OAKLAND, Calif. – Mark Kotsay has been hired to replace Bob Melvin as manager of the Oakland Athletics, a person with direct knowledge of the agreement said Monday night.
Kotsay is being promoted from third base coach to manager, taking over the club he played for as an outfielder in four of his 17 major league seasons. The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because no formal announcement had been made by the team. One is expected Tuesday.
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Melvin left Oakland to manage the San Diego Padres in late October. The 46-year-old Kotsay was most recently the A's third-base coach and formerly was a bench coach under Melvin, who came aboard midway through the 2011 season to replace Bob Geren.
Kotsay has demonstrated a great rapport with players and the ability to connect based on his long playing career. A first-round pick taken ninth overall by Miami in the 1996 draft out of Cal State Fullerton, the well-traveled Kotsay was a career .276 hitter with 127 home runs and 720 RBIs for the Marlins, Padres, A's, Atlanta, Boston, the Chicago White Sox and Milwaukee.
The A’s went 86-76 this year for third place in the AL West and missed the playoffs following three straight postseason berths.
Oakland won the AL West during the pandemic-shortened, 60-game 2020 season following consecutive wild-card finishes. In the playoffs, the A’s beat the White Sox in the wild-card round to stop a nine-game losing streak in winner-take-all postseason games — a major league record that dated to the 1973 World Series — before losing to the rival Houston Astros in a four-game AL division series.
The MLB Network first reported Kotsay's hiring Monday.
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