The Yankees Season Heads To The Sewer

The New York Yankees' 2019 season heads to the sewer this week...Oakland Coliseum that is (Lord, forgive me). It is my second worst baseball venue just behind Tropicana Field. The Coliseum is a place that has been outdated since a few years after they opened the place in 1966. The foul ground is famous and ridiculous and seems to cover more area than Rhode Island. The sewers there have been known to back up, of course, and that is the inside joke. But this series is not a joke as once again, the Athletics have put yet another surprise season together and have been playing .600 baseball since June. And, they are very good at home.

You look at the A's roster and you wonder how they do it. Four or five of their regular lineup members have a lower OPS+ than 100. The starting pitchers are a hodge-podge of castoffs from other teams and closer, Blake Treinen, has had a disappointing season compared to last year's amazing one. Treinen has been picked up by Liam Hendriks. Yes, that Liam Hendriks. Out of nowhere, Hendriks is having an incredible season with over twelve strikeouts per nine while walking less than three per. His ERA of 1.54 is backed up by a FIP of only 1.94. He has more than made up for Treinen.

The A's starting rotation has been solid despite not having any big arms or stars. Mike Fiers, the much-traveled 34-year-old has found a good home in Oakland. Since his pickup as a trade deadline deal a year ago, he has gone 16-5 in 35 starts with a solid ERA of 3.53 over that span. His WHIP this season is a solid 1.109. The Yankees will face him Wednesday night.

Brett Anderson has been a solid starter as has Chris Bassitt. Their best starter, Frankie Montas, is serving an 80-game PED suspension and will not return until September 25. The A's went out and looked for bargains in the rotation that could fill the gap and came up with Homer Bailey and Tanner Roark. The latter has been good while the former has not been good. The Yankees will see them both sandwiched around Fiers.

The bullpen is decent. Treinen is still trying to work it out, but Hendriks is getting the bulk of the closing duties. Middle-aged relievers Yusmeiro Petit and Joakim Soria still know how to get people out. The rest of the bullpen does not have flashy arms and have high walk rates. So if the Yankees can crack the bullpen early, they can do well.

As mentioned, the Athletics' lineup is spotty, which rhymes with Piscotty, who should be back for this series from the DL. That is actually good news as he does not hit that well. The catching corps for the A's have been an offensive drag. Josh Phegley is the regular, but no one would consider him a great-hitting catcher.

Second base has also been a disaster for the A's. Jurickson Profar continues to disappoint and the A's have recently experimented with old friend, Corbin Joseph. Joseph has yet to prove he can hit in the Majors.

Elsewhere, Robbie Grossman, Khris Davis and the aforementioned Stephen Piscotty have had disappointing seasons at the plate. It is difficult to forget, though, that Khris Davis kills the Yankees.

The good hitters the A's have are really good. Matt Olson at first, Matt Chapman at third and Marcus Semien at short have all had outstanding seasons. The Yankees are fortunate that center fielder, Ramon Laureano, is out with an injury. He had been mashing the ball as well. Mark Canha has been a major boost to the team and as a fourth outfielder, has played 90 games and has an OPS of .887.

Basically, the Oakland Athletics has a middling offense with some great hitters and a slightly above pitching staff with a lot of duct tape. But here they come again.

If you decide to stay up late this week to watch, here is what to expect. The Yankees have a better than good chance in Game 1 as Domingo German matches up really well against Homer Bailey. In Game 2, I favor Mike Fiers over JA Happ. In the finale, I would give the Yankees a slight edge with Masahiro Tanaka pitching in a big park against Tanner Roark. It will be an interesting series and one we might see again in the playoffs.

Yankees' Pitching Strategy Against Oakland

The Oakland Athletics made a lot of headway and almost overtook the New York Yankees for the right to host the 2018 AL Wild Card Game. The Yankees held on and get to host the game. There are pluses and minuses there. The A's do not hit nearly as well at home as they do on the road. But, then again, the Yankees have won one game in Oakland combined in 2017 and 2018. Besides, in games like this, the crowd and lack of travel will be big items. The biggest question will be how the Yankees will set up their pitching for the game.

If you take a deep look at Oakland's team batting splits, two things become noticeable. The first is that Oakland fares much worse against power pitchers than others. The A's' team OPS sits at a very healthy .765 to go along with a slugging percentage of .439. Against power pitchers, those rates are .734 and .411 respectively.

That bodes well for the Yankee bullpen, but the Yankees' resident power starter is Luis Severino. Severino has faced Oakland three times since the beginning of 2017 and has an ERA over 6.00 in those three games. The Yankees on paper (with small sample sizes) should probably avoid Severino. But that is a little unfair to the pitcher. He pitched a good game (at home) against the A's early in the season and his last loss was that disaster when his catcher fouled him all up.

The other telling split is the difference when the A's face right-handed pitching versus left-handed pitching. The A's' OPS against LHP is 30 points lower than against RHP, but more importantly, had a 22 point lower slugging percentage against the lefties. The most important thing for both teams in this game is to keep the opponent in the yard.

The Yankees have two lefty starters, J.A. Happ and CC Sabathia. While the heart yearns for Sabathia to get the start for the old warrior he has been, The only other good start this season against the A's other than Severino was Happ. You would probably not even consider putting Sabathia on the roster for the game.

The lefty vs. righty split would seem to also give Stephen Tarpley the edge for a roster spot over Tommy Kahnle.

So we have two little weaknesses for the A's. They do not hit power pitchers as well and they fare worse against lefties. This is not to say they are not capable of mashing either. The only point is that there is an edge with these two scenarios.

So, who should it be? Well, we can rule out Sabathia, Lance Lynn (gosh no), Masahiro Tanaka (not a good match-up) and (does it need to be said?) Sonny Gray. That leaves Happ or Severino.

Let's face it: these games are a crap shoots where anything can happen. But the feeling is that it should be Luis Severino over Happ for two reasons. First, it always seems better to go with your best real talent. No starter on the Yankees has more talent than Severino. Secondly, if all goes well and the Yankees win the game, then you have Happ for two games against the Red Sox.

One other point to consider for whoever does get the start: The Yankees and the A's both put the first pitch of an at bat in play at the same rate. In fact, only two at bats separate the two teams. But while the Yankees have a .773 OPS on doing so, the A's have an incredible .883 OPS. The lesson here is that the A's like to jump on a good fat first pitch and the Yankees should not let them do it.

