Our MLB Monday miniseries concludes this month with a look at the 2026 (homeless) Athletics, who have regressed from their promising 2025 campaign where they finished 76-86. This year, the A’s were in first place among American League West Division teams deep into late May before suffering a lot of injuries and all but giving up on the season. As the season winds down for those teams not in pennant races, we want to note since June 26, when the team was 40-42 in spite of the injuries, they’ve all but died.

The sadsack A’s have gone just 13-42 in the last two months-plus, although we note the myriad number of injuries to young offensive stars on this team in 2026: we still are on a few teams press-release email lists from our days covering MLB for CBS and its various regional affiliates, and the weekly injury report came into today for the Athletics. It’s stunning to behold in all its glory:

  • 1B Nick Kurtz (60-day IL): Right thumb strain
  • C Shea Langeliers (10-day IL): Right knee meniscus tear
  • OF Brent Rooker (60-day IL): Left knee articular cartilage surgery
  • OF Tyler Soderstrom (60-day IL): Left hip impingement
  • SS Jacob Wilson (10-day IL): Left shoulder subluxation
  • INF Joshua Kuroda-Grauer (10-day IL): Testicle rupture and repair

Five of these guys have significant achievements to their name: Kurtz won the AL Rookie of the Year vote last season, while Wilson finished second. Langeliers made his first All-Star team this year and has a combined 10.1 WAR the last three campaigns. Rooker was an All Star in 2023 and 2025 while finishing tenth in the AL MVP vote in 2024 and winning the Silver Slugger that year. At age 24, Soderstrom has earned 6.5 WAR combined the last two seasons (2025-2026). That’s some serious lost talent there.

We tossed in Kuroda-Grauer to illustrate the ridiculousness of this injury bug, not only for the absurdity of his injury but also the fact he had posted a 1.019 OPS in his first 16 games in the majors this year as an age-23 rookie. How many injuries can a no-market, low-payroll team endure before just cratering? This information holds the answer to that trivia question, for sure. The Athletics were in first place on May 26, and they are now 16 games out of first place, in a very bad AL West Division, to be clear.

Kurtz, Langeliers, and Soderstrom are the top value-earning position players on the roster this year, combining for 10.2 WAR in limited action, overall, and a lot of their actual games played were impacted by the lingering injuries before it became too much for them to take. Injuries are a part of every sport, and they’re not excuses for why teams do not win; the A’s pitching staff is a joke (5.43 ERA), and the team probably wasn’t going to stay in first place all summer even with this sextet of hitters staying healthy.

But … still. As one of our childhood friends joked, “With that IL, does it mean Stomper will be playing tonight?”

Quite possibly, A’s fans … quite possibly. When age-32 utility player Donovan Walton is now starting for the Athletics too often, you know it’s been a shit-hits-the-fan year. This is a guy who was out of the majors entirely in 2023, has played for five different organizations since 2019 to the tune of just 0.7 career WAR, and was claimed off waivers from the Los Angeles Angels in mid-July. For the record, his 1.0 WAR and 69 games played this year represent career-best marks for Walton, so props to him, indeed.

Anyway, y’all get the point. Forget the bullpen woes, too, as even without all the blown saves, this team still wouldn’t have made the playoffs in a division where an 81-win season could be enough to secure that third seed in the AL playoffs. However, what this all does suggest is that the team will be healthier next year, and perhaps the Athletics will have enough talent to compete for the postseason once again when they hit Las Vegas in 2028. The stadium is going up, and the team’s fortunes have to get better, right?

We have written before about the Athletics franchise cycles, from Philadelphia to Oakland. However, since the team’s last playoff appearance was in 2020, the A’s are getting close to matching that seven-year October dry spell from 1993-1999. We really don’t think MLB will “let” the organization into the postseason while playing its home games in Sacramento. Which means the team almost certainly will match that seven-year itch in 2027 before perhaps returning to postseason play its first season in Sin City.

That’s what we still expect.