A's Luis Severino Reiterates That he Doesn't Like Pitching in West Sacramento

It seems as though every time A's ace Luis Severino plays a team from New York, juicy quotes for the baseball masses follow. Severino spent the first nine years of his career pitching in New York, the first eight with the Yankees, and then last season with the Mets. Both clubs visited him in West Sacramento earlier this season.

Now it's Severino that's visiting his old teammates. This time around, the veteran right-hander reiterated some of his old talking points to The Athletic, saying, "It feels like a spring training kind of game every time I pitch, and every time other guys pitch." He also mentioned that the A's don't have as many fans in the stands as he's used to. "You don't feel the same energy."

The A's signed Severino to the richest guaranteed contract in franchise history this season at three years and $67 million. It was a very targeted amount of money for the franchise to hand out, as it beat the previous record (Eric Chavez at six years, $66 million) by $1 million.

Severino has been terrific on the road, holding a 2-1 record with a 2.27 ERA, compared to the 6.79 ERA and 0-7 record he holds at home. Those splits have led to at least one other team keeping an eye on Severino as the Trade Deadline nears.

Now, it could simply be a coincidence of timing, given that the A's play the Yankees in New York this weekend, while the reports of other teams being interested in him also circulate, but it does seem to be good timing for Severino to potentially push the club to trade him.

The trouble with that would be that he was signed to a statement contract. The statement from the organization was that now that they have officially left Oakland, things would be different. They are now willing to spend money. By trading him, many baseball fans would see that as an admission that these are just the same old A's, doing what they always do.

It's certainly a tough spot to be for the front office, because they may be able to recoup some value by moving Severino and eating some of his contract, but the PR nightmare may not be worth it, even if he doesn't necessarily want to be in West Sacramento.

The problem is, the things that he's mentioned as factors that make it difficult to play in Sacramento aren't really fixable. The clubhouse is going to be down the left field line because there just isn't space for it anywhere else. They could potentially install an air conditioning unit in the dugout, but again, space could be an issue.

Fans on social media have asked whether potentially trading him would have any impact on the reports that the MLBPA could file a grievance against the club for not spending enough on payroll. Now, it depends on what the exact number is that they have to hit, but it was guesstimated to be around $105 million. The A's payroll is currently estimated at $116 million.

With Severino making $20 million this season, and the A's being halfway through the year, the most that could be removed from the books here would be $10 million in a potential deal, which would keep the A's above the spot they'd need to land--and that's if they ate zero money on his deal.

Moving forward to next season, he's owed $25 million, and even if they took that entire sum of money away (unlikely in order to up the return), Brent Rooker would be set for a $4 million salary increase, while Mason Miller, JP Sears, Shea Langeliers, Ken Waldichuk and JJ Bleday would all be hitting their first years of arbitration. That will also bump up the payroll a bit.

The A's could spend money in free agency or hand out another extension to close any gap that still exists from the Severino deal, though they'd also be losing José Leclerc's $10 million salary, along with a couple of smaller contracts as well.

It's unknown if Severino is trying to talk his way out of town, or if he's just chatting with some familiar faces that happen to be journalists in New York. Either way, the A's front office is going to have offers coming in for Severino over the next few weeks, and it's unclear if they're even open to moving him.