Now that we have decided who should start the game, we need to think about who should be on the 25-man roster for the game. Let's start with the line-up:

1. Andrew McCutchen - LF
2. Aaron Judge - RF
3. Aaron Hicks - CF
4. Giancarlo Stanton - DH
5. Didi Gregorius - SS
6. Miguel Andujar - 3B
7. Luke Voit - 1B
8. Gary Sanchez - C
9. Gleyber Torres - 2B
10. Neil Walker - Reserve
11. Austin Romine - Reserve
12. Brett Gardner - Reserve
13. Ronald Torreyes - Reserve
14. Tyler Wade - Reserve (base running)
15. Luis Severino - SP
16. Jonathan Holder - RP
17. Stephen Tarpley - RP
18. Adam Robertson - RP
19. Chad Green - RP
20. Dellin Betances - RP
21. Zach Britton - RP
22. Aroldis Chapman - RP
23. Luis Cessa - RP
24. Lance Lynn - RP
25. Domingo German - RP

You hope to get five innings out of Severino and then go: Robertson, Betances, Britton and Chapman. If you get less than five, go with Chad Green and perhaps Tarpley in a situational at-bat. If Severino is terrible from the start, go with Holder. The last three are in case of extra innings.

A one-game scenario is no fun. As they say, "Anything can happen in one baseball game." The Yankees should win with a better overall offense and bullpen and a better starter than any that Oakland can throw out there. But what will be will be. The most a team can do is field its best talent and hope that it is enough.

Lewis Wolff and John Fisher are bad, bad men

Look around baseball and you will see entrepreneurs and smart business people who have purchased baseball teams. Oh, there are some who might have inherited their money but for the most part team owners have gotten into a position of owning a team because they were very good at business. Once they become baseball owners, the expectation is that they are supposed to forget all of that and bring a city a winner at all costs. Take the Josh Donaldson trade as an example.

The two owners of the Oakland Athletics, Lewis Wolff and John Fisher were roasted last night and this morning because Billy Beane traded away Josh Donaldson for a cheaper Brett Lawrie and three prospects. If you don't believe me, check out this article by Jason Leskiw for a major media outlet. How dare Wolff and Fisher save money and run a good business!

But is the assumption this is a money dump realistic? When I looked at the deal last night, I saw a 24-year-old player with upside in Brett Lawrie, two really good prospects and a so-so prospect traded for arguably the best third baseman in the American League if not in baseball. While both players, Donaldson and Lawrie, are heading to arbitration for the first time this season, Lawrie will turn 25 in January and Donaldson, 29 a month from now.

Lawrie has been hurt a lot. Donaldson has been healthy. At least that is the line some angry Twitter people have given me when I said I liked the trade for both teams. The implication is that Donaldson is a "gamer" and Lawrie a "poser." I don't know how you justify or quantify that, but okay. Donaldson does stand to make more in arbitration. But then you have two really good prospects in Kendall Graveman and Franklin Barreto and the throw in of Sean Nolin. Not a bad haul for Donaldson if one or two of those prospects can be helpful.

@FlagrantFan @AskROTObaseball Yeah, great trading one of the top hitters in the league for a centerpiece, Lawrie, who plays 100 games a year
— Dan Cas (@DantasyBaseball) November 29, 2014

Lawrie has shown much upside defensively and while he may not be in Donaldson's class, he isn't in the dunce category either. Donaldson has compiled 16.6 rWAR by the age of 28. Lawrie, 11.7 by the age of 24. Doesn't that make this trade look a little better?

People forget that Donaldson was acquired from the Cubs back in 2008 in a deal very similar to this one. Donaldson was a prospect too for the Cubs and I bet there was a lot of consternation when Billy Beane traded away Rich Harden to get Donaldson and three other prospects. Of the four, only Donaldson panned out (though Matt Murton has had a great Japanese career).  Harden was never the same and has been out of baseball for years.

First of all, you cannot judge trades until years after the fact. But with the instantaneous cyber world we live in, people are dying for page views and social media followers by making judgement pronouncements immediately. And one of those is to blast the owners for "forcing" Billy Beane to manage his assets efficiently.

It's okay for the players to be business people. It's okay that their agents are charged with maximizing the players earnings. But it's not okay for baseball owners to do the same thing. Why do the owners in Tampa get a pass and the ones in Oakland scorn? Both have lousy stadium issues and low attendance. They both do the best they can while trying to keep a profit margin. Anyone who thinks owners should not care about making money is misguided.

The sons of George Steinbrenner are facing similar scrutiny. Why aren't they countering the moves made recently by the Red Sox!? Why aren't they spending money like crazy to get back on top!? Old George would never allow the Yankees to go two years in a row without making the playoffs! Um...remember the 1980s?  And the team payroll for the Yankees is just as high or higher under the sons as it ever was with The Boss.

The big complaint in Oakland is that the A's haven't made the World Series. The theory is that if Wolff and Fisher would spend a little more, that World Series would have been in reach. It doesn't matter that the team has won 277 games in the last three seasons, by golly, the goal is to win it all.

Money does not make that happen. A lot has to fall in place for a team to get hot at the right time and win short series to get to the biggest of all short series and win it all. Peter McGowan, the owner of the Giants doesn't like to throw money around either and he has won three titles. All three had people scratching their heads. Getting to the playoffs is hard enough. Winning there is a crap shoot.

I understand that Josh Donaldson was a beloved player in Oakland. I understand that he has been an MVP candidate two years in a row. I also understand that his defensive skills play a large part of his value and I do not trust the current way those defensive skills are valued. I do agree that Donaldson is a great fielder. But give me a better way to quantify it.

Jason Leskiw says himself in his diatribe that Josh Donaldson played hurt most of 2014 and had to wrap his shoulder like a pitcher. Think about that for a second. Yeah, he played almost every game, but at what cost and how will that influence his game moving forward? Who knows.

I don't believe Wolff and Fisher had any part of this deal. Billy Beane made the deal. Billy Beane has made a lot of deals. A lot of them turn out pretty well. Why don't we let this one play out for a couple of years before we start painting a picture of Beane as browbeaten by greedy, Scrooge-like owners.

No arrows for Fernando Rodney

You have to hand it to the Oakland Athletics. They are a smart team that uses their information very wisely. The A's had tied a huge game with the Seattle Mariners up with a home run by Josh Donaldson off of perhaps the best pitcher in the American League. The homer ensured that King Felix could not seal the deal on perhaps the biggest start of his career in Seattle. In the tenth inning, they drew Fernando Rodney. And they nailed it.

The A's didn't hit the guy who has averaged 43 saves the past three seasons. They simply would not swing. Rodney has one big flaw. He walks people. Last year, his rate per nine innings was 4.86. This year, Rodney is walking people at a rate of 4.04 per nine. But he usually succeeds because he gets people to swing.

Fernando Rodney does not like the strike zone. Only 47.7% of his pitches are thrown in the strike zone. He likes to stay off the corners and throw his change below the knees. It usually works. It did not work against the A's. All the A's had to do was stand there.

