Should the Oakland A’s trade Brent Rooker?

The Oakland A’s are 34-58 on the season, 15 games out of the AL West, 16.5 back in the AL wild-card race and on pace to lose 100-plus games for the third straight year. That’s the bad news. The good news isn’t necessarily great, but this year’s club certainly feels a lot more competitive than last year’s. Hell, they just split the season series with the Baltimore Orioles 57-33. They have just one losing record against two American League teams, the Cleveland Guardians (1-2) and Houston Astros (0-3), and the Toronto Blue Jays are the only other team with a .500 record against. their.

On July 7 of last season, the A’s record was 25-65 and they were on pace to win 45 games. This year, they are on pace for a 60-win campaign, or a ten-game improvement from where they finished in 2023. Their run differential at this time last year was -240, while they are at -89 this season. Having a negative run differential isn’t ideal, but it’s a drastic departure from where the club was not too long ago.

All of this brings us to a pretty big question: how active should the A’s be at the trade deadline. The goal for this club must be to become competitive soon, perhaps the idea is to hit their stride by 2028, when they hope to open a new stadium in Las Vegas. Right now, the team is looking at which players will be with the organization long term.

Is Brent Rooker one of those players?

After having a better first half than he did when he was considered an All Star last year, Rooker’s name has already been mentioned in trade rumors. The question is not whether other teams are interested (as they are in Mason Miller), but whether or not he will be moved (as with Mason Miller).

Rooker is a top-12 hitter in baseball with a 153 wRC+ (100 is league average), which is better than Bobby Witt Jr. (151), better than Rafael Devers (150) and Carlos Correa (148), and even in behind Yordan Alvarez (157), Freddie Freeman (157) and Mookie Betts (158). He is a top-tier hitter in baseball who flies under the radar.

With the A’s not contending for a postseason berth, it would make sense for them to explore trade packages. At the same time, given that Rooker still has three more years of team control on him, there’s no rush. A’s general manager David Forst can afford to wait on a potential trade until he likes it.

That said, Rooker is 29 years old, and if the team decided to keep him around for a big opening in Las Vegas, they would first have to re-sign him and turn him into one of their players basic to move on. He would also be in his age-33 season in 2028, and even if he had been superb up to that point, there would be questions, as there are for all 30-year-old players, about how long he could continue. .

The most likely scenario is that a trade offer comes in and does the trick to get a deal done this month, but Oakland doesn’t need to rush that to happen either.

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