2025 Athletics Season In Review: Tyler Ferguson

We’re doing back-to-back relievers today. After taking a quick peak at Angel Perdomo’s quick and brief time with the Athletics we’re examining an arm that has a bit more tenure with the A’s than Perdomo. Right-handed reliever Tyler Ferguson burst onto the scene last year as a rookie making 50 relief appearances for the Green & Gold. How would the righty do in his sophomore campaign with some more video and scouting reports now out on him?

How was he acquired?

Ferguson, a former 6th-round draft pick by the Texas Rangers way back in 2015, spent the first four years of his professional career in their system working his way up as a reliever. Originally a starting pitcher with Vanderbilt the Rangers almost immediately moved him into the bullpen after getting drafted and he didn’t immediately take to his new role.

By 2019 Ferguson would find himself out of MLB and in the Independent League, and then 2020 happened and cost him another year of development. By this time he was now 27 and still not getting all that close to the big leagues. He finally made it to Triple-A in the Braves’ farm system in 2022, and that’s where he’d stay for a couple years.

Though his minor league numbers weren’t anything special the A’s elected to bring him aboard on November 15th, 2023 on a minor league deal. A low-risk move, one that the front office has been attracted to during this rebuilding era of A’s baseball.

What were the expectations?

As mentioned above, Ferguson had yet to have much success in the upper minors. When he was brought aboard most fans probably didn’t know anything about him as he was 30-year-old minor league free agent who had yet to make his big league debut. The front office saw something in the righty that all of us missed though and they’d hit on Ferguson. Brought up at the start of May last year, Ferguson would remain with the club the rest of the season as the rookie became one of manager Mark Kotsay’s most-used and trusted options. In his first taste facing major league hitters the right-hander posted a very solid 3.68 ERA in 48 games, the fourth-most appearances on the team last year.

Now set to enter his second season as a 31-year-old expectations were raised for the sophomore right-hander. The team saw relievers Austin Adams (56 appearances in ‘24) and Scott Alexander (45 games) depart the team with the belief that Ferguson could make up some of that. He would begin the year as one of the top right-handed setup options behind closer Mason Miller, and it wouldn’t have been a shock to see him get some save opportunities here and there.

2025 Results

His second big league season didn’t go as well as his rookie campaign. He started well with a strong April but when the calendar turned to May Ferguson started to get hit hard. After the strong start to his season he allowed 25 runs (!) in just 20 1/3 frames during May and June, prompting the team to send Ferguson to Triple-A to try to fix himself in a less-pressured environment. Ferguson was one of the primary culprits behind the relief unit’s early-season struggles.

That demotion to the minor leagues went about as well as one could have hoped. The short stint with the Aviators seemed to do just the trick after he dominated in nine games in Triple-A. After a month in the minors the team brought him back to the big league squad at the start of August and he looked like a different pitcher the rest of the way. He made it into 20 games and put up a terrific 1.57 ERA while being a big part of the second-half improvement in the bullpen, ending his season on a high note and hopefully setting himself up for a big 2026. He’d finish the season with a 4.66 ERA in 56 games, which was second on the team.

2026 Outlook

As the relief unit is currently set up Ferguson should again be a critical piece of the puzzle for Mark Kotsay. While he’s got four career saves he really belongs more in a middle relief role but he’s likely the primary setup man as of now. The club could do worse but adding a more experienced arm and moving Ferguson down the pecking order would do wonders for the bullpen unit as a whole. The late-bloomer has mostly held his own in the big leagues though he’ll be 32 next season and we shouldn’t expect a sudden breakout, but he’s still set to be a major member of the 2026 A’s bullpen.