Four walks later, the A's scored the winning run. It was a huge victory in the chase for the wild card. It was a huge win because they have Jon Lester pitching today. It was a huge win because ever since they traded for Jon Lester, they stopped hitting.

But in the tenth inning, they didn't have to hit. They just had to stand there and let Rodney do all the work for them. Four walks. Rodney threw 28 pitches. Only ten of them were strikes. Only six of them were in the strike zone but the A's swung at eight of Rodney's offerings. They needn't have.

Here, courtesy of Brooks Baseball is Rodney's evening in all its glory. The A's aren't hitting. But they know what to do when they don't have to hit. The only arrow shot in this one went into the hearts of Mariner fans.

The strikeout rate of Brandon Moss

Brandon Moss is currently tied for eleventh on the Fangraphs.com leaderboard for 2014. He is having a terrific season and all of his value is for his offense. While his defense and base running seem to have improved, it is his offense that has taken a dramatic step forward. And one of the things driving that success is a drastically reduced strikeout rate.

Moss is a left-handed batter who flailed against left-handed pitching in the past. He batted .200 last year against them last year with a 43% strikeout rate. This year, he is killing lefties with an OPS over 1.1 and has cut that strikeout rate down to 27.8%. That's still high, but he has also cut down his strikeout rate against right-handed hurlers.

Last year, Moss struck out 27.8% of the time against right-handed batters. This year, that figure is down to 16.9%. The two improvements against both handed pitchers drops his overall strikeout rate from 30.4% in 2012 and 27.7% last year to just 19.6% this year.

Along with the lowering of his strikeouts have come a corresponding increase in his walk percentage from 8.8% two years ago to 9.9% last year to 10.1% this year. How is he doing it?

Brandon Moss has been around for eight years now. He is only now coming into his own. And you can see an odd progression and regression back to progression in his numbers over the years. When he first came up with Boston and then after his trade to the Pirates, he had decent plate discipline and his contact percentage was manageable.

Then he went to the Phillies in 2011 and that team nearly wrecked him. Suddenly, he was swinging at everything (over 50% of pitches outside the strike zone!) and not making contact. In that year in Philadelphia, his contact percentage fell all the way to 58.4%. That is bloody awful.

The A's picked him up as a free agent after the 2011 season and he has seen slight improvement in his discipline but not a full recovery to his early days. Meanwhile, his power suddenly spiked and his ISO went to new levels.

It wasn't until this year that he has gotten his swinging ways under control and his contact percentage back up and still maintains his power numbers.

Brandon Moss' O-swing rate, or swing rate of pitches out of the strike zone is down to 28.7% according to PitchF/X, his lowest rate since his 2010 season with the Pirates and the first time under 30% since that year.

Correspondingly, his contact rate and his swing and miss rate have improved to points from earlier in his career. Did he just develop bad habits in Philadelphia or did that coaching staff there do him a great disservice? It's hard to say. What is known is that the A's have once again picked a diamond in the rough and buffed it up until it shines.

Moss has driven in 42 runs in his 50 games, has a wOBA of .410 and a wRC+ of 166. His .971 OPS put him in elite company and makes him the ninth best offensive player in baseball at this moment. The taming of his strikeout rate has played a big part in his overall success and as we have seen, is something that he had in him since his early days in the Big Leagues.

When striking out might not be a good thing

Strikeout rates have steadily risen in Major League Baseball, which just about everybody knows. And there has been much written about whether the increase is bad or not. But when you consider that the MLB strikeout rate is now at 7.51 per nine innings and compare that to 6.52 per nine just seven years ago, you have a significant culture change. I have had people tell me that an out is an out and it does not matter if it is a strikeout or a ground out. And while I have never quite bought that idea, articles like this one do not give me solid footing. But there really is one game situation where a strikeout might not be a good thing.

It is here that I need to remind you that I do not have the chops to be a numbers analyst. I see things and try to make sense of them. But I lack the depth of some of these great analytic writers to make much sense of what I am seeing. At best, all I can do is present a question that an analyst can run with. 

Such a question is found in strikeout rates in one particular situation--runners on third with less than two outs. If you have a runner on third with no outs or one out, it seems to me that contact will make a big difference whether that runner will score or not. And I wanted to see if teams that struggle to score also have trouble striking out when such a situation exists. From the data I collected, it seems to be a factor.

The Major League average for striking out with a runner on third with less than two outs is 17.64%. This is less than the overall league strikeout rate of  19.75%. While this could mean many things such as struggling pitchers, etc., it could also mean that as a whole, baseball tries to cut down on strikeouts in such situations and on average does so.

While all strikeout rates have risen, strikeouts in this situation are no different. For example, in 1980, the MLB average strikeout rate in such situations was only 11.94%. Such numbers do fluctuate as ten years earlier in 1970, the rate was around 14%. But it is safe to say that 17.64% is a significant increase.

My overall thought was that teams that were the worst in this category would correlate somewhat with the team's overall scoring average per game. For the most part, this seemed to be the case. Of the top ten lowest teams in runs per game average, only two of them (Giants, Brewers) beat the league average for strikeout rates in this particular situation.

The Giants here do pose a problem. The Giants are the fourth lowest in the league in runs scored per game. But only five teams strikeout less than the Giants' 14.86% in situations where a man is on third with less than two outs. But again, they are one exception to my "theory". The other, the Brewers, are just a little under the league average and are 21st in runs per game.

Two teams also blow up my theory a little bit on the flip side. Of the top nine teams in terms of runs per game, two of them strikeout more than the league average. The top scoring team in baseball is one of them. The Red Sox strikeout 19.19% in such situations. Cleveland is the other team and they are just above the league average.

The Red Sox lead the majors in on-base percentage and slugging. So it makes sense that they can afford to strikeout more often in such situations because they throw more spaghetti at the wall.

The Mariners and Astros are by far the worst teams at striking out with a man on third and less than two outs. Their rates are 26.02% and 26.55% respectively which is just amazing to me. In many of these cases, any kind of contact has a chance of bringing the run home and these two teams could not make contact more than 25% of the time. Wow.

The best two teams in such situations are the Oakland A's and Arizona Diamondbacks at 10.69% and 12.41 respectively.

But there is another factor here and that is whether a team strikes out at a lower rate or a higher rate with runners on third with less than two outs than the teams' overall strikeout rate. I have already shown the league average in such situations being 2.11 percentage points lower than the overall strikeout rate. While there are a lot of factors that go into such a number, there has to be at least some league-wide mindset that getting contact and putting the ball in play gives a team a better chance to succeed in those situations.

