Last season the A’s endured a baffling 1-20 stretch that turned a team that was 2 games over .500 into one that, by early June, was buried in the AL West. In the post-mortem, A’s GM David Forst expressed regret that the A’s had waited so long to address the bullpen (a huge part of the meltdown) and other flawed areas (Denzel Clarke was summoned on May 23rd to end the JJ Bleday Experience in CF).
Fast forward to May, 2026 and the A’s find themselves with a worse record than the 22-20 they held when the über-swoon started but also in a better position in the standings: though only .500 at 18-18 they stand alone in 1st place in a division mired in mediocrity so far.
It won’t last, though. 81 wins is not going to win the AL West or even the 3rd wild card. The cream will rise and the sludge will fall and it is incumbent upon the A’s not to reprise their role of sludgemasters in May-June 2026. So far they are 1-4 in May, but they don’t have to sit around and do nothing again for too long hoping it isn’t the beginning of a contention-ending skid.
Already we have seen some minor signs of the A’s willing to be more proactive. Jonah Heim has been brought in, presumably to replace Austin “.077/.143/.077” Wynns as the back up catcher. The bullpen carousel is spinning but only so far to the tune of replacing one wild reliever, Tyler Ferguson, with another, Brooks Kriske.
The question is whether the A’s will choose now — relatively early, but last year showed it’s easy to wait too long and effectively end your season with 100 games still to play — to make some bolder moves. Here are some choices…
1. Take the plunge with Lawrence Butler
The A’s have committed to Butler long-term and clearly believe in his abilities, but the reality is that by and large Butler is falling apart and it’s not good for him or the team for him just to continue spiraling. He had a week or so where he made better contact, unfortunately with particularly terrible batted ball luck, but mostly he has just really struggled.
He is now at .176/.276/.284, 56 wRC+ for the season, and that’s on the heels of a disappointing .203/.268/.351, 70 wRC+ last season after the 2025 All-Star break. That’s a 91 game sample with about a 65 wRC+ thanks to around a .190 BA and .271 OBP. He has also made a habit of getting picked off and running the bases like he doesn’t know how many outs there are — his head is not in the game and that’s part of the spiral.
In the outfield, Butler is simply badly miscast as a CFer. When he plays RF he’s fine, actually even above average, but in CF he gets terrible reads and jumps, takes poor routes, and simply does not have the sprint speed to overcome. Last night the A’s gave away the first run as a result of having Butler in CF and it’s just the latest example. This is not his fault, it’s just a reality: he’s a RFer, period.
The problem is, the A’s have a LH batting RFer who is producing at three times the level of Butler and that’s Carlos Cortes. Even with his 0 for 3 last night, Cortes enters play today batting a robust .372/.437/.615, 191 wRC+ with impressive BB and K rates of 9.2% and 8.0% respectively.
“The plunge” here would be to option Butler to AAA, getting him out of the spotlight, giving him a reset, and asking him to work on and address weakness, opening up an opportunity for the A’s to improve their outfield both offensively and defensively. How? Here’s how:
2. Call up Henry Bolte to play CF
Recent performance suggests Bolte might be ready for a call up. Bolte’s biggest issue has been strikeouts, but in May so far he has struck out just 3 times in 25 plate appearances. His other vice has been an inability to pull fly balls with success, but last night he not only launched a HR to LF it was, apparently, the longest HR of the season, anywhere.
For the season now Bolte, 22, is batting .295/.376/.518 which, in the hitter-friendly PCL, gives him a 115 wRC+. But his hitting performance comes with benefits: he is an elite base stealer, 15 for 16 this season, 44 for 46 last season. He would add a speed element to the A’s lineup that they generally lack.
As for Bolte’s CF defense, it’s hard to pinpoint where he’s at. Grady Fuson recently opined he was better suited to the COF, whereas Bolte told me in spring training CF was where he felt most comfortable. He makes too many errors and has a plus throwing arm, and his scouting report on MLB Pipeline says, “Bolte’s elite speed translates both on the basepaths and in the outfield, where he’s viewed as a strong defender with a good arm and capable of handling all three spots well.”
My sense? If you’re ranking defensive CFers from 1-10 where JJ Bleday is a 1 and Denzel Clarke is a 10, Butler is maybe a 3 and Gelof perhaps a 7, and Bolte likely would settle in as around a 5 or 6. Offensively, one would expect him to struggle out of the gate (as Clarke did) but he has far more potential with the bat than Clarke comes with.
This would give you a regular outfield of Soderstrom-Bolte-Cortes, with Clarke (when he returns) coming in for late inning defense to replace Cortes (Bolte moving to RF). Colby Thomas can still platoon against LHPs, maybe starting half the time for Soderstrom and half the time for Cortes.
The additional benefit of this outfield arrangement is it frees up Zack Gelof to play 3B, where he could be the every day starter or eventually give way against some LHPs to Max Muncy. If Gelof can hit even at league average level — which the recent indicators suggest might be possible — then as a steady defender (with a weak arm) he becomes an upgrade over the Muncy-Hernaiz options.
Now you have a solid defensive outfield and a solid defensive infield, and this primary lineup looks pretty solid (I lead off Kurtz because I know the A’s will, not because it’s smart):
Kurtz – 1B
Langeliers – C
Soderstrom – LF
Rooker – DH
Cortes – RF
Wilson – SS
McNeil – 2B
Gelof – 3B
Bolte – CF
Bench: Thomas, Muncy (when back) or Hernaiz, Clarke (when back), Heim
Could Gelof and Bolte be black holes at the end of the lineup? Possible. Should we expect to roll our eyes at a string of strikeouts as Bolte acclimates to big league pitching? Yes, that’s liable to happen whenever he’s first called up. But this is a solid defensive unit with plenty of hitting and much more speed and athleticism. And arguably Butler needs anything from a breather to a wake-up call.
3. Fortify the bullpen with proper pieces
The A’s have two glaring problems right now in the bullpen. One is that they lack a LH reliever who excels at getting LH batters out. This is a significant deficit considering how many teams have a pair of LH batters who are among the team’s best hitters but who are not as strong against LHP. On the A’s that’s Nick Kurtz and Tyler Sodesrtrom, on the Phillies it’s Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper, and on most teams it’s two batters whom a LH specialist will face in a 3 batter span.
The other problem is that one of the few relievers throwing well is Luis Medina, but he is cast as the team’s long reliever, which means the A’s are hesitant to use him in high leverage situations for fear they will need a long reliever the next day. Calling up a true “long man” allows the team to play around with Medina in higher leverage, be it a 2 inning bridge role or even finding his calling as a set-up man. Right now his usage is also so sporadic it’s not helping with his already known control difficulties: he has walked 7 in 12.2 IP but he has also only thrown 12.2 IP all season.
I don’t know what the A’s see in Brooks Kriske (32 BB in 39.1 career MLB innings), but if they want someone who is too wild but also strikes out a ton of hitters and is a lefty specialist, they should swap Kriske out for Matt Krook (9.2 IP, 15 K at AAA).
A long man is not hard to identify as it can be any SP you are willing to have sit around a bit rather than getting a start every week at AAA. Candidates would be Mason Barnett, Joey Estes, or Kade Morris (not currently on the 40 man). Or if bumped from the rotation, Jacob Lopez or JT Ginn.
Note: I’m not suggesting any of these moves have to happen today. What I am suggesting is that they may need to happen before June 1st because as we know, you can’t win a post-season berth in May but you sure as hell can lose one.