A’s Roster Moves: Langeliers called up, Piscotty released

This morning the Athletics announced a group of roster moves that promote some anticipated talent, as well as bid adieu to a 5-year Athletic.

The big news is that catcher Shea Langeliers has been called up from Triple-A Las Vegas. Shea came to the A’s as the centrepiece of the return on the Matt Olson trade with the Braves before the season started. Playing 92 games in AAA so far this year, Langeliers has hit 19 homers and slashed .283/.366/.510. Langeliers is Oakland’s highest profile prospect, ranked #54 by Baseball America before the season, and is currently #28 on MLB Pipeline’s list. There was also a MLB Futures Game appearance this year for Langeliers, including winning the Futures Game MVP Award.

The move to call up Langeliers doesn’t come as a surprise, GM David Forst had alluded to it happening just over a week ago. Langeliers’ addition to the major league squad likely means that Stephen Vogt will be shuttled to only 1B and DH appearances as Shea will take over backup catcher duties behind Sean Murphy. This move also solidifies the fact that Murphy will likely get seriously shopped around after the season, as Langeliers is the kind of talent that shouldn’t get relegated to backup duty.

The other big impact move by the A’s is the immediate release of Stephen Piscotty. A local talent who came to the Athletics via the St. Louis Cardinals. While Piscotty has had some high-impact and emotional moments with the A’s, he was only able to offer diminishing returns over the years in the stats column. Plagued by injuries year-after-year, Piscotty wasn’t able to play in over 100 games in any season past his first with the A’s. His 2018 season served as the high water mark for his potential, and nearly every major stat tracking stat would trend down annually over then next four years on his contract with the A’s. Needless to say, the A’s will be exercising their $1M buyout on the 2023 season with Piscotty, as he would have been due for $15M had the team kept him on the roster and picked up the club option.

Ramón Laureano is placed on the 10-day Injured List, retroactive to yesterday, with a strained oblique. This should be a pretty short stint for Ramón, who has stayed on the roster since re-joining the team after his suspension in May. With Ramón on ice, the outfield will likely look like Pinder/Stevenson/Bolt with some Seth Brown fill ins.

Speaking of Seth Brown, joining him at 1B is David MacKinnon, a trade deadline waiver claim from the Angels. MacKinnon had a month’s-worth of games with the Angels across June and July, and despite having lacklustre stats during that span David won PCL Player of the Week and Month honours with the Salt Lake Bees.