First on the bad side. There are eight teams that have a higher strikeout rate in such situations than their overall rate. Two, the Rockies and Rangers are just slightly higher. The five others are the White Sox, Phillies, Mariners, Twins and Nationals.

The Mariners rate a special place here. That team's difference in strikeout rates from this situation to overall is so much worse that it requires special consideration. The Mariners' overall strikeout rate is 21.53%, but it jumps, as we have seen, to 26.02% with runners on third with less than two outs. That is a higher rate by 4.49 percentage points!

That might go a long way in understanding why despite an improvement in offensive statistics this season, they have scored the 25th highest runs out of 30 teams despite being 20th in team OPS.

On the flip side, thirteen teams have a better spread than the league average (2.11 percentage points) between overall strikeout rates and strikeout rates with runners on third with less than two outs. The best at it are the A's (8.27 percentage points!), Mets (6.28 percentage points), Reds (6.11 percentage points) and Diamondbacks (5.73 percentage points).

Again, this might explain why the Mets are 27th in wOBA in baseball but are 19th in runs per game.

The amazing A's and their low strikeout rate in these situations, especially compared to their overall strikeout rate, might take some of the wonder out of how they are playing so well. You look at that lineup and scratch your head. But perhaps this one situational statistic might explain some of their success.

For these teams, concentrating on contact in these situations has to be stressed as part of their overall strategy. Does the A's performance in this situation have anything to do with that team having the highest WPA in the Majors? Perhaps.

I do not know if I have proven anything here. The numbers are interesting, but again, I am not an analyst. If this were a courtroom, I have left reasonable doubt and perhaps another "lawyer" can take a better look at it. But I have convinced at least myself that there is some factor in teams that cannot score often enough that has to do with how often they strike out and how often they strikeout with a runner on third with less than two out.

Here is my data in case you are interested:

John Jaso's plate discipline improves the Athletics

The Oakland Athletics won the American League West last season despite a virtual black hole on offense from the catching position. In 632 plate appearances by all of their catchers in 2012, the triple slash line from the position was: .204/.262/.325. That .587 OPS was abysmal and worked out to a 64 OPS+. And so it made sense for Billy Beane to use a couple of his pitching prospects for the on-base capabilities of John Jaso in a three-way trade with the the Mariners and Nationals first reported yesterday by Adam Kilgore. Jane Lee, MLB.com's Athletics beat reporter, later tweeted that Beane had been trying to get Jaso for months.

Jaso will also improve a team that led the league in offensive strikeouts last season. He rarely swings and misses (4.6% for his career) and rarely swings at pitches out of the strike zone. According to PitchF/X, Jaso has only swung at 19.3 percent of pitches out of the strike zone in his career. That leads to the rare statistic that Jaso actually has a higher walk percentage for his career than strikeout percentage.

After the season Jaso had in 2012, it now appears that the horrible season he had in 2011 was the fluke. In that season with the Rays, Jaso batted only .204 with a .298 on-base percentage. His season caused him to fall out of favor in St. Pete after a very successful 2010 and led the Rays to trade him to the Mariners. But now, Jaso has two of his three (somewhat) full seasons where he has put together an OBP of .372 with a 111 OPS+ in 2010 and last year's .394 OBP and 144 OPS+. Jaso had a .379 on-base percentage for his minor league career.

There is one offensive flaw Jaso does possess. He cannot hit lefties as a left-handed batter. His career triple slash line against southpaws is: .164/.302/.230 with a BABIP of .200. That's some pretty bad-butt contact right there. He does maintain his plate discipline but not much else.

But that's okay. The majority of pitchers in baseball throw from the right side and when the A's face a lefty, they can go with Derek Norris who hits much better against lefties.

John Jaso is also a very smart and reflexive base runner. I watched a lot of Rays games in 2010 and Jaso takes off immediately after a ball gets even minutely away from the opposing catcher. I saw him do that time and time again to get himself to second and third base. And Jaso has stolen ten bases in the last three seasons and has only been thrown out twice. He doesn't have a great base running score on the stat sites, but most catchers are way on the negative side and he is not, so that is something.

What about on defense? Well...Jaso is not great. He is a slight step down in that department from Kottaras and quite a big step down from Suzuki. Jaso has never had a good track record gunning down potential base steal attempts either in the minors or the majors. His defense is listed in the negative category. It's not that deeply in the negative, but it is not one of his strengths.

But if you believe in such things, he has a very good catcher ERA (CERA) and so does Norris who was among the lowest in that disputed statistic in 2012. So all Jaso has to do is not cause much harm behind the plate, receive his pitchers well and continue offensively as he has done two of the last three seasons. And if he does that, he adds two to three wins to the A's from the catching position.

Strikeouts came back to bite Athletics

Back in early September, the one worry presented in this space for the Cinderella Oakland Athletics was their prestigious strikeout rate. At the time that post was created, the fear was that the inability of the A's to make consistent contact would prevent them from getting to the playoffs. Well, that fear was unfounded as the team had a remarkable run to the finish line. But the bugaboo of whiffs did ultimately sink them in their series against the Tigers.

Oh, the Tigers' pitching did have something to do with that. After all, Justin Verlander pitched twice in the series and Max Scherzer had a better strikeout rate than his CYA teammate. But still, the inability to hit the ball and put it in play sunk the A's. They struck out 29.5 percent of their plate appearances in this series. After watching all the series this week, it was thought with Granderson and A-Rod that the Yankees were striking out more (both those players have nine each). But the Yankees strikeout rate for their series is 22.9 percent.

The Oakland A's led the American League in strikeouts this season. It was always a problem that was masked by an incredible penchant to get the most out of every young starter and make every run count. They truly had a remarkable season and should be proud and thrilled with how far they came this season. But ultimately, against tough opposition pitching, you have to find a way to put the ball in play. When you do so, you at least have a chance to make things happen. The A's could not do that enough in their ALDS and it ultimately cost them.

							strikeout
	G	PA	AB	BB	SO	OPS	Perc.
Yoenis Cespedes	5	21	19	2	2	0.749	9.5%
Coco Crisp	5	22	22	0	2	0.5	9.1%
Josh Donaldson	5	18	17	1	4	0.686	22.2%
Stephen Drew	5	21	19	2	7	0.602	33.3%
Jonny Gomes	1	1	1	0	0	0	0.0%
George Kottaras	4	4	4	0	2	0	50.0%
Brandon Moss	5	17	15	2	7	0.411	41.2%
Derek Norris	5	12	12	0	6	0.167	50.0%
Cliff Pennington	5	17	14	3	4	0.697	23.5%
Josh Reddick	5	18	17	1	10	0.461	55.6%
Seth Smith	5	18	15	3	6	0.716	33.3%

There is no blame here. The A's took the series to the brink. They played great and had a great season. The only thing this post is trying to state is that the team had too many players that did not put the ball in play. You can survive a couple. But when six of your regular players are above 30 percent strikeout rates, it makes it that much tougher to score runs against very good pitching.

