Mark Kotsay spent much of his first spring training as a big-league manager fielding questions about all that was lost.
Kotsay, hired Dec. 20 to replace Bob Melvin as the 19th manager of the Oakland A’s, surely realized his team would be dramatically different from that of his predecessor. Speculation was rampant of a looming roster reset at the behest of owner John Fisher, an overhaul designed to rid the team of large salaries while attempting to restock a depleted farm system as the A’s await a stadium deal in Oakland or elsewhere.
Sure enough, executive vice president Billy Beane and general manager David Forst carried out Fisher’s wishes. The payroll was slashed to approximately $32.5 million — a figure that 11 current major league players (not teams) are scheduled to meet or exceed in terms of 2022 salary.
Yet when Kotsay steps into the dugout Friday for the A’s season opener at Philadelphia, negativity will not be allowed.
“I think you prepare for a season with the mindset that there won’t be change,” Kotsay told reporters in Arizona. “And once change happens, you do your best to manage it and understand the direction it will take you, and in the end, you’re better for it.”
The message from the first day of a truncated spring training following the end of a 99-day owner-imposed lockout has been about opportunity. The spring trades of mainstays Matt Olson, Matt Chapman, Chris Bassitt and Sean Manaea mean there are some jobs up for grabs.
The same goes for free agency losses such as Mark Canha and Starling Marte.
“I think everyone in that locker room knows there is opportunity in front of them,” Kotsay said. “I don’t think that group needs lifting up. We focus on our preparation for the season. This happens in this game.”
Opportunity also knocks for Kotsay. A first-time manager at 46, he’ll be viewed as a miracle worker if he can replace a manager as respected as Melvin and somehow field a competitive team with many new faces and little major league experience.
“I’ve said for a long time, Kots is a manager,” said Chad Pinder, a rookie in 2016 when Kotsay joined the A’s as a coach. “I’m really excited to have the opportunity to play for him in his first year and just get out there and battle for him.”
Kotsay has stressed establishing an identity in the early part of the season, but is light on specifics other than emphasizing alert base-running and maintaining some semblance of power even without Olson and Chapman at the corners.
The goal is to take a perceived negative — the loss of established players — and treat it as a positive. Kotsay will insist on what he calls “grit,” and not accept excuses.
“We’ve been through a lot in a short amount of time with change, and change is very difficult,” Kotsay said. “Not everyone embraces change. There’s a lot of fear behind it. We’ve taken the mentality that when things started to happen, we’re going to take a next-man-up mentality.
“I think this group in there has taken an identity that it doesn’t matter who’s here. We’re here together and we’re going to go compete to win.”
Melvin, for one, thinks Kotsay is up to it. Kotsay was on Melvin’s staff for six years and offered continuity and familiarity when his boss left Oakland to manage the San Diego Padres.
Five assistant coaches were retained and three new coaches were hired, including bench coach and former major league manager Brad Ausmus.
“I feel so good that Mark Kotsay gets to manage here because he’s ready to do it as well as he has a history with the organization and a history with me,” Melvin said on A’s Cast before Sunday’s game between his current and former teams.
When Kotsay came to the A’s under Melvin, the A’s won 69 games. They won 75 in 2017, then back-to-back seasons of 97 wins as young talent including Olson and Chapman came of age.
Eric Byrnes, a former teammate on the A’s, sees Kotsay as the ideal replacement for Melvin.
“He’s inheriting a team that’s picked to finish dead last and has no expectations, but I also think that’s not a terrible way for him to break in because he’s not going to have the pressure of winning a hundred games,” Byrnes said in a phone interview. “He’ll be able to go out and teach the game and develop a lot of the players they’ll be bringing up. I can’t think of a better guy to lead the A’s into the next phase.”
For 11 seasons with the A’s, Melvin was the calm amidst the storm, fostering personal relationships with players while at the same time making their respective roles clear behind the scenes. He rarely lost his temper in public, and seemed to always have a solution without pretending to have all the answers.
Kotsay’s dugout and clubhouse persona will take shape as he goes, and while he watched Melvin closely, he’ll make his own way.
“You don’t understand the magnitude of a position until you get into it,” Kotsay said. “BoMel handled this position with an easiness about it. The experience helps, but the intricacies of how he prepared for games really helped me in my own preparation and I thanked him for that.”
Kotsay played 17 major league seasons for seven teams, hitting a career-best .314 for the A’s in 2004, playing with enthusiasm and an edge.
Byrnes, who played alongside Kotsay in left field for two seasons, said of his former teammate, “His overall feel for the game was as good as any player that I’ve ever been around. You could tell, this was something he wanted to do. He was going to be really good at it.”
As a young player with the A’s, Byrnes arrived with a penchant for rifling throws at full speed to the infield. A tweak at the urging of Kotsay resulted in a dramatic improvement and 11 career-best outfield assists in 2004.
“He pulls me aside and says, ‘Look dude, if you just take a little bit off and get a little bit of arc in it, you’re going to throw out so many more guys at third and home because you’re giving them a chance to make the play as opposed to a short-hop or something else,’ ” Byrnes said. “I had more assists that year than I ever had. Those are the things he brings to the table.”
Kotsay has faced most of the situations that his players will deal with and is still just nine years removed from a playing career that ended in 2013.
“There are times when I’ve had conversations with him about my role and being a guy that comes off the bench,” Pinder said. “He’s played in so many facets of the game. He’s been on both sides of the game. But the one thing that’s always consistent is his energy and what he brings to the field each day.”
Chances are Kotsay will be less subtle than Melvin if he’s not getting what he wants in terms of mental and physical commitment. Kotsay’s father was a 25-year police veteran, and he once told the San Diego Union-Tribune “the law was upheld in my house, and if it wasn’t, then it was disciplinary actions.”
In his first installment of “The Mark Kotsay Show” he told host Chris Townsend:
“There’s going to be some tough love. This group, they’re in there grinding, and that’s what I’ve always asked. Just go out, give an effort. We’re not going to be embarrassed. We want to play the right way. If we get beat, we get beat.”
Staff writer Alex Simon contributed to this story.
