Forst admits worry for A’s players amid Vegas ‘distraction’ originally appeared on NBC Sports Bayarea
With just 10 wins to their name, the Athletics are off to a historically bad start to the 2023 MLB season across its first two months.
And as ownership makes plans for a potential move to Las Vegas for the franchise, general manager David Forst is trying to keep the ship straight in Oakland.
While bills for new stadium funding agreements in Nevada make headlines, Forst told reporters Saturday that Las Vegas news doesn’t affect the front office’s day-to-day functions. He does, however, consider how it might impact A’s players.
“These guys are focused on what happens on the field, and so are we as a baseball operations group. [A’s president] Dave [Kaval] has been working for years and years and years on [Vegas]and he continues to work on it, but it’s not something we focus on day to day,” Forst said.
“… That stuff is obviously ongoing — we all see it, we all hear it. There are times when I worry about the players having to deal with the distraction. They don’t need that. They have enough to focus on , and they have to worry about getting their stuff done on the field. But for the rest of us, it’s easy to focus on the team on the field and not on that stuff.”
Oakland’s 10-40 start to the season was the worst in MLB in nearly a century, and the A’s now sit at 10-45 after their 10-1 loss to the Houston Astros on Sunday at the Coliseum.
The A’s matched the 1932 Boston Red Sox and 1897 St. Louis Browns for the fourth-worst 50-game start in major league history, per ESPN, ahead of only the 1897 Louisville Colonels at 7-43, and the 1899 Spiders and 1904 Washington Senators at 9-41.
“I mean, it’s hard to describe how things have gone,” Forst said. “This is not what anybody imagined. It’s frankly hard to explain. It’s a little bit of a perfect storm of a lot of inexperience and young players combined with a lot of veteran players not playing to their expected level. Throw in a bunch of injuries and you sort of get where we are right now.
“I don’t think anyone’s having a ton of fun, frankly.”
RELATED: Making sense of what A’s Vegas renderings, public funding mean
There have been bright spots, however, and Forst said the A’s are focusing on positives like individual at-bats, outings and achievements. He also applauded manager Mark Kotsay for keeping the teams’ spirits up throughout the rough start.
“I think Mark’s done an incredible job at staying positive and trying to motivate these guys through a situation that I don’t know anybody else has been through,” Forst said.
Between the team’s potential relocation and its on-field struggles, Forst’s assessment of the situation in Oakland is fair. It’s unprecedented territory for many, and the A’s are making the most of it by focusing on what they can control.