Even so, congrats, Oakland Athletics, on your wonderful ride and season. It was a blast.

Whiff rate might sink Oakland Athletics

The Oakland Athletics have truly been one of the most remarkable stories of this 2012 season. They were never expected to compete for a playoff spot. After they traded away two-fifths of their starting rotation and some of the remaining rotation members came up lame, there was no way of predicting that at this stage of the season, the A's have the wild card race in their own destiny and are still within hailing distance of the Rangers for the division lead. The young rotation and solid bullpen have led them, no doubt. But a resurgent offense has also been a big part of the equation. But can that offense keep them in the races through the final weeks? The concern here is that the team's strikeout and swing and miss rate will eventually sink them.

The Oakland A's lead the American League in offensive strikeouts. And while the offense has ticked up in the second half, that strikeout rate has remained remarkably consistent throughout the season. In the first half, the A's struck out 21.2 percent of the time. So far in the second half, the A's have struck out 23 percent of the time to give them a 22.1 percent strikeout rate for the season. In the last seven days, the A's have struck out 23 percent. In the last fourteen days, the team has struck out 23 percent of the time. In the last 28 days, the team has struck out 22.1 percent of the time.That is remarkably consistent and should not deviate the rest of the season.

All the strikeouts lead to less balls in play. Less balls in play mean less hits that can fall in. The A's are second from the bottom in team batting average and second from the bottom in team on-base percentage. Only the Mariners are worse in both categories.

The team's walk rate has not been as consistent as its strikeout rate. Surprisingly, the A's are tied for third in the American League with 465 team walks. But that rate has gone down in the second half. In the first half of the season, the team walked 9.2 percent of their plate appearances. That rate is down to 8.2 percent in the second half. So even though the A's have improved their team batting average in the second half from .225 to .254, the on-base percentage has remained fairly static. Despite a 29 percentage point rise in batting average, the on-base percentage has only risen 18 percentage points in the second half.

The slugging percentage, of course, has gone through the roof for the A's as they have had several sluggers get hot. But it is those streaking sluggers that bring on most of this concern about the Athletics' offense. Let's look at some of the key players that have been fueling the A's surge:

• Chris Carter has had a fabulous run and has slugged .571 for the A's with most of that damage occurring in the second half. Carter strikes out 29.8 percent of the time. A correction could come at any time.
• Brandon Moss has really hit some bombs and is slugging .549. But he strikes out 31.9 percent of the time and unlike Carter, does not walk much. His .319 on-base percentage is a correction waiting to happen too.
• Jonny Gomes has really come on for the A's and has hit several key homers in recent weeks. But Gomes is a known entity and has always been streaky due mostly to his strikeout rate. His strikeout rate with the A's is  30.7 percent and 27 percent for his career.
• George Kottaras has slugged .578 since coming over from the Brewers, but he strikes out 27 percent of the time.

Add to that mix the fact that Josh Reddick strikes out 23 percent of the time and Yoenis Cespedes strikes out 20 percent of the time. To be fair, Cespedes' rate is much less than anyone expected.

When all is said and done, the A's remain a hit or miss offense. Good pitching has been a constant for the A's but their winning ways in the last two months are just as much due to a collective surge by the players listed above. Their strikeout rates are all large and just as fast as they all got hot together and started hitting bombs all over the field, they could get cold as strikeout after strikeout piles up.

Hey, this isn't saying that the A's can't continue this amazing run of theirs and continue to write a pretty amazing story. Just call this a little dark cloud around the silver lining and one that could ultimately trip up the A's in the end.

The lowest pitching game score in 72 years

It happened on this date in 1998 in a game between the Yankees and the A's.

http://itsaboutthemoney.net/archives/2012/08/03/august-3-1998/

Oakland Oaks and Joe "Migraine" Magrane

Spending an afternoon watching the MLB Network's MLB Tonight (which just made this sentence an oxymoron) can make a viewer very restless. If Mitch Williams is one of the "analysts," then it is not watchable. Dan Plesac is slightly better. One of the worst but slightly above those two dudes just mentioned, is Joe "Migraine" Magrane, the former pitcher for the Cardinals and others. Magrane comes off as sort of a better-than-you kind of guy. He does have a pretty daughter that can sing though. But anyway, in the course of an hour, Magrane's Sunday performance was cheer-worthy and cringe-worthy all at the same time. And both happened during the same "Look in" during the late innings of a game between the Seattle Mariners and Oakland Athletics.

First the cheer-worthy. The game featured throwback uniforms. And since the Mariners do not have any history to throw back to, they decided on wearing uniforms from notable Pacific Coast League minor league teams. The Oakland A's became the Oakland Oaks and the Mariners became the Washington Raniers. Frankly, throwback uniform days bring no joy from this long-time watcher of games. They often confuse the viewer until you can figure out which team is which and once that is navigated, you then have to figure out which player is which.

Again, this is less of a problem if the team has some actual history to it. And sometimes the ploy can be enjoyable such as seeing the Royals' powder-blue again. But when a team has no history, then the ploy is downright stupid. And this observer's opinion still stands. The entire goal of throwback uniforms is to increase the number of merchandising options there are in the MLB store.

So armed with those feelings in mind, Magrane became a hero of sorts because he called out the practice during the "Look in." He clearly showed his disdain for the practice and then covered himself slightly by saying his opinions were not those of the network he worked for. The moment was cheer-worthy.

But during the same "Look-in," Magrane undid all the positive. The Mariners and Athletics were locked in a 1-1 battle, which is all too typical in their match-ups. The Mariners wasted another great pitching performance from Felix Hernandez and the game went into extra innings. The "Look in" captured the drama of the bottom of the tenth inning.

In that half inning, Cliff Pennington started the inning with a single off of action-figure confab, Brandon League. Charlie Furbush was brought in to face Coco Crisp. Now there is a name- dropper's delight. Anyway, in almost predictable fashion, Crisp was asked to sacrifice the runner to second. MLB Tonight host, Ahmed Fareed, immediately said that he did not like the move. Magrane's rebuke of Fareed was immediate and pointed. He said something like, "You've got to get the runner to second and have two shots at bringing the run home."

This is the perfect opportunity to intimate that the sacrifice bunt is hated in this space. Absolutely hated. And thus articles like this, written by Dave Cameron are heroic in nature. So Fareed is this site's kind of guy. But Magrane used the moment to put on his "I-played-the-game-so-I-am- smarter-than-you" hat and used the occasion to scold Fareed. Boy did Magrane look stupid a moment later.

