Athletics Acquire Conor Jackson
The Oakland Athletics sit at 32-33, only four games out of first in a tight AL West, despite a terrible .316 wOBA from their outfielders. Oakland GM Billy Beane saw a chance to upgrade at that position today, acquiring Conor Jackson from the Diamondbacks.
This is a classic buy low from Beane. Conor Jackson has been struggling since an unfortunate encounter with valley fever in 2009. In his last 282 PAs, Jackson has a .280 wOBA. Given that he splits his defensive time between left field and first base, that’s well below replacement level even before we take into account that Jackson isn’t a great fielder. So what does Beane see in Jackson?
In the three seasons before 2009, Jackson was a well above-average hitter. Each season saw an OBP above .365 and a wOBA above .350. His walk rate hovered just above average and his strikeout rates were low, a combination leading to the aforementioned above-average OBP. There’s reason to believe that Jackson can return to this previous level of play, as the limited plate appearances he’s seen aren’t nearly enough to establish a new talent level. ZiPS believes that Jackson will be an above-average hitter for the rest of the season, projecting a .269/.351/.411 line, good for a .341 wOBA, the rest of the way.
That’s not a fantastic number for a mediocre corner outfielder, but it should provide an upgrade over Eric Patterson or a legitimate right-handed platoon partner for Gabe Gross, both of whom are mightily struggling at the plate in 2010. Beane likely believes that if Jackson has made a full recovery from his ailment that he could return to the .350 or .360 wOBAs he posted in ’06-’08, which would make him easily the best-hitting regular outfielder on the team.
The Athletics sent 24-year-old Triple-A closer Sam Demel to the Diamondbacks to complete the trade. Demel has solid but not dominant numbers with Sacramento, posting a 3.11 park adjusted FIP. He has a solid 8.7:2.8 K:BB ratio, but that FIP is supported by a very low 3.7% HR/FB rate. Including a luck adjustment (which can be seen here), Demel has a 4.03 FIP. Given the presence of Jerry Blevins, Andrew Bailey, Mike Wuertz, Craig Breslow, and Brad Ziegler, Demel is an expendable piece.
Jackson is certainly no guarantee, as the move to a larger stadium in the better league could just push his already poor 2010 numbers even lower. However, there’s a pretty good chance that Jackson becomes the best-hitting outfielder on the A’s roster with this move. Given that the price was a fringe-type minor league reliever, the risk here is low, and the potential reward high enough to warrant the acquisition.
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love this trade for the A’s.
still don’t understand designating Jake Fox for assignment though.
Let me explain.
Jake Fox is terrible.
there are worse players on theA’s than Jake Fox
That’s a rationale for DFA’ing them, not for keeping Jake Fox.
Despite the love from this site, Fox is a AAAA bat and that was proven this year. He looked awful from day 1 and was completely terrible defensively everywhere. He is a DH who cant hit non-AAA pitching. If there’s any justice in the world he will never play in the bigs ever again.
Same with Alex Gordon but everyone loves him too.
Alex Gordon has tons of defensive value at 3B.
Jake Fox doesn’t have defensive value at any position.
Huge difference
Comparing Gordon to Fox is laughable. Thanks for making it easy to disregard your posts from here on out.
Is wOBA still not park adjusted here? If so, please stop using it until it is.
Is this a serious complaint? Park adjustments can’t seriously account for more than couple of points in most cases, and certainly don’t mean the difference between a “Good” and “below-average” hitter.
Adjusting for park (and league) is a pretty easy thing to do, and there’s a significant difference between Oakland (pitchers park, superior league) and Arizona (hitters park, inferior league). So, yes, this is a real complaint.
wRC+ is park and league adjusted and is also on this site so you can stop your whining.
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/what-is-wrc/
The fact that the site does have a park adjusted metric only makes it dumber that they use unadjusted wOBA as an analytic tool in their articles.
If they were using batting average to measure offense in their articles, would it not be OK to “whine” about it since they also have wRC+ on the player pages?
Seems like a legitimate complaint to me – I think (I *think*) wOBA is used because it’s readily recognized on the BA/OBP scale, but wRC+ seems like it gives similar information and makes the necessary park adjustments, which would make it a superior metric.
And, the logic behind wRC+ (100 = avg; > 100 = above avg; < 100 = below avg) is so, so easy to understand and interpret. Much more so than, "is .350 wOBA good? Well…it depends. What's league average? And it's not park adjusted…and…and…)
We shifted from BA to OBP and the earth didn't spin off its axis. I think we can similarly shift from wOBA to wRC+.
Unfortunately, ZiPS doesn’t project wRC+.
To quote Prof. Plum: “Ooh…shucks.”
Jack, aside from being able to use wRC+ as a projection tool, where do you fall on the discussion of wOBA vs wRC+? (As a tool to analyze what has already occurred, anyway.) Just curious, you’re more familiar with the strong points and shortcomings of these various “all in one” metrics than I.
Jack,
I hear you on ZIPS, but I think you should be clear about that in the article. Is a .341 projected wOBA in Arizona really an above average projection for a hitter moving to the AL? I’m not sure, but I’d guess it’s pretty close to average.
But it was more about your use of wOBA to describe the A’s outfield and Jackson’s prior seasons. Given the significant park and league differences, the gap is much smaller than unadjusted wOBA suggests.
“Alex Gordon has tons of defensive value at 3B.”
Is that still true while he’s playing left field?
Seems to me that would make for a ‘huge difference.’
Wisconsin Seo Explained – Part 1
With over 50 Billion searches each year in the U.S. alone, Search engine marketing techniques is easily the 1,000 lb Gorilla online, far out-pacing any other form of Internet Marketing.
Now that over 80% of Americans have Internet access both at home and at work, recent research clearly shows that the Internet has turned into a primary source of information for those seeking to purchase products or services. With so much to gain (or lose), it’s wise to fully understand how search engines function with a view toward tapping into this phenomenal form of marketing to drive brand awareness, customers not to mention, revenue.
With regards to this discussion, we will focus on “Natural” or free listings; we”ll be discussing Ppc marketing in another article.
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Search engine optimization…It’s All About Relevance
There are literally dozens of criteria search engines use to determine relevance. Key indicators are page titles, domain names, keyword density and the amount of links pointing to a website just for example.
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Search engine marketing is about insuring your site is highly relevant for your targeted terms. This is a crucial distinction to make. Since the entire process is driven by software, you won’t get points for having a “pretty” website. Search engines don’t have a preference for attractive websites, they don’t really care if you have great navigation and superb animation. They care only about gathering cold, hard data to determine what your website is about and how it stacks up against other sites of the same topic.
If you think about it, it makes sense. The goal of search engines is to return the perfect results based on the search term the user types in. This is exactly why Google dominates online.. They do it better than everyone else.
To continue on to part 2 of this article, please read our blog post on Wisconsin Search Engine Optimization.
Just blowing some in between class time on Digg and I found your article . Not typically what I like to read about, but it was certainly worth my time. Thanks.