Departures the A's Will Miss in 2026

The Hartford product is entering his tenth season in MLB and is coming off a super impressive stint with the A's in 2025. He opened his season making Boston's rotation as their fifth starter, and would pitch to a 3.95 ERA in 41 innings.

The A's would bring back Newcomb via trade on May 27th, as he pitched for the team in both 2023 and 2024, and landed with Boston in free agency last winter. When he rejoined the A's, he would be a full-time bullpen guy, making a few longer relief outings, but would eventually become a higher-leverage reliever.

Becoming a high-leverage reliever would work out well for Newcomb. He'd finish his 2025 with the A's, posting a 1.75 ERA in 51 1/3 innings pitched. Notably, he struck out 50 opposing batters, while walking just 14. Newcomb was one of the big reasons that the A's bullpen was among the league's best in the second half of 2025.

Newcomb is now a free agent, and is a good option for teams looking for a high-leverage left-hander. Because of his success with the A's, expect the team to remain interested as free agency gets going, but if he signs elsewhere, it'll be a huge blow to the A's bullpen.

When Athletics on SI spoke with him in September, Newcomb mentioned that he would prefer to start, if given the choice, which could add a wrinkle to his free agency.

Michel Otañez

In a roster move earlier this week, the Texas Rangers claimed a pair of A's players, including Michel Otañez. The righty pitched in parts of two seasons for the Green and Gold, and the flamethrower was one of the better A's bullpen arms in 2024, but unfortunately spent most of his 2025 season injured.

Otañez posted a 3.44 ERA in 34 innings for the A's in 2024, and had 55 strikeouts, which is good for a 14.6 strikeouts per nine. These numbers are very impressive for a guy who had no big league experience heading into 2024.

He would finish 2024 with a 96th percentile fastball velocity (97.8), an elite xERA of 2.49 and an expected .150 batting average against. With the advanced statistics completely in his favor, he looked like a perfect breakout candidate for the 2025 season.

However, Otañez would only pitch 5 1/3 innings in 2025 due to injuries and would spend the rest of his season in Triple-A, where he struggled in 17 innings with Las Vegas. Michel Otañez has a whole offseason to be fully ready for the 2026 season, but he won't be doing it in the A's organization.

Otañez will join the Texas Rangers' bullpen mix as an exciting arm, assuming he stays healthy. It's an especially tough pill to swallow for the A's because the Rangers are division rivals, meaning the A's could end up facing Otañez multiple times this season.

If Otañez can return to full form in 2026, he'll surely make the A's regret trying to outright him off the 40-man roster, which ultimately allowed the Rangers to swoop him up.

Willie MacIver

Willie MacIver served as the A's backup catcher to Shea Langeliers for a large portion of the 2025 season. Although his numbers didn't necessarily stand out, his personality in the clubhouse will be a huge loss.

Because of how important Langeliers is to the A's lineup, a backup catcher will only ever really play every third game to rest his legs, meaning they don't need their backup catcher to be an amazing hitter.

The energy that MacIver brought to his A's team could've also been a factor in the team's success in the second half of the season, and he also delivered some clutch moments for the team, and was quickly becoming a fan favorite.

MacIver batted .186 with 8 extra base hits, 9 RBI, and 7 runs scored in his 102 at-bats with the A's this season. Now, he will head to the Texas Rangers camp alongside Michel Otañez to fight for a spot on their Opening Day Roster. Although the A's might not miss his bat, his personality in the clubhouse will be a huge loss for the team moving forward.

The A's also lost José Leclerc, Ben Bowden, and Anthony Maldonado to free agency. None of these guys really pitched too many innings for the A's or had much of an impact in the bullpen. Leclerc is the only one who's had success in the big leagues at this point, and he only pitched 9 innings with the team this year before suffering a season-ending surgery.

This means the A's actually paid Leclerc over $1 million per inning pitched this season, and he posted a 6.00 ERA during his 9 innings of work.

Even though it seems like some of these losses could hurt the A's heading into 2026, they'll have a whole offseason to add new players and fill the holes to hopefully improve once again next season.