Fairly big news out of Jack London Square today:

Giles had been largely responsible for the subscription-style “A’s Access” plans that supplanted traditional season tickets, as well as other OOTB marketing ideas.

Next time you see Chris Giles he might be slinging a guitar instead of a bat

My immediate thought is that Giles was getting good feedback around baseball (and perhaps other sports) about how well A’s Access was implemented. He then saw a nice consulting opportunity coming out of that. His work, in the COO role, is more-or-less done for now. If Howard Terminal gets approved, which likely won’t be this year, Giles would be waiting like the rest of us for the next big steps. Chief Operating Officer was, for the A’s, created for Giles, so if Giles is replaced, I could see the A’s filling from within the organization or choosing not to replace Giles at all. Ron Leuty’s SFBT summary suggests that the A’s have a deep bench if the need arises.

Even if I were a huge Howard Terminal supporter, I wouldn’t be too concerned about the loss of Giles or some of the other organizational losses over the last few months. The A’s are, after a long period of running lean, growing a much larger sales and marketing side of the business. Some attrition is to be expected. As I’ve been saying throughout 2019, we haven’t hit the really difficult obstacles yet. Save your fretting for when those come up.