Crisp did get the bunt down, but it was too much to the pitcher, who threw a perfect strike to second to get the lead runner. Fareed even gloated a little. Magrane gargled something about execution. But anyway, the poor-hitting A's had just traded base runners and gave the Mariners a free out. Crisp complicated the move even further when he was picked off just seconds later.

The sacrifice attempt blunted what could have been a game-ending rally. And sure enough, after the failure of the sacrifice and the pick-off, Furbush walked two batters and threw a wild pitch. But with runners on second and third, the A's only had one out to play with and Jonny Gomes struck out.

The A's did win the game in the thirteenth inning. In that inning, the lead-off batter again singled. But this time,  Josh Reddick wasn't asked to sacrifice and hit a double to win the game.

For Magrane and the A's, the game was the best and worst of the analyst and the team. Magrane--always imperious--used that for good with the uniform comment but abused it with his rebuke and the old saws of baseball strategy. The A's almost worked themselves out of a chance to win but later were allowed to redeem themselves to win the game because the Mariners cannot hit to save themselves.

By Josh! Reddick was a steal!

A quick perusal at the Fangraphs' leaderboard led to a click of MLB right fielders. The leaders seemed right. Ethier is having a great season and is at the top. Beltran has been a great fit for the Cards and is belting the ball. Then listed after those two were Josh Reddick of the Oakland Athletics and Stanton and Joyce from the two Florida teams. After nodding inwardly at the results, the reality struck. Wait. Josh Reddick!? After that initial reaction sunk in, the memory of the recent series against the Yanks sunk in. Yes, Josh Reddick, is an island of productivity in a sea of offensive woes in Oakland.

This new knowledge comes a few days after writing about Lowrie down in Houston. Could it be the Red Sox have made two of the worst trades of the year in Lowrie and Reddick? It is hard to fault the Red Sox here. They needed to address the bullpen after losing Papelbon and deciding to put Bard in the rotation. The trades for Melancon and Bailey make sense, if not in hindsight. Neither have worked out thus far in Boston, but that is the way it goes sometimes in baseball.

Lowrie and Reddick were both considered fungible players. They were depth players with the Red Sox. And the Boston team has made good use of Aviles and the combination of Ross,Sweeney and Nava. But none of those combinations have been as valuable as Lowrie and Reddick have been for their new teams. And Reddick is only 25 years old. So perhaps his success will ping the Boston team longer.

Josh Reddick has burst on the scene this year with his fourteen homers and .906 OPS. Those figures are all the more remarkable for where Reddick has to play home games and for the fact that the lineup around him has been a ghost town. With Yoenis Cespedes on the shelf with an injury, Reddick is just about the only threat in that lineup. His 2.1 rWAR is so far ahead of any of his teammates, that they are like distant specks in the rear view mirror.

Reddick was never really touted as a prospect. Yes, he did place 75th in Baseball America's list of top prospects in 2010, but that was his one and only appearance on that list. He was, after all, only a 16th round draft choice by the Red Sox back in 2006 out of a small school like Middle Georgia College. Yes, he had a .500 slugging percentage in his minor league career, but his overall OPS in the minors of .832 did not jump up and grab anyone. 

But let's put this one in the plus column for Billy Beane as the A's saw something they liked and were, to this point, obviously correct. And Reddick is a complete package. His patience at the plate could use some improvement. His 8.3 percent walk rate is augmented a bit by some intentional passes and he is swinging at 31.5 percent of pitches outside the strike zone. But he runs well and has stolen five bases without getting thrown out once. Fangraphs gives him 1.3 runs for his base running. And Reddick has had nothing but positive fielding numbers in his brief MLB career. And he already has five outfield assists this season.

Reddick is *only* batting .276 right now, but considering that his BABIP is also low at .276, there should not be any regression as the season goes along. For a guy hitting a lot of homers, his strikeout rate is decent at only 18.5 percent. So it is not like strikeouts will sink his season either. Reddick's numbers look totally legit and only a concerted effort by opposing pitchers to stop pitching to him can derail his season power numbers. Getting Cespedes back will help too.

Sometimes, a change to a new organization can bring the flower out of a budding young player. That seems to be the case with Reddick moving to Oakland. Josh Reddick has become a very fine player in the American League and if you are into fantasy baseball, you might want to consider keeping him. The Athletics got a steal in Josh Reddick. He has been terrific.

Not a Fan of ball in Japan

The Oakland Athletics and Seattle Mariners will begin their regular season schedules playing each other for two games in Japan. The games will occur nearly a full week before anyone else is playing regular season baseball. Why is that? Do people really like this idea? After the two games are played, the two teams will not have any more regular season baseball until a week later. Does that make any sense? This is all about Bud Selig's world view and taking baseball's popularity around the world. But is it necessary?

Perhaps this writer is being a bit of a curmudgeon. Things are supposed to be linear, at least in this mind. Everyone is supposed to start the season at the same time. Opening Day should be one grand event where all thirty teams are in action and we can all celebrate together. Instead, we'll have an odd standings for a week where two teams will have a record and the rest of the teams won't. And then when the regular season opens on April 4, two teams won't be heard from until April 6.

The first question is whether baseball needs this. It is easy to see that Japan is already extremely big on baseball. Since the sport was introduced over there in the early Twentieth Century, the passion for the sport  has been transforming. As such, there is already much interest in Japan for all baseball--their own and in the majors. Many of Japan's biggest stars have signed in the majors and media interest has been through the roof over there. So it is not that these games will pique that interest any higher. It will be nice for the Japanese fans to see Ichiro Suzuki in action again. But still. What is to be gained by the exercise?

Is this a bone that Selig has thrown the Japanese for the hundreds of millions of dollars the fans there spend on MLB merchandise? What about the Mariners' season ticket holders? They lose two home games plus the Mariners lose those gate receipts and all that goes with it. The venders and parking garages lose two games of income. Since the A's struggle with attendance anyway, why not at least have made these two games Athletic home games?  ***Update. The schedule was looked at incorrectly. The A's are considered the home team. But still...

And how does the exercise affect the two teams that have to go over there to play? It has to disrupt the springs of those two teams as their pitchers can't get their full spring reps to get ready for the season. It has to affect the young and fringe players who needed a full spring schedule to make their cases to make the big club. Sure, there will be some exhibitions over there and that will help. But it's not like facing big league pitching here.

It all just seems kind of pointless. Plus, it makes the start of the season messy. This may make Bud Selig all squishy inside, but the feelings here just fall kind of flat. Not a Fan of ball in Japan. Not a Fan at all.

