Athletics fire pitching coach Scott Emerson, name Dan Hubbs interim replacement

The Athletics announced that pitching coach Scott Emerson has been dismissed, ending a tenure that began in June of 2017. Bullpen coach Dan Hubbs has been named interim pitching coach for the remainder of the campaign.

What happened

Per the club's announcement, Emerson was let go and Hubbs moves into the role immediately. Emerson had originally joined the staff as bullpen coach before receiving the pitching coach title in June of 2017, when the club dismissed Curt Young. He held the position through a stretch of Athletics baseball that included genuine contention, a full rebuild, a relocation to West Sacramento, and a 2026 season that has not gone well by any measure.

Hubbs, stepping up from his bullpen coach duties, inherits the role with the interim designation attached — the club's language makes clear this is a for-the-rest-of-the-season arrangement rather than a permanent promotion.

Why it matters

Moves like this during a lost season are easy to read as housekeeping, but the timing and framing carry some weight. The Athletics are 64-98, eliminated from both the division race and the Wild Card race, and playing out the string in West Sacramento as part of the club's planned move to Las Vegas. Relieving a pitching coach with roughly two months left in a season already decided in the standings is less about this year's results and more about what the organization wants its coaching infrastructure to look like going forward — or, at minimum, what it no longer wants it to look like.

MLB Trade Rumors notes that assigning blame to Emerson is genuinely debatable, which is worth sitting with. Pitching coaches operate inside systems they do not fully control: the roster they are handed, the ballpark they call home, the organizational philosophy around development. The club's announcement does not offer a stated rationale, and MLB Trade Rumors is careful to frame the tenure as "mixed" rather than as a clear failure.

The numbers

The split in Emerson's tenure is stark enough that it almost tells two different stories. From 2018 to 2020, Athletics pitchers posted a collective 3.88 ERA — sixth-best in the majors over that span, per MLB Trade Rumors. The club made the playoffs in all three of those seasons and was pitching out of the Coliseum, a ballpark MLB Trade Rumors characterizes as pitcher-friendly. That is a meaningful qualifier: environment shapes ERA, and the Athletics were operating in a favorable one.

From 2021 to 2024, the collective ERA climbed to 4.60, a figure that ranked better than just four teams across the majors, per MLB Trade Rumors. That is a significant deterioration, though the context shifted just as dramatically: the club missed the postseason in 2021 and then entered a full rebuild, shedding the kind of roster depth that would challenge any pitching coach's ability to post competitive numbers. Whether the 4.60 reflects the staff's direction, roster construction, the end of the Coliseum era, or some combination of all three is, as MLB Trade Rumors puts it, fair to debate.

What is not debatable is where the current season stands. The Athletics sit at 64-98 (.395), fourth in the AL West, 17 games back in the division, and ranked 11th in the Wild Card race at 20.0 games relative to the cut line. The pitching staff has been part of that story.

Where the club stands

At 64-98 (.395), the Athletics are eliminated from the division race and eliminated from the Wild Card race. They are fourth in the AL West, 17 games back, and have dropped their last two games heading into this week. The schedule ahead offers no particular relief: they host the Washington Nationals at Sutter Health Park on Friday, July 17, with Gage Jump projected to start opposite Cade Cavalli, and again on Saturday, July 18, with J.T. Ginn lined up against Zack Littell.

Those matchups will be among the first opportunities to see Hubbs operating in his new capacity, for whatever that is worth in a season already decided. The club is temporarily sharing Sutter Health Park as part of the transition tied to the planned Las Vegas move — a detail MLB Trade Rumors notes without elaboration, but one that underscores how much is in flux for this franchise beyond the pitching coach's office.

What we don't know yet

The announcement does not address whether Hubbs is a candidate for the permanent role beyond this season, or whether the club intends to conduct a broader search. MLB Trade Rumors does not offer a stated reason for the timing of the dismissal — why now, with roughly two months remaining, rather than at season's end. It is also unclear whether any other staff changes are connected to or anticipated alongside this one.

The "interim" designation is explicit, but interim arrangements in baseball have a way of resolving in either direction: some become permanent, some end quietly when the season does. Nothing in the material points toward either outcome here.

What to watch

The most immediate question is how Hubbs manages the pitching staff through the final stretch of a difficult season. With Gage Jump and J.T. Ginn scheduled to start this weekend at Sutter Health Park, the next few days will offer an early look at whether anything changes operationally under the new arrangement — though two starts against the Nationals are a limited sample for drawing conclusions.

More broadly, the Athletics' offseason decisions around their staff will be worth monitoring. A club in the middle of a relocation, with a 64-98 record and a pitching staff that posted a 4.60 ERA over a four-year stretch per MLB Trade Rumors, will have real decisions to make about the coaching infrastructure it wants to carry into Las Vegas. Whether Hubbs is part of that picture, or whether the interim role is simply a bridge to a larger reset, is a question the material leaves open.

For now, Dan Hubbs has a bullpen to manage and a rotation to guide, and the Athletics have a season to finish. The standings are not going to change. The staff's direction just did.