Athletics Name Brewers' Cam Castro GM Before Sacramento Move

The Oakland Athletics hired Cam Castro as general manager, pulling him from Milwaukee's front office as the franchise builds infrastructure for a three-city, four-year migration. Castro joins a $1.9 billion Las Vegas stadium project that won't open until 2028, meaning his first three seasons unfold in Sacramento's minor-league park.

Castro spent seven years in Milwaukee's baseball operations group, most recently as assistant general manager. He was part of the front office that kept the Brewers competitive on a $132 million payroll—22nd in MLB last season—while Oakland ran a $63 million roster, second-lowest in baseball. The Brewers made the playoffs in four of Castro's seven seasons; Oakland has not had a winning record since 2021.

The hire matters because it's the first executive decision that belongs entirely to the Las Vegas era, not the Oakland wreckage. Owner John Fisher has spent two years dismantling the major-league roster, trading away Starling Marte, Matt Chapman, Matt Olson, and Sean Murphy for prospects while attendance cratered. Castro inherits a farm system ranked 18th by Baseball America, a revenue model built on revenue-sharing checks rather than gate receipts, and a temporary home where capacity tops out at 14,000. He also inherits no baseball president above him—Fisher fired David Forst's title up to president of baseball operations in 2023, then didn't replace the GM seat until now. Castro reports to Forst, who reports to Fisher, who has not held a public press conference in Oakland since 2019.

The timing is functional, not symbolic. Spring training opens in six weeks. The Athletics need someone running amateur scouting ahead of the 2025 draft, someone negotiating arbitration cases with a roster full of pre-free agency players, and someone sitting in Sacramento planning how to evaluate talent in a ballpark where right field is 320 feet and the afternoon sun bakes the visitor dugout. Castro's Brewers background suggests comfort with constraints. Milwaukee has not had a top-ten payroll since 2012. Their player development system ranks seventh in baseball by FanGraphs' prospect surplus value model, and they've survived five years of small-market economics without a teardown. Castro was in the room for those decisions.

What he wasn't in the room for: a relocation. No MLB general manager has been hired explicitly to manage a franchise through a move since the Expos became the Nationals in 2005, and that front office had a city and a stadium waiting. Castro has a AAA park in Sacramento for three years, a Vegas stadium that exists only as architectural renderings, and a fan base that doesn't exist yet. The Las Vegas tourism economy runs on 42 million annual visitors, but building a season-ticket base from scratch requires locals, and Nevada has 3.2 million residents total. The Athletics averaged 6,400 fans per game in Oakland last season, worst in baseball since the 2004 Expos.

Castro's first decisions will be visible in February, when arbitration cases settle and the 40-man roster gets finalized. He inherits starting pitcher Paul Blackburn, closer Mason Miller, and outfielder Brent Rooker—three players with surplus value who could be traded if another team offers controllable talent in return. The Athletics have $40 million in committed payroll for 2025, leaving room to add, but Fisher has not spent above the luxury tax threshold in his 18 years of ownership, and the team cleared $30 million off the books by non-tendering players in November. Castro's mandate is development, not acquisition.

Watch the draft. Castro's first amateur class gets selected in July 2025, and those players form the core of the Las Vegas inaugural roster in 2028. Milwaukee's draft record under Castro includes Garrett Mitchell (2020, first round), Eric Brown Jr. (2022, second round), and Jacob Misiorowski (2022, compensatory pick), all of whom project as big-league regulars. The Athletics have seven picks in the top 100 next summer, including the seventh overall selection. How Castro deploys those picks—college bats for speed, high-school arms for ceiling, or safe college pitchers for depth—will define whether Las Vegas opens with a playoff roster or another rebuild.

Fisher has committed $380 million in public funding and $1.2 billion in private equity to the Vegas stadium. He has not yet committed to a payroll above $100 million.