Franchise altering deal transforms A's present and future

One of the biggest blockbuster deals and most dramatic and shocking trades in the history of the Philadelphia Athletics went down on Friday.

GM Matt Veasey sent superstar outfielder and longtime franchise icon Mike Trout, southpaw starting pitcher Julio Urias, and a trio of minor league prospects south to the Alabama Farmers.

In return, the A's received talented young pitcher Matt Manning and three first-round Minors Draft picks belonging to Alabama, including the first overall pick in this year's draft.

With that top pick, the Athletics are expected to choose teenage outfielder Druw Jones, son of A's Hall of Famer Andruw Jones. The A's also picked up Alabama's top pick in both 2024 and 2025.

Trout has been an iconic figure in Athletics franchise history, a starter in the outfield for the past decade. He won the 2012 WFBL Pete Rose Award as the league's Rookie of the Year and never looked back, becoming the franchise all-time leader in Hits, Runs, Home Runs, and RBI.

A six-time WFBL All-Star and winner of the club's Jimmy Foxx Award as the A's top offensive player a record five times, Trout was voted team captain by his teammates in 2014. In that role he helped lead the Athletics to five Owens/East Division pennants and a pair of WFBL championships.

It was on January 12, 2012 that GM Matt Veasey dealt a package of outfielders Desmond Jennings - who had been the WFBL's 2010 John Vukovich Award winner as the league's top prospect - and Mikie Mahtook, pitchers Martin Perez, Sonny Gray, and Jed Bradley, and a pair of Minors Draft picks to Rayne in exchange for Trout and pitcher John Lamb, both minor leaguers at the time.

The deal came almost a year after the club had acquired Bryce Harper as a prospect from Montreal, kicking off a rebuilding plan. On April 30, 2012, both Trout and Harper were promoted and inserted into the starting lineup at ages 20 and 19 respectively. The rest is Athletics franchise history.

Urias was the team's #2 starter a year ago and arguably the A's best starting pitcher this season. The 25-year-old was obtained from Boston after Veasey had pursued him from the Dawgs for at least two years. His inclusion in the deal was as important to Alabama GM Jeff Crisler as was Trout.

"Mike will go down as perhaps the greatest player in our franchise history," said Veasey. "This was a very difficult deal to complete. My stomach was turning the entire time during the negotiations of the package. In the end, we felt that this was too good a deal to pass up as we look to the future."

"Our fans expect us to win now as well. My message to them would be that we intend to keep that as our primary goal. Manning is a talent and should be in our rotation soon. We also expect to be getting Jacob deGrom back soon. And Bryce will be returning to our outfield before the season is over."