The Athletics cannot catch a break, and the joke writes itself.
Shea Langeliers, the A’s first-time All-Star catcher, went down Friday night with a broken hamate bone in his left hand. He is expected to miss at least four to six weeks. For a team that has spent the last two months of the season playing spoiler and building for 2027, losing their best offensive player is a body blow.
Langeliers was hitting .251 with 22 home runs and 61 RBIs when he got hurt. That is All-Star production for a catcher. He was one of the few reasons to watch the A’s in Sacramento this summer.
The A’s Injury Column Is a Nightmare
Langeliers is not the first key player to go down. Infielder Joshua Kuroda-Grauer was placed on the IL earlier this month with a testicle injury. Starter Luis Severino is dealing with elbow tightness. Reliever Mason Miller has been out for weeks with a lat strain.
This is a team that was supposed to spend 2026 developing its young core in a new city. Instead, they are running out lineups that look more like Triple-A rosters by August 1.
What This Means for the Trade Deadline
The A’s were quietly telling teams that Langeliers was untouchable. He is under team control through 2028 and was the centerpiece of the next competitive roster in West Sacramento.
The injury does not change that. He is not going anywhere. But it does mean the A’s are going to have to make some choices about veterans on expiring deals. Do you keep Miguel Andujar and hope Langeliers comes back and sparks a September run? Or do you sell him for a mid-level prospect and admit that 2026 is a lost year?
David Forst does not have a great answer.
Who Catches Now
Tyler Soderstrom is the natural answer. He came up as a catcher, and even though the A’s have used him more at first base, he can still put on the gear behind the plate. The problem is you lose his bat behind the plate on the days he does not catch, because his hands are not sharp enough anymore to catch four days a week.
Kyle McCann is the other option. He is a career .215 hitter at the big league level. That is not a solution. That is a placeholder.
The A’s are going to have to piece it together with a Soderstrom-McCann tandem and hope Langeliers gets back before September.
The Bigger Picture
This injury is a reminder of how thin the A’s roster is. When you lose your All-Star catcher and there is no obvious internal replacement, that is a rebuild problem, not an injury problem.
John Fisher is not spending on veterans. Forst is not making splashy trades. The plan is to develop through the system, and that plan requires the top players to stay healthy.
Langeliers will be back. The A’s will not contend this year regardless. But every week that Langeliers is out is a week the front office has to explain to a fanbase that has already been asked to accept a move to Sacramento why the on-field product is unwatchable.
Get well soon, Shea. The whole rebuild depends on it.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