Kind of Bullish on Ryan Sweeney

The trade between the Oakland Athletics and Boston Red Sox yesterday should engender solid research and statistical analysis. You won't find that in this post. Keith Law has already done it and so has Andrew Martin over at MLBDirt.com. This is more of a hunch based on little more than watching baseball's ebb and flow for decades. Ryan Sweeney is going to be a nice piece for the Boston Red Sox.

It's fun to watch the minds of those in the Red Sox front office work. Most people know that the renowned Bill James roams those back offices along with several of his proteges. To see that the Red Sox liked Ryan Sweeney is obvious. All you have to do is look at the Bill James' projections for Sweeney on Sweeney's Fangraphs page. But if this Fan may make the observation: the projection could be pessimistic.

There are a couple of solid statistical facts that back up this hunch. First, in his career, Ryan Sweeney has hit the ball to the opposite field more often than he's pulled the ball (306 to 239 times). As a left-handed batter, that's a nice thing to do in Fenway Park with it's enticing Green Monster. Secondly, when Sweeney does hit the ball to the opposite field, his slash line doing so is: .384/.379/.485. That will play well in Fenway. Lastly, Sweeney has never hit less than 20 percent of his ball in play as line drives. That means he squares the ball up nicely.

Add to the hunch is Sweeney's defense. Back in 2009, Fangraphs gave Sweeney 20.9 runs saved playing the outfield. The last two years have been in slightly negative territory. But if this Fan isn't mistaken, Sweeney hasn't been overly healthy in the last two seasons. Fix that and you should get the solid defending found in 2009 and the years before. Sweeney is still only 26 years old. He should be able to rebound health-wise. Right field is an important position in Fenway. It's has odd angles and there is a lot of room out there. It's a much more important field than left with the big wall out there half way past the infield it seems.

The scouting reports indicate that Sweeney has excellent instincts in the outfield with a strong and accurate arm. All pluses in right field for the Red Sox. But the thing this observer really likes is kind of a pooh-poohed statistic nowadays. Ryan Sweeney has played 444 games in the outfield and has only made four errors total for his career. Four. And three of those were in 2009. So take away those three errors in 2009, and Sweeney has made one error in all the rest of his big league seasons. That's pretty impressive.

Of course, there are a few concerns. First, Sweeney swings from the left side of the plate. The Boston Red Sox are already overloaded with lefty swingers. It would have been nice to pick up a right-handed bat. Secondly, the Red Sox have been high on Ryan Kalish for a long time and had hoped that the young slugger could be the next Red Sox star. He'll probably get his shot in right in Spring Training. If Kalish is legitimate, Sweeney could take away his playing time. But it's a nice insurance policy to have, no? Plus, Sweeney can play all outfield positions so he is a hedge in case (God forbid) Jacoby Ellsbury goes down or Carl Crawford continues to struggle as the Red Sox left fielder.

This deal reminds this Fan of the Carney Lansford deal years ago when the Red Sox picked up Lansford as an extra piece from the Angels in a trade in 1981. Lansford wasn't highly touted before his arrival. He had more power than Sweeney does, but, otherwise, Lansford's numbers were similar to what Sweeney has done with the A's. Once he became the Red Sox third baseman, Lansford had two terrific seasons for the Red Sox. Sweeney--and remember, this is all just a hunch--feels like that same kind of player except he plays the outfield.

Sweeney will hit .280 or higher. His OBP will be .350 or higher. And perhaps he'll slug a little more. This observer simply has a hunch that Sweeney could be a three and a half to four WAR player for the Red Sox. Again, those Red Sox are no dummies. This writer will throw his hat in with that crew any day.

Oakland Ace May Not Be Who You'd Think

If you were to guess that Trevor Cahill and his 3-0 record would make him the ace of the Oakland Athletics' pitching staff, you might be wrong. If you would guess that among all starters, Cliff Lee has the lowest walk percentage in baseball, again, you would be wrong. The answer to the first statement might be Brett Anderson. And the answer to the second statement is definitely Brett Anderson.

Anderson has now started five times for the Oakland A's. According to Fangraphs.com, he is currently valued as the third best pitcher in baseball behind only Roy Halladay and Dan Haran. That's pretty good company. Four of his five starts have been quality starts and he hasn't given up more than three runs in any of them. Sure, two of those starts have been against the Mariners, a team that struggles to score runs. But he's also faced the Twins, the Red Sox and the White Sox. Anderson has only allowed four walks in his 34.2 innings and best of all, he hasn't yet yielded a homer this season.

But those are just the glamor stats. Everywhere you look with Anderson, you see a good number. His pitching has not been lucky. His BABIP is right around where it should be, especially for a ground ball pitcher. His infield to fly ball rate currently sits at 3.94, the best of his career. That is due to 68.4 percent of batted balls against him resulting in that type of contact. His line drive percentage is also the best of his career at 14.3 percent. Opposing batters are definitely having a tough time squaring up the bat against his pitches.

The thing with Brett Anderson is that he doesn't throw too many pitches that aren't wrinkled. He's never thrown less fastballs as only 46.1 percent of his pitches have been of that variety. And those have good movement. Anderson is throwing less sliders this season but many more curve-balls. And that is the pitch that everyone is raving about. The success of Anderson's curve has allowed him to effectively spot his fastball, which makes the fastball more effective. Fangraphs puts a higher value on his fastball this year than at any point of Anderson's brief career.  He's throwing his curveball more than twice as much as in any time of his career, almost twenty percent. And it's been a killer.

It feels like Brett Anderson has been around for a long time. He is only in the third year of his career. He was drafted as an eighteen year old out of Stillwater High School in Stillwater, Oklahoma back in 2006. He made the jump from A+ ball in 2008 to Double A and combined for a little over a hundred innings in those two 2008 stops. He went right from Double A to the Oakland A's' rotation in 2009 and made 30 starts that season. Perhaps his 175+ innings that season were too much of an increase from the previous season for his young arm. He lost much of 2010 to injury.

Perhaps it was because he was limited to only 112+ innings in 2010 that most projections were hesitant to project him this year at more than 21 starts. But so far, so good and Anderson is chugging along. To think that he's only 23 years old is quite scary for the rest of the league. After all, he's this good now and he's three years younger that Josh Johnson, seven years younger than Haran and ten years younger than Halladay.

It will be interesting how this young group of Oakland pitchers holds up. The previous time the Athletics had young pitching like this in Hudson, Mulder and Zito, all of them lost arm strength as time went on. Only Hudson has survived as an effective pitcher. With someone as young as Anderson, you kind of hold your breath. But with that said, right now, there are few pitchers better in the majors than Brett Anderson.

