The A’s have been the most active team in baseball when it comes to expanding young players over the past year and are still trying to ink a few members of their young hitters for long-term partnerships. In addition to their recent extension bid for the reigning AL Rookie of the Year Nick KurtzThe A’s have made some efforts to sign a catcher Shea Langeliersreports Jon Heyman of the New York Post.
Athletics general manager David Forst and his staff have reached long-term agreements with the outfielder Lawrence Butler (seven years, $65.5MM), shortstop Jacob Wilson (seven years, $70MM), outfielder Tyler Soderstrom (seven years, $86MM) and designated hitter Brent Rooker (five years, $60MM).
Langeliers, 28, is a natural extension but could also be harder to sign than many of his teammates. Unlike Butler, Wilson and Soderstrom, he has reached arbitration and commanded a significant one-year salary, agreeing to terms of $5.25MM for next season. With two more conflicts to come up before he hits free agency in the 2028-29 offseason, Langeliers could take home between $25-30MM in his three seasons of arbitration.
The Langeliers are also represented by the Boras Corporation, and although the narrative that Boras clients do not sign extensions is a little far-fetched, there is no denying that such occurrences are rare. As can be seen on MLBTR’s Contract Tracker, there have been only seven extensions of three years or more for Boras’ clients in the past decade. There were not any extensions for the players returned to Boras in the Langeliers service phase (between three and four years) who bought out the free agent seasons during that time (Contract Tracker link).
[Related: What would it cost for the A’s to continue their run of extensions?]
Acquired from the Braves in a trade that sent them Matt Olson to Atlanta, Langeliers has steadily improved his offensive profile each year in the majors. He’s coming off a breakout .277/.325/.536 batting line (132 wRC+) with a career-high 31 homers and a career-low 19.7% slugging percentage. Langeliers doesn’t travel a ton but is tied with Colorado Hunter Goodman second in home runs among all major league catchers in 2025 (trailing only runner-up AL MVP Raleigh). He also ripped 29 home runs in 2024, and his 60 home runs over the past two years ranked him only second among all catchers in that regard (again, behind Raleigh).
Defensively, Langeliers is somewhat lacking. He posted quality catch steal rates in the first few seasons of his career but dropped to a career-worst 15.6% in 2025. He’s improved on what were previously poor grades in foul play and framing, but Statcast still ranks average or slightly below average in both categories. The 2025 version of Langeliers wasn’t a liability with the glove, but he firmly established himself as the first option at the position.
Sifting through our Contract Tracker for extensions among the parties that have reached arbitration reveals a few notable findings. The Langeliers would probably not be tempted Alejandro KirkA five-year, $58MM deal at this point, and the A’s will likely refuse to lock him up for the $105MM ($99.4MM in new money) guaranteed that the Waters gave Raleigh. The man who changed behind the A-plate, Sean Murphysigned a six-year, $73MM deal that may be more than the Langeliers’ market value.
It’s not entirely clear if the Langeliers are capable of an extension, but it’s somewhat notable that they’re still working to get their key undrafted regulars locked up to long-term deals.
Beyond Langeliers and Kurtz, the A’s have no clear extension candidates. If they want to be particularly aggressive, they can run with high expectations Gage Jump again Jamie Arnold before he makes his MLB debut, though the latter has yet to even play in a professional game after being drafted with the No. 11 pick last summer, so that will be a conversation for next spring rather than this one. Jump, who turns 23 next month, was the No. 73 pick in 2024 and is now ranked as a consensus top 100 prospect. He bounced around between High-A and Double-A last year and should be in line to make his big league debut in 2026.
