For the last few years, the Oakland A’s didn’t get a lot of offense out of the catcher position. Hitting isn’t the most important thing for a catcher, but it’s nice when you can get it and it was clearly an area with potential for upgrade on an A’s roster that didn’t have many weaknesses.
Oakland already had one answer coming in 2020 with top prospect Sean Murphy, but they acquired another big bat to pair with him when they picked up Austin Allen from the Padres in the Jurickson Profar trade.
Allen is unproven in the majors, but he hit 20+ homers in each of his last three minor league seasons and slugged .