What to Make of the Oakland Athletics

One of this writer's favorite places to go in the past few weeks is a blog called C70 At The Bat. It's run by Daniel Shoptaw, a writer from Arkansas. A couple of years ago, he started a series in the spring called, Playing Pepper. The feature culls opinions from two to four writers from each team's blog-sphere to answer specific questions about about that team's upcoming season. It's a fascinating concept and in essence led to the formation of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance, an organization that Shoptaw started and currently serves in the office of president. Most writers who start team blogs start out writing as huge fans of the team they cover. But over time, the writing demands a dose of realism to enter their posts. And as such, the contributors have provided honest assessments of their teams for the Pepper series. The lone exception so far has been the Oakland Athletic installment. Those two writers polled were absolutely bullish on the Athletics' season in 2011. Their optimism flies in the face of projections for the team. So who will be right?

First, the Fan has to admit something. The Oakland Athletics play so far away from where this author writes that they often become lost in the shuffle. It doesn't help that they are often mentioned more because of the disastrous ballpark situation than they are about their team. The other times you hear about the team mention the nebulous "Billyball" thing named after their longtime general manager, Billy Beane. With all of those factors in play, the Fan really had to dig to form any concrete opinions of this team. But there is nothing more fun than digging into things about baseball, so it was well worth the trip.

Okay, back to the point of this post. The largest part of the optimism of the Oakland bloggers was about the pitching. And there is no doubt that last season's version of the Oakland A's pitched about as well as anyone in the American League. As is the modus operandi in Oakland, the pitching, particularly the rotation, is very young.  It was this Fan's perception that this young rotation wasn't about fire-ballers who struck a lot of people out. Instead it seemed to be a group of young guys with a strong competitive desire to do well and to push each other to success. And certainly, guys like Trevor Cahill and Dallas Braden show a lot of competitive fire. Braden's was exhibited in the A-Rod incident in 2010 and by his no-hitter.

But the Fan also thought from looking at the stats that they were all pitching better than their xFIPs and had very low BABIP scores. This seems to be confirmed by the projections that predict regression for every single member of the rotation. For one of the few times this spring, the Fan can't take issue with those projections. But don't make the mistake of thinking that means the Athletics won't pitch well. They will. There isn't one starter in the bunch that is projected to have an ERA over 4.00. The projections all predict the rotation will be filled with guys with ERAs in the 3.50 to 3.80 range. That should still be better than anyone else in the American League West. It just won't be as good as the sub-3 ERAs we saw in 2010.

Add to the strong rotation a very good (if not great!) bullpen on paper. The addition of Brian Fuentes and Grand Balfour to an already strong group of Andrew Bailey, Michael Wuertz, Craig Breslow and Brad Ziegler make this a dynamic bullpen if they all pitch to what they've done in the past. Breslow has been one of the best kept secrets in baseball the last two years and his release two years ago by the Twins is one of the few bonehead moves that team has made in recent history.

So yes, the pitching is there for the Athletics to compete. Despite regression projections, they are still the best in the AL West and should allow fewer runs than anybody. But will the 2011 Oakland Athletics score enough to take advantage of the great pitching? Ah, there, friends, is the million dollar question.

Before looking at the projections, let's take a moment to look at context. The Athletics are going to play a bunch of games against its own division. This Fan is no fan of the unbalanced schedule. It gets boring when you are playing the same teams over and over again to the tune of 18 games a season. Even the Yankees/Red Sox rivalry gets watered down when they have to play each other 18 times. But that's where we are and that's what we have to look at. So the A's are going to be playing Seattle, the Angels (whose geographical name will never be correctly mentioned here) and Texas a lot.

When looking at those AL West opponents, the A's won't be facing a lot of great pitching. Seattle has King Felix and a bunch of question marks. The Rangers have a decent rotation, but they aren't dominant that way. And the Angels have Weaver and Haren and then mediocrity. That less than stellar competition within their own division should help the offense beat some very pessimistic projections.

And what of those offensive projections? They are brutal. Here are the projected OPS figures for their everyday players: Crisp (.691), Barton (.719), DeJesus (.713), Willingham (.782), Matsui (.749), Ellis (.648), Suzuki (.668), Kouzmanoff (.679) and Pennington (.647). Ugh! Willingham has the highest projected WARP at 1.8. That IS some serious pessimism.

At face value, those projections are easy to understand. Coco Crisp has been an enigma his entire career. He shows flashes of brilliance and then he goes on the disabled list. At other times, he shows flashes of mediocrity and then goes on the disabled list. But let's say he stays healthy and plays the entire season. If that happens, he should blow away his projection.

Barton just completed his second full season. The first was in 2008 when he batted .226 in over 500 plate appearances. In 2009, Barton fought to get out of the minors and then did well once he got with the A's. And then last season, he led the league in non-intentional walks. So it's easy to see how the projections can be low with only one successful season behind him. To think that he would only garner a 0.6 WARP after putting up a 4.5 WARP last year seems a stretch. The highest projection for Barton that the Fan has seen is 3.5 WARP. That seems at least more plausible than the 0.6 figure. Barton will beat projections. Now if only he could hit a few more dingers and stop bunting.

The DeJesus projection seems fair. But he could beat that if he stays healthy and he's another player like Crisp who has had trouble doing that. Willingham's projection seems too high but upon reflecting on his career, it's probably spec on. Matsui's projection is easy to understand because of his age. But he was much better than people think for the Angels last year. He had a good season, he really did. And there is no reason as a DH that he can't duplicate that. If he does, he'll blow away his projections.

There is little to expect from the offense of Mark Ellis, Kevin Kouzmanoff and Cliff Pennington. They all man the infield because of their gloves and not their bats. They are NOT good offensive players and their projections all seem fair to this observer.

That leaves us with the riddle of Kurt Suzuki. In 2008, it looked like Suzuki was going to be one of the better offensive catchers in baseball. But in 2009, his batting average went down five points, his OBP went down 33 points but he doubled his home run production. That in part helped him come close to the WARP of the previous season. But last year, his hitting fell off a cliff and his batting average, on base percentage and slugging all tumbled. Suzuki has lost all patience at the plate and his walk totals are starting to rival Benji Molina. He has to address that and take a few more walks. The projections seem to split the difference between a down 2009 and the downer of 2010. That seems fair. But if he can (perhaps stay healthier?) get back to his production of 2008, then he can perhaps blow away his projections.

So where does all this lead us? The Oakland writers that started off this piece predict 90 wins. The projections state 83. After working through all of the above, the Fan's conclusion is that they should win 85 or 86 games. Whether that is good enough to compete in the AL West depends on how well the Rangers do. The Rangers are capable of winning over 90 games. But if things don't go well, they could win as few as 85. The Athletics' chances depend on which Rangers team shows up.