October 19, 2026 - 7:44 am

The Athletics for decades have tried new ways to run a baseball team with an eye on the future. Just ask Billy Beane.

Now they’re going young — and back to the future.

The Athletics have hired 31-year-old Taylor Smith as its new president of baseball operations, the team announced Monday. He becomes one of the youngest — if not the youngest — general manager in the game.

His decisions in the next two seasons will directly shape the Las Vegas roster that will arrive on the Strip in 2028.

Smith has been described as an analytics wunderkind. He spent the past two seasons with the Boston Red Sox as assistant general manager and seven seasons with the Tampa Bay Rays.

“I couldn’t be more excited about Taylor as our president of baseball operations,” A’s owner John Fisher said in the release. “He is one of the brightest minds in the game today.

“We conducted a very thorough search for our new baseball leadership, and Taylor stood out for his acute understanding of the game, especially in the areas of measuring player performance and player development.”

The hire appears to be a throwback to “Moneyball,” the analytics-based strategy created 25 years ago by Beane, who is now a special adviser to Fisher.

Smith has quickly moved up the MLB ladder since graduating from the University of Georgia nine years ago. His forte appears to be analytics. He previously worked for the Rays as part of their research and development team for seven seasons prior to joining the Red Sox in 2024.

MLB.com reported that he oversaw the Red Sox’s analytics, sciences, systems and technology, leading the work with player acquisitions, development and baseball operations groups.

The Athletics plan to move to Las Vegas in 2028, when they are scheduled to open play at a new ballpark on the Strip. They finished 64-98 in 2026, fourth in the American League West and 17 games behind the division champion Houston Astros.

The search for a new general manager has taken a few twists and turns since David Forst agreed to part ways with the team, ending his 27-year run with the franchise. Assistant general manager Dan Feinstein has run the team on an interim basis.

Forst oversaw the team’s run to the playoffs three times during his 11 seasons as general manager, but the A’s won only one postseason series. Their best seasons under his leadership came in 2018 and 2019, when they won 97 games in each year. He built the core of the current roster, which includes rising stars Nick Kurtz, Shea Langeliers and Jacob Wilson.

The A’s reportedly thought they had their man last week in Sam Fuld, the president of business operations for the Philadelphia Phillies, but he turned down the Athletics’ offer to become the club’s president of baseball operations.

Before that, the Athletics interviewed or discussed the job with Mike Rizzo, the general manager of the Washington Nationals when they won the 2019 World Series and A’s assistant general manager Billy Owens and James Click, Toronto’s vice president of baseball strategy, according to USA Today.

Rizzo was the Nationals’ GM from 2009-2025 and was fired when they started last season 37–53. Owens, who has been a scout and coach since 1999, also had a formal interview.

Bill Bradley is Assistant Managing Editor/Sports at the Review-Journal. Follow him on X at @billbradleyLV. Contact Tony Garcia at tgarcia@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0307. Follow @TonyGLVNews on X.