The Athletics hire 31-year-old Red Sox executive Taylor Smith to run baseball operations ahead of the move to Las Vegas

The Athletics have picked a new leader for the road to Las Vegas.

The A's named Taylor Smith president of baseball operations on Monday. The 31-year-old spent the last two seasons as a senior vice president and assistant general manager with the Boston Red Sox.

The hire comes two months after the team said general manager David Forst would not return next season. Forst had been GM since 2015 and with the organization since 2000. Assistant general manager Dan Feinstein has served as interim GM.

An analytics climb

Smith grew up in Woodstock, Georgia. He earned joint bachelor's and master's degrees in statistics plus a bachelor's degree in mathematics from the University of Georgia.

He started as an intern in the Los Angeles Dodgers' research and development department. He joined the Tampa Bay Rays in 2018 as an analyst focused on the amateur draft and player valuation and became their director of predictive modeling in 2022. In Boston he ran research and development, including analytics, sciences, systems and technology.

Smith said the A's pioneering work in the Moneyball era "opened the door to my own career in the game."

Owner John Fisher called Smith "one of the brightest minds in the game today." Senior advisor Billy Beane called him "a smart, creative baseball mind."

What he inherits

The A's went 64-98 this season in their second year at a Triple-A ballpark in West Sacramento, California. They will play one more season there before opening a new ballpark in Las Vegas in 2028.

Fisher pointed to a young core that includes Nick Kurtz, Brent Rooker, Shea Langeliers, Lawrence Butler, Tyler Soderstrom, Jacob Wilson and Henry Bolte.

Smith is the second Red Sox assistant GM in two years to leave for a top job. Paul Toboni became president of baseball operations for the Washington Nationals last fall.