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 replacement 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) and was eliminated from both the division race and the Wild Card race, the direction question carries some weight. The person who fills this seat will inherit a roster in need of significant construction, a coaching staff already in partial transition, and a fanbase that has watched a difficult season conclude with the club sitting 4th in the AL West, 17 games back.

The front office vacancy arrives at the precise moment when the offseason's most consequential decisions — roster evaluation, coaching hires, player development priorities — are already accumulating on someone's desk. The longer the seat stays empty, the more those decisions queue up without a clear decision-maker at the top of the baseball operations structure. There is no graceful way to say that the organizational renovation is happening while the general contractor position itself remains unfilled, but here we are.

Who is being considered?

Per a Posterior Wire item from two days ago, the search has advanced to include Brewers assistant general manager Matt Kleine and Cardinals assistant general manager Rob Cerfolio among the candidates being evaluated. That same reporting noted that Cerfolio is expected to remain in St. Louis, which would narrow the field if that holds. Neither candidate has been announced, and the Athletics have not made any public statement about the timeline or the process beyond what Gallegos reported.

Both names represent the now-standard pipeline for GM candidates: experienced assistant general managers from other organizations, typically with backgrounds in analytics, player development, or both. The club has not publicly outlined what profile it is seeking, so the shape of the search remains largely opaque from the outside. The Cerfolio situation is worth watching closely — a candidate who is expected to stay put is, at minimum, a candidate the club cannot count on, and the field may shift accordingly.

The numbers

The Athletics finished 64-98 (.395), 4th in the AL West, 17 games back of the division leader. Their Wild Card ranking sits at 11th, 20.0 relative to the cut line — well outside the conversation by any measure. The club enters this offseason on a two-game losing streak, with both the division and Wild Card races officially closed.

Those numbers are the backdrop against which any incoming GM will be evaluated from day one. A 64-98 season does not demand explanation so much as it demands a plan, and the plan will belong to whoever takes this job. The incoming GM will not be graded on how the 2026 season went; they will be graded on what they do about it.

Where the club stands

At 64-98 (.395), the Athletics are 4th in the AL West and have been eliminated from both the division and Wild Card races. The streak sits at L2. The offseason is, functionally, already underway — and the front office structure that will navigate it is not yet complete.

The coaching staff has also seen recent changes. The Athletics parted ways with assistant hitting coach Chris Cron and quality control coach Marcus Jensen, moves reported across multiple outlets over the past week. Those departures leave additional vacancies on the staff that will presumably fall to the new GM — or to whoever is managing baseball operations in the interim — to address. A front office search and a coaching staff rebuild running in parallel is a familiar offseason posture for a club coming off a difficult year, but it does mean the organizational to-do list is long and the person who will ultimately own it has not yet been identified.

On the player side, right-hander Seth Johnson underwent left knee surgery and is targeting a return for spring training, per reporting from earlier this week. That is exactly the kind of roster health question that will land squarely in the new GM's inbox on arrival — a pitcher recovering from a significant procedure, a timeline to manage, and decisions about how that affects the broader construction of the pitching staff heading into next year. It is a meaningful early test for whoever takes the job, and it will not wait for the search to conclude at its own leisure.

What we don't know yet

The Athletics have not announced a timeline for the search, a finalist, or any formal process. The Cerfolio candidacy, per the earlier reporting, may already be cooling. Whether Kleine remains a serious candidate, whether other names are in the mix, and when the club expects to make a hire are all open questions as of this writing.

It is also unclear what authority is currently being exercised over baseball operations decisions in Forst's absence — whether an interim structure is in place, and who is making the calls that cannot wait for a new hire. The desk does not know, and it is fair to say the full picture of the internal process has not been made public. Gallegos at MLB.com has been the primary reporter on this story, and his coverage remains the most reliable thread to pull on as the search develops.

What to watch

The GM search will move at its own pace, but the offseason calendar does not pause for organizational housekeeping. Rule 5 draft eligibility, 40-man roster decisions, and the broader free-agent market all operate on fixed timelines that will arrive whether or not the Athletics have a GM in place. The club's ability to move quickly on those fronts may depend significantly on how soon this vacancy is filled — a new GM who arrives late to the offseason is a new GM who is already behind.

Watch for any formal announcement from the Athletics, and watch whether the Kleine or Cerfolio candidacies develop further or go quiet. If Cerfolio does stay in St. Louis as reported, the search may shift toward names that have not yet surfaced publicly. The desk will also be watching whether the coaching staff vacancies — Cron and Jensen's departures left real gaps — get addressed before or after a GM is in place, since the sequencing of those hires will say something about how the interim structure is functioning.

Martín Gallegos at MLB.com has been the primary reporter on this story, and his coverage is the place to track developments as they emerge. The Athletics have a considerable amount of organizational work ahead of them, and the person who will lead it has not yet been named. That is, in the most literal sense, where things stand.