A's evaluating candidates to fill GM vacancy left by David Forst's departure

What happened

The Athletics are evaluating candidates to fill the general manager vacancy created by David Forst's departure, per MLB.com's Martín Gallegos. No appointment has been announced, and the search remains ongoing.

Why it matters

A GM search is never just a personnel transaction — it is a statement about organizational direction, and for a franchise that finished 64-98 (.395) in 2026, the direction question carries some weight. The person who eventually fills this role will inherit a roster that spent much of the season navigating significant injury disruption, a farm system in various stages of development, and a front office structure that now has a conspicuous vacancy at the top of its baseball operations hierarchy.

Forst's departure leaves the Athletics without the institutional continuity that tends to anchor long-term roster construction. Whoever steps into that chair will need to get oriented quickly — the offseason calendar does not pause for organizational transitions, and the Rule 5 draft, free agency, and 40-man roster decisions all arrive on their own schedule regardless of who is holding the title. The machinery of the offseason is indifferent to vacancy signs.

There is also a broader organizational context here. Per Posterior Wire reporting from earlier this week, the Athletics' 2026 offense slipped to 20th in scoring after injuries to several key players opened playing time for younger hitters. That development functions simultaneously as a setback and as an audition — and evaluating what that playing time revealed will be among the first substantive tasks the incoming GM faces. The numbers from a difficult season are not just a record to explain; they are a scouting report on the roster's next chapter.

The numbers

The Athletics finished 4th in the AL West, 17 games back in the division, and ranked 11th in the Wild Card standings at 20.0 games relative to the cut line. They were eliminated from both the division race and the Wild Card race, closing the year at 64-98 (.395) on a two-game losing streak.

A record like that does not arrive without context, and the context here is well-documented. The injury attrition that reshaped the lineup created a season that was, depending on your vantage point, either a difficult year or an extended developmental opportunity. The incoming GM will need to decide which framing is more useful — and then act accordingly.

Where the club stands

At 64-98 (.395), the Athletics closed out the 2026 season in fourth place in the AL West, 17 games behind the division leader. Their Wild Card positioning ranked 11th, 20.0 games from the cut line. The club enters the offseason on a two-game losing streak, eliminated from both postseason paths, and now without a general manager to lead the response.

That combination — a difficult season in the standings, a roster that absorbed significant injury attrition, and a front office vacancy at the top of baseball operations — means the incoming GM will be making consequential decisions almost immediately. The offseason is not a waiting room. Free agency opens, arbitration clocks tick, and the 40-man roster requires attention before the Rule 5 draft arrives. All of that happens whether or not the GM chair is occupied, which is precisely why the pace of this search matters.

What we don't know yet

The search is described as ongoing, with the Athletics evaluating candidates. No timeline for a hire has been reported, and no appointment has been announced.

A few days removed from earlier Posterior Wire reporting, the Athletics' GM search had advanced to include Brewers assistant general manager Matt Kleine and Cardinals assistant general manager Rob Cerfolio among the candidates being considered. That same report noted that Cerfolio was expected to remain in St. Louis — a detail that, if it holds, would narrow the field. Whether additional names have entered consideration since then has not been reported by Gallegos or MLB.com.

The full scope of the candidate pool remains unclear. Whether the Athletics are considering internal candidates, pursuing other external names beyond those already reported, or moving toward a decision on one of the known candidates is not yet established in the reporting.

What to watch

The most immediate question is whether the Athletics move toward a hire before the offseason's early deadlines begin stacking up. A prolonged vacancy at the GM level tends to create organizational friction at exactly the moment when clarity is most useful — and a 64-98 team has a great deal of work ahead of it regardless of who is making the calls.

The Kleine candidacy is worth monitoring given that the search was described as advancing in reporting from earlier this week. His background as an assistant general manager with the Brewers — an organization that has consistently operated as a model of front-office efficiency relative to payroll — would represent a particular kind of organizational philosophy arriving in the Athletics' building. Whether that profile matches what ownership is looking for has not been reported.

The 2026 season offered a complicated set of inputs for whoever takes the job. The offense's slide to 20th in scoring, per earlier Posterior Wire reporting, came alongside the playing time that injuries forced the club to extend to younger hitters. The incoming GM will need to assess what that exposure revealed and decide how aggressively to build around those younger pieces versus addressing the roster more broadly.

That is, in the end, the job description: look at a 64-98 team, determine what is worth keeping, identify what needs to change, and begin making moves before the rest of the league establishes too large a head start. The Athletics are currently looking for someone willing to take that on. Per MLB.com's Martín Gallegos, the search continues.