We have ended our Oakland Futility Watch for the 2024 season, and we won’t continue it when the team plays its home games in Sacramento (or Reno or Salt Lake City) over the next three seasons before debuting in Las Vegas come 2028. But we have to point out a serious data point that flies in the face of the ignorant fans and mediots who keep clamoring for Oakland Athletics owner John Fisher to sell the team: 50 wins.

That’s the number of games the A’s won last season in a year where the team was in decent danger of setting an all-time record for fewest wins in both league and team history. So, it’s key to note that the team that everyone claims is trying to lose just posted its 50th win of the 2024 season on August 11. That’s right: what took the team 162 games to accomplish last year, it has achieved in just 119 games this season. Fact.

Oakland posted a winning month (15-9) in July 2024 for the first time since July 2022, and now the A’s are 13-8 since the All-Star break after taking a road series in Toronto over the weekend. The Athletics posted just a .309 winning percentage last year on their way to being outscored by 339 runs. This season? The team is playing .420 ball while only being outscored by 69 runs so far. That projects to minus-94 runs in 2024.

We call that improvement! Not enough to suggest Manager Mark Kotsay deserves any AL MOTY vote consideration … no. This is about organizational philosophy that has been pretty consistent in Oakland since the A’s franchise moved here in 1968. Fools who ignore history are doomed to fall into fallacy traps like false analogies, red herrings, and slippery slopes. Those who rely on facts for information do better.

Don’t celebrate the A’s just yet, however: they won’t be moving to a big TV market any time soon, and they still play in a division with two franchises who have had to cheat their way to their first-ever World Series titles in the last handful of seasons. But the Athletics organization is trending up the point it will be a hot ticket (no weather puns intended) when it arrives in Sin City come March 2028—just as we have said.

If the A’s finish the 2024 regular season with a .420 winning percentage, that means they will have improved 18 games over their 2023 performance. That’s stunning on several levels, and the talent is present—and in the pipeline—to get this team closer to .500 in 2025. After that, it’s going to play winning ball, regardless of the cheaters in the division, and then comes playoff competitiveness by Vegas time. Bet on it.