The Oakland A’s face an offseason full of uncertainty, but laid down one foundational brick on Monday.
The A’s have found their next manager from within the organization as Mark Kotsay is set to take over the job after Bob Melvin — the winningest manager in Oakland A’s history — left for the San Diego Padres earlier this offseason.
The organization has not yet announced the hire, which MLB Network’s Jon Heyman first reported and this organization confirmed. Kotsay was the Oakland third-base coach last year, his seventh on Melvin’s staff. Leaving the Padres’ hitting coach job in 2014, Kotsay joined Melvin’s staff as the bench coach in 2015 and moved to quality control coach in 2017 before taking on third base coach duties.
Kotsay is an internal hire, which could save some money for a cost-conscious team, but there has been outside interest in him as he has interviewed to manage the Detroit Tigers, Houston Astros and San Francisco Giants in recent years.
The hire is one of few transactions the A’s can make this month as the league’s lockout continues. Teams cannot make any moves involving players after the owners imposed a lockout following the Dec. 1 expiration of the collective bargaining agreement with the players’ association.
The former infielder played 17 seasons in the major leagues with seven different teams, including a stint from 2004-07 with the Athletics.
