Former outfielder Mark Kotsay named new manager of Athletics
OAKLAND, Calif. — The Oakland Athletics named former outfielder Mark Kotsay their manager Tuesday to replace Bob Melvin, who departed earlier this offseason to manage the San Diego Padres.
Kotsay receives a three-year contract through the 2024 season, the team. That also includes a club option for the 2025 campaign.
Kotsay is being promoted from third base coach to manage the team for which he played in four of his 17 major league seasons — from 2004-07.
The 46-year-old Kotsay also served a stint as bench coach under Melvin, who came aboard midway through the 2011 season to replace Bob Geren.
Kotsay will be the sixth A’s manager spanning the past 36 years and the 19th manager in Oakland history.
The A’s went 86-76 this year for third place in the AL West and missed the playoffs following three straight postseason berths.
Oakland won the AL West during the pandemic-shortened, 60-game 2020 season following consecutive wild-card finishes. In the playoffs, the A’s beat the White Sox in the wild-card round to stop a nine-game losing streak in winner-take-all postseason games — a major league record that dated to the 1973 World Series — before losing to the rival Houston Astros in a four-game AL division series.
A first-round pick taken ninth overall by Miami in the 1996 draft out of Cal State Fullerton, the well-traveled Kotsay was a career .276 hitter with 127 home runs and 720 RBIs for the Marlins, Padres, A’s, Atlanta, Boston, the Chicago White Sox and Milwaukee.
