2020 ZiPS Projections: Oakland Athletics

After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for eight years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Oakland Athletics.

Batters

The projected highs for the A’s lineup are very high. Matt Chapman has firmly established himself in the top tier of third baseman, and he’s not even reliant on having a +15 glove to be a star. He’s in his prime now and ZiPS gives him a nice chunk of time — five years — until his projection dips below four wins. Now would be a good time to make Chapman a multi-millionaire several times over and extend him a couple years into free agency, practically guaranteeing he spends his best years in Oakland.

ZiPS is all-in on Marcus Semien, forecasting shockingly little regression from the .285/.369/.522, 33 HR, 7.6 WAR line that earned him the bronze medal in the AL MVP race. There’s some regression, especially in the home runs, but there was no BABIP flukiness helping to fuel his big year; ZiPS actually thought he was mildly unlucky there! Signing Chapman to an extension would ease some of the blow in not signing Semien, who is a year away from free agency; the team has little leverage there.

Rounding out the infield stars — the second base chimera is not one, even if it is projected to be boringly adequate in whatever configuration it ends up in — is Matt Olson. ZiPS projects Olson, along with Ramón Laureano and his robo-Barfield arm, both be a borderline star. The rest of the lineup, in classic A’s fashion, is fashioned out of leftover parts, but they’ve done a good enough job filling out the roster that none of the holes are devastating. ZiPS sadly does not see a meatier rebound year for Khris Davis and my hopes that the system would continue to project a .247 average for him were dashed.

Pitchers

The shock isn’t so much that the A’s won 97 games in 2020, but that they won 97 games and finished fourth in the AL in ERA despite a rotation they had to throw together on the fly. The A’s would have much rather have seen Sean Manaea, A.J. Puk, and Jesus Luzardo on the top of the rotation at this point, but Puk missed 2018 due to Tommy John surgery, Manaea had shoulder surgery at the end of that same season, and then last spring, Luzardo was shut down with a rotator cuff strain. Frankie Montas surprised as an ace early on, but his season ended early as well after an 80-game suspension for testing positive for Ostarine.

Full seasons from Luzardo, Manaea, and Montas, and eventually working Puk in, would be a major plus compared to desperate stints of Aaron Brooks and Marco Estrada. The WAR totals for the pitching only look low because ZiPS has learned not to be too optimistic about pitcher health, especially for guys with an injury history. The only projection that I would qualify as a disappointment — at least of the main contributors — is that of Mike Fiers. ZiPS believes in Fiers enough to think he’ll outperform his FIP by nearly a half-run, the main problem being that, much like Julio Teheran, ZiPS is projecting a FIP above five.

The bullpen projects as more consistently deep than as one with a few frightening names at the front. Hendriks is projected to continue to be a major plus, but the rest of relief corps is full of solid B+ pitchers. That may sound negative, but it’s not; Jake Diekman, Yusmeiro Petit, Joakim Soria, Lou Trivino, and one of my favorite quiet pickups, Donnie Hart, make this group a consistent one, if one lacking in star power. In other words, it’s a typical, quality A’s bullpen.

Prospects

There are definitely some pitching projections to be excited about here. Puk’s fastball hit the high-90s in the majors and the A’s resisted any impulse to rush back their former first-rounder. The error bars on Puk are large, but ZiPS sees a high chance for him to be a legitimate front-rotation candidate. Yet another Tommy John survivor, Daulton Jefferies showed enough in Double-A that ZiPS sees him in the middle of a future A’s rotation as well.

Grant Holmes saw his projection improve year-over-year for the first time since the Dodger trade, and there’s finally some decent James Kaprielian data out there to project from. ZiPS is less excited about Sheldon Neuse, seeing him as having less upside than Franklin Barreto, who surely deserves a chance to sink or swim at this point. Neuse probably ought to be in the minors full-time rather than stealing occasional at-bats in the infield. The projections also indicate a surprisingly adequate Sean Murphy/Austin Allen combination behind the plate.

I really wish that Nick Allen could hit just a little bit better than he has. Allen’s defense was raved about by scouts and zDEF’s probability-based minor league estimation agreed with that assessment, ranking him as the best defensive shortstop in the minors per 150 games in 2019. Despite projections that peak at just over a .600 OPS in the majors, Allen’s projected defense is enough to give him into the one-win range, making him a useful role player. If his bat improves just a bit, he has a legitimate chance at a Brendan Ryan-type career.

One pedantic note for 2020: for the WAR graphic, I’m using FanGraphs’ depth charts playing time, not the playing time ZiPS spits out, so there will be occasional differences in WAR totals.

Ballpark graphic courtesy Eephus League. Depth charts constructed by way of those listed here.

Players are listed with their most recent teams wherever possible. This includes players who are unsigned, players who will miss 2020 due to injury, and players who were released in 2019. So yes, if you see Joe Schmoe, who quit baseball back in June to form a ska-cowpunk Luxembourgian bubblegum pop-death metal band, he’s still listed here intentionally.

Both hitters and pitchers are ranked by projected zWAR — which is to say, WAR values as calculated by me, Dan Szymborski, whose surname is spelled with a z. WAR values might differ slightly from those which appear in the full release of ZiPS. Finally, I will advise anyone against — and might karate chop anyone guilty of — merely adding up WAR totals on a depth chart to produce projected team WAR.

ZiPS is agnostic about future playing time by design. For more information about ZiPS, please refer to this article.