LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — The A's continue to lay the foundation for a winning franchise by bringing in one of the architects for two perennial American League contenders.
Taylor Smith, a 31-year-old who impressed as assistant general manager with the Boston Red Sox, has been named the president of baseball operations. Smith will be charged with crafting the long-term vision for a team that is a year away from their final move to Las Vegas.
WATCH: Interview with A's president Taylor Smith
He tells Channel 13 the vision is to be "sustainably competitive."
"You want to be a team that is a legitimate World Series contender year-in and year-out," Smith said. "You need to do that in a way such that you are both making the current roster better while also ensuring the farm system is continually producing the level of talent to remain sustainable."
For the big decision makers in the hiring process, their goal was to find the right person who could make tough decisions and learn from failure.
"It is that decisiveness and understanding that you're not going to be right all the time," said A's owner John Fisher. "And a willingness to accept that and move on, learn from it and go forward."
The owner and president of baseball operations have to work hand-in-hand on shared goals and plans for the franchise.
I wanted to know if the team plans to be decisive in investing more money into their payroll in the near future. Fisher said that is the plan, and a big reason for the planned increase in payroll is the new ballpark being built in downtown.
Whether payroll is near the bottom or among the top spenders in the league, the key to winning in baseball is to stay ahead of the competition and to be on the cutting edge of analytics and player development.
"It's difficult. The arms race is getting more and more competitive every year," Smith said. "I don't think you have to look any further than which two teams are in the World Series right now to still see that it is possible to still realize a pretty major competitive advantage by better evaluating players."
Smith enters the front office for a team that finished the 2026 season with a 64-98 record, their fifth-straight losing season.
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