they certainly aren’t in the market to chase down extra outfielders to employ, but they could benefit from taking a look at longtime San Francisco Giants outfielder Mike Yastrzemski.
The A’s outfield mix has three solid starters in potential All Star and Gold Glove candidate Tyler Soderstrom in left, potential Gold Glover Denzel Clarke, and 20-20 man Lawrence Butler. That’s a solid trio, and they should be getting most of the starts for the A’s in 2026.
Behind them, they also have right-hander Colby Thomas and lefty Carlos Cortes, who could each serve as solid bench bats. Beyond even them, the A’s have DH Brent Rooker available in the outfield, while Max Schuemann is also a solid defensive option. They have options in the big leagues.
They also have options in the minors, with Junior Perez just being added to the 40-man roster last week, and Henry Bolte looking like a power/speed threat as he continues to develop in Triple-A.
So why would the A’s want Yastrzemski?
Why This Makes Sense
For starters, he’s a veteran, and the A’s could use a little more veteran presence in the clubhouse. Beyond that, he’s also a pretty solid baseball player, batting .233 with a .333 OBP and a 106 wRC+ this past season with the Giants and Kansas City Royals. In the final series of the season, the Royals were in Sacramento and he went 4-for-11 with two home runs, which also doesn’t hurt.
In his 50 games with the Royals, he was also able to take his strikeout rate from 23.1% with the Giants in 2025, down to 11.8%. The 19.4% strikeout rate he held over the entire campaign was the lowest he’s posted in his career. He also added a solid 17 home runs, swiped seven bags and finished with 2.4 fWAR.
That home run total is especially impressive, given his home ballparks. If he’d played all of his games in San Francisco last season, he would have finished with 10 dingers. In Kansas City, that number would have been 11.
But in Sacramento, the 35-year-old outfielder would have put up 22. Yastrzemski pulls the ball in the air with the best of them, and down the right field line at Sutter Health Park is just 325 feet. It’s 309 down the line at Oracle, but there is also a 25-foot wall blocking balls from entering McCovey Cove.
The production the A’s could get out of him could be more than any other club, given how the park plays. Defensively, he’s been roughly league average, but he’s also been manning much more difficult outfields that involve alleys of triples. SHP isn’t quite as difficult.
Plus, there is no guarantee that Denzel Clarke will be both healthy and productive, and this would give the A’s a little bit of Clarke insurance, just in case.
Why This Wouldn’t Work
The big reason this may not work could be the fit for Yastrzemski. He has been playing 140+ games when healthy, and if the A’s current outfielders are all healthy, then he may not have that same kind of role in the green and gold.
The other big hurdle here could be the money that he’s projected to receive. Tim Britton of The Athletic projected him for one year and $11 million, which seems like a solid valuation for a two-win player, but given the A’s self-imposed limited financial resources, that money could end up being spent elsewhere.
It’s also tough to nail down if he’d enjoy playing in Sacramento, where he has spent a little time in the Giants organization, or if he’d be fully against that with a different club.
This all said, one of the biggest positives going for the A’s to lure him to Sutter Health could be that his best friend Tony Kemp has been part of the A’s broadcast team. Getting to hang with your buddy while playing on a competitive team in a quirky ballpark that also has memories for him could be enough of a package to sell him, if the A’s are interested.
