2023 ZiPS Projections: Oakland Athletics

For the 18th consecutive season, the ZiPS projection system is unleashing a full set of prognostications. For more information on the ZiPS projections, please consult this year’s introduction and MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot, and next up is the Oakland Athletics.

Batters

Are the A’s the most boring organization in baseball? There are other teams that are in the basement, but the Rockies do outright nuttier things, the Pirates always have a highly interesting player or two, the Tigers bring in the occasional big-name free agent, and the Reds have a few compelling pitchers. Looking around the diamond, the A’s are safely above replacement level nearly everywhere, but outside of a few players, such as Esteury Ruiz, it doesn’t feel like there’s any upside scenario compelling enough to cancel out all of the bland, featureless gray. Not to pick on Jace Peterson, but he feels like a pickup emblematic of this team: he’s cheap and he’s been useful at times, but no matter what happens, he’s likely to just be the Jace Peterson we know.

I do appreciate the A’s trading Sean Murphy the day before I ran the projections, given how teams love to blow up their rosters immediately after I’ve written about them. Truth be told, catcher is likely a strong spot for Oakland. Shea Langeliers — I wonder if he needs to change his name to RingCentral Langeliers — is talented and Manny Piña is a good complement as a veteran with defensive skills who is far from a total zero at the plate. I’d take the slight under on catcher overall simply because Piña’s wrist injury, which ruined his 2022, presents a bit of uncertainty even with ZiPS trying to account for it.

Ruiz’s projection could explode pretty quickly, but ZiPS isn’t ready to go all-in on him after one huge minor league season. And it was definitely a huge one — across three teams, ZiPS translates him at .270/.364/.410, one of the absolute best translations in the minors this year. The problem is that his .171/.194/.257 cup of coffee drags that down quite a bit, even with it only being 36 plate appearances. His combined .263/.354/.399 2022 line is still excellent, but that was a .215/.278/.341 translation the year before. His 2019 doesn’t have much weight at this point, but the .198/.247/.295 translation there hardly pushes things upwards. While it doesn’t affect his park-neutral stats, going to Oakland also takes about 30 points of OPS off the projection he would have received in Milwaukee. If Ruiz repeats his 2022 season exactly, his WAR projection hits the three-win mark in 129 games, with his defense in center field going into the black.

Pitchers

I get a kick out of the dependable-but-unambitious magic the A’s are able to conjure with their rotation. With a few exceptions, such as Frankie Montas, Oakland’s skill with starting pitchers seems to be turning fourth starters into dependable-but-boring number twos and Triple-A talent into acceptable fourth starters. Sawing an assistant in half and successfully picking your card aren’t exciting tricks, but they’re at least an upgrade from the G.O.B. Bluth types. ZiPS is highly intrigued by Ken Waldichuk, and sees Kyle Muller as a legitimate starter, so the rotation probably won’t be all that bad. That’s an improvement over 2022, when the A’s carried an inexpensive rotation that performed far worse than their usual inexpensive rotation; the 3.5 combined WAR was the worst for the team since the 1982 squad. Daulton Jefferies will have a much worse projection when he returns given his surgeries.

The vintage penny-pinching A’s squads usually cobbled together surprisingly solid bullpens, but ZiPS doesn’t see many diamonds in the rough here. As currently projected, this would be one of the worst relief corps in baseball. Probably the most interesting projection here is that of Garrett Acton, who got hit really hard at times in the minors. But pitcher home run rates are extremely volatile, especially for short relievers, and offense was crazy in the Pacific Coast League. His fastball ticked up into the 95-97 mph range in 2022 and he’s a real swing-and-miss pitcher, something the A’s don’t have in abundance.

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 or have retired, players who will miss 2023 due to injury, and players who were released in 2022. So yes, if you see Joe Schmoe, who quit baseball back in August to form a Norwegian Death Dixieland Bubblegum Ska-Funk band, he’s still listed here intentionally. ZiPS is assuming a league with an ERA of 4.22, above 2022’s level of offense but lower than other years. Pitchers who appear to have a fairly definite change in the majors from start-to-relief or vice-versa from these projections will receive reconfigured updates in the spring.

Hitters are ranked by 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 that 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.

As always, incorrect projections are either caused by flaws in the physical reality of the universe or by skillful sabotage of our friend and former editor. You can, however, still get mad at me on Twitter.