Forst hopes to find gem in Andujar waiver claim

This story was excerpted from Martín Gallegos’ A’s Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

Last November, an under-the-radar waiver claim of Brent Rooker landed the A’s an eventual All-Star slugger. About a year later, they're looking to strike gold again with a similar move. Earlier this week, the A’s claimed third baseman/outfielder Miguel Andujar off waivers from the Pirates.

It wasn’t long ago that Andujar enjoyed a breakout 2018 campaign with the Yankees that saw him finish runner-up to Shohei Ohtani in American League Rookie of the Year voting. Since then, however, he has been unable to replicate that level of performance, dealing with both injuries and defensive struggles.

Andujar did show some encouraging signs of recapturing some of that form this past season by slashing .338/.404/.536 with 16 homers, 30 doubles and 86 RBIs in 103 games with Triple-A Indianapolis. Those strong numbers in the Minors earned him a big league opportunity with the Pirates, which he responded to by slashing .302/.351/.528 over 17 games in the final month of the regular season.

A’s general manager David Forst, who met with Andujar’s agent at the annual GM Meetings in Scottsdale, Ariz., this week, spoke highly of the 28-year-old.

“He had a fantastic year at Triple-A for the Pirates,” Forst said. “This is still a young man. He obviously was highly regarded when he came up with the Yankees. It’s a hard place to come up in New York and a lot of attention was paid to his defense at the time and whether he could play third base. I think we believe he’s still a Major League hitter.

“He’s done a nice job transitioning to the outfield. He played both left and right field in Triple-A last year. He’s played some at first base as well, which is a nice option to have because we’re very left-handed at first base between [Ryan] Noda, [Seth] Brown and [Tyler] Soderstrom. I think the bat is a really good fit for us. It’ll remain to be seen where he fits overall on the roster. But there’s a lot of people here who believe he is a Major League hitter.”

Here are some other topics Forst touched on while speaking from the GM Meetings:

On discussions at the Meetings: “I think our priority is to understand what the options are for us as far as the Major League roster is concerned. [Assistant GM Dan Feinstein] and I have both had a lot of conversations with a lot of clubs. We’ve also had conversations with agents about free-agent players. … I don’t know that any of that will move quickly, but this is always a good opportunity for us to lay the groundwork and make sure we understand the player landscape out there.”

On if adding pitching is a priority: “Starting pitching is just about everybody’s priority here. You talk to other clubs going into the winter and everybody is looking for pitching. It’s no different for us. I am happy with the progress we made in the pitching area, particularly with the starters. We talked after the year about what [JP] Sears, [Ken] Waldichuk and Luis Medina did. Seeing [Joey] Estes and [Joe] Boyle pitch the last couple of weeks was exciting.

“I do like the progress we’ve made as a pitching staff. I think we will explore more options, though, for bringing in starting pitching. It’d be nice to have someone with experience who can throw innings. I’ll take the talent that we have and, hopefully, augment that in whatever way possible. But pitching is certainly a subject of a lot of our conversations happening right now.”

On deciding whether to add veteran-type players vs. letting younger players develop at the Major League level: “We have to be open-minded in our situation in terms of bringing players in, and getting free agents to come here, while also allowing for our young players to continue to develop without putting too much on their plate at once. I know those are sometimes contradictory thoughts, so I think we need to balance them.

“Clearly, the position player group here made progress in 2023. Some of these guys are certainly ready for big league at-bats. But I also want to make sure we don’t put too much on their plates right now. We’ll balance those things as we go into both the trade and free agent markets.”