The Oakland Futility Watch for 2024 officially ends today, as the Oakland Athletics have a 46-66 record and probably will surpass last year’s 50-win season. The A’s just posted a 15-9 record in July, the franchise’s first winning month in two years, and as the organization gets closer to abandoning Oakland at the end of the current season, there is no more need for this miniseries on our website. We know, you will miss it a lot.

We last checked in more than a month ago, but we went to the Coliseum last night since the Athletics hosted the Los Angeles Dodgers—and our first MLB game ever was in October 1974 when the A’s hosted the Dodgers at this same stadium. We went to celebrate 50 seasons/years of baseball in the East Bay, and while L.A. fans made up most of the 35,207 fans in attendance on Saturday night, it was still fun to experience.

The Dodgers won the game, 10-0, after the Athletics won the series opener on Friday night, 6-5. With the Los Angeles payroll at $239M this year and the Oakland payroll at just $62M, it is already a “winning” series for the A’s. Earlier last week, the Athletics also went across the San Francisco Bay and took one of two games against the Giants and their $201M payroll. That’s what anyone likes to see in this crooked sport.

On Friday night, that payroll difference almost cost the Athletics a victory: they entered the ninth inning with a 6-2 lead over the Dodgers, but L.A. superstar Shohei Ohtani hit a 3-run home run against the A’s third-string closer (the top guy is on the disabled list, and Oakland traded away the second-tier guy earlier in the week before the trade deadline). It was dicey there for a moment, but the home team came through.

Again, the A’s are on pace for a 66- or 67-win season, which is a tremendous improvement over their 2023 season. The team has some talent on it to build around for its ramp up to Vegas in 2028, and the organization will continue to do what it has always done, even during the days back in Philadelphia (1901-1954). Even then, the ownership won big, stripped the team down, built it back up, and won big again.

It will be interesting to see how the team does as a vagabond franchise in 2025-2027 … and how that affects the team’s on-field success as it continues to rebuild the roster into a winner. Local A’s fans remember the stretch of years from 1997-2002, when Oakland improved its win total every year and ended up setting an all-time American League record for consecutive victories even after shedding talent and payroll. Fact.

That is what the organization is looking at now: improving every season going forward and arriving in Vegas with a winner. We see it happening, based on past precedent and current data. Ignorant and uninformed fans can continue to complain about it all, but it’s going to work for the A’s longterm, and true fans should be happy about that. We know MLB didn’t want Oakland in its ranks for the last 30 years, so …

Our watch is ended, again. But we always will keep an eye on the Athletics going forward. It’s in our blood.