The A’s have been the most active team in baseball when it comes to extending young players over the past year and are still trying to ink a few members of their young core of hitters to long-term deals. In addition to their recent extension offer to reigning AL Rookie of the Year Nick Kurtz, the A’s have made some efforts to sign catcher Shea Langeliers, reports Jon Heyman of the New York Post.
Athletics general manager David Forst and his staff have reached long-term deals with 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 fairly natural extension candidate but also could be tougher to sign than many of his teammates. Unlike Butler, Wilson and Soderstrom, he’s already reached arbitration and commanded a notable year-one salary, agreeing to terms on a $5.25MM for the upcoming season. With another pair of arbitration raises looming before he reaches free agency in the 2028-29 offseason, Langeliers could realistically take home between $25-30MM over his three arbitration season.
Langeliers is also represented by the Boras Corporation, and while the narrative that Boras clients don’t sign extensions is a bit overstated, there’s no denying that such occurrences are rare. As can be seen in MLBTR’s Contract Tracker, there have only been seven extensions of three or more years for Boras clients over the past decade. There haven’t been any extensions for Boras-repped players in Langeliers’ service class (between three and four years) that have bought out free agent seasons in 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 the trade that sent Matt Olson to Atlanta, Langeliers has steadily improved his offensive profile each year in the majors. He’s fresh off a breakout .277/.325/.536 batting line (132 wRC+) with a career-high 31 homers and a career-low 19.7% strikeout rate. Langeliers doesn’t walk a ton but tied with Colorado’s Hunter Goodman for second-most home runs among all big league catchers in 2025 (trailing only AL MVP runner-up Cal Raleigh). He also ripped 29 home runs in 2024, and his combined 60 round-trippers over the past two years give him sole possession of second place among all catchers in that regard (again, trailing Raleigh).
Defensively, Langeliers is somewhat lacking. He posted quality caught-stealing rates in the first few seasons of his career but dropped to a career-worst 15.6% in 2025. He improved upon what were previously poor grades for blocking balls in the dirt and framing pitches, but Statcast still ranked him average or slightly below in both categories. The 2025 version of Langeliers wasn’t a liability with the glove, but he’s pretty firmly established himself a bat-first option at the position.
Sorting our Contract Tracker for extensions among catchers who have already reached arbitration reveals a few recent comps of note. Langeliers probably wouldn’t be enticed by Alejandro Kirk‘s five-year, $58MM deal at this juncture, and the A’s would presumably balk at locking him in for the $105MM guarantee ($99.4MM in new money) that the Mariners gave to Raleigh. The man he replaced behind the plate for the A’s, Sean Murphy, signed a six-year, $73MM deal that might be more in the ballpark of market value for Langeliers.
It’s not entirely clear whether Langeliers is amenable to an extension, but it’s somewhat notable that they’re still working to get their most prominent unsigned regulars locked up on long-term deals.
Beyond Langeliers and Kurtz, the A’s don’t have any clear extension candidates. If they want to be especially aggressive, they could take a run at top pitching prospects Gage Jump and Jamie Arnold before either makes his MLB debut, although the latter has yet to even pitch in a professional game after being drafted with the No. 11 overall pick last summer, so that’d probably be a discussion for next spring rather than this one. Jump, 23 next month, was the No. 73 overall pick in 2024 and now ranks as a consensus top-100 prospect. He was excellent between High-A and Double-A last year and should be in line to make his major league debut in 2026.
