Archive for Athletics

The Phillies and Rays, who met in the 2008 World Series, happened to be the two best fielding teams in baseball last season, tied with a UZR of +74.3 runs. Third on that list was the Oakland Athletics, who finished third in the AL West at 75-86. The Athletics have been known for defense for a while now, as GM Billy Beane has shown a knack for combining pitch-to-contact arms with solid defenders. The Oakland pitching staff also performed well, virtually deadlocked with the Rays, and ahead of the Phillies, in value wins. With a decent offense, the Athletics may have looked pretty darn good last season.

Of course, the offense was anything but decent save for Jack Cust, and its ineptitude canceled out the defensive contributions. Looking at the nine players who primarily comprised the Athletics offense, their slash line was an ugly .245/.323/.378. If you remove Cust, the line drops to .247/.315/.364, so it becomes evident just how much he added to the OBP and SLG.

In attempting to rectify the situation, Beane acquired Matt Holliday, brought back Jason Giambi, and emptied his pockets further for Orlando Cabrera and Nomar Garciaparra. Holliday is a tremendous offensive talent likely to take a slight step back due to the change in scenery from an NL hitter-friendly park to an AL pitcher-friendly park. He will still be very valuable, though, and a huge upgrade over the likes of Emil Brown or Rajai Davis.

Giambi is likely to spend most of his time as a designated hitter, though with Cust’s defensive struggles, the former MVP will probably get his fair share of innings at first base. For however many games he plays at first base, splitting time with Daric Barton, you can count on that position seeing a definitive rise in offensive production.

Orlando Cabrera is a better fielder than Bobby Crosby and though he isn’t going to light the world on fire with his bat, he will still be a better hitter than Crosby as well. The swap may very well add +1.5 to +2 wins depending on how well Cabrera utilizes his glove. And Nomar will primarily face lefties, whom he has hurt over the last few seasons. With Eric Chavez hurt and Jack Hannahan, well, not being a good hitter, I would think Nomar and Hannahan would platoon in some form at the hot corner, with Garciaparra facing lefties.

The As have several positions that will require playing time decisions, but the increase in offensive productivity not necessarily at the expense of defensive prowess brings the As to around 83-85 wins right now, which could end up being good enough for the division. Last year, their starting lineup featured four players who added +1 win or less. This season, even if some of those players still receive playing time in a platoon situation, expect that number to shrink. Giambi might not have much left and Holliday certainly isn’t going to re-sign after the season, but do not sleep on the Oakland Athletics in 2009.

On occasion I like to peruse the leaderboards here by position and see which players rank atop or on the bottom of the WPA/LI spectrum. Yesterday, however, I discovered a disturbing pattern while doing this for the junior circuit. It seemed that the bottom of each position was populated by members of the Oakland Athletics. The A’s stayed in the playoff race for half of the season before shipping away parts like Rich Harden, signaling a throwing in of the towel, so to speak. Their poor performance from that point on was largely attributed to the trading away of Dan Haren in the off-season and Harden in-season. From what these numbers showed, though, their struggles have a whole heck of a lot to do with their offense.

Since WPA/LI is a counting stat, I did not use the qualified only field, but found that all but Frank Thomas and Jack Cust were above 0 in this category. In fact, some of the others are so below 0 that they rank within the bottom five or bottom ten at their respective positions, if not at the very bottom of the list. Here are some of the players and their context-neutral wins:

Kurt Suzuki, C, -0.89
Daric Barton, 1B, -1.81 (lowest)
Mark Ellis, 2B, -1.16 (3rd lowest)
Bobby Crosby, SS, -2.87 (lowest)
Jack Hannahan, 3B, -0.81 (5th lowest)

Additionally, five of their six outfielders rank in the bottom twenty, as Emil Brown is ninth from the bottom, Carlos Gonzalez is eleventh, and Eric Patterson, Rajai Davis, and Travis Buck rank eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth from the bottom. The WPA/LI of these players range from Buck’s -0.72 to Brown’s -1.37. The other outfielder, Ryan Sweeney, is at -0.01, making him essentially a league average hitter, keeping him away from the bottom twenty. That leaves the Athletics with Jack Cust, Frank Thomas, and Ryan Sweeney as average or above average hitters, with Cust being far and away the best.

The team has an MLB-worst .683 OPS on the season, from a .318 OBP/.365 SLG. To put that in perspective, it would be the equivalent to having Felipe Lopez occupying every spot in the lineup this year. Their pitching may still be relatively solid and may only improve in the years to come, but the offense of their personnel needs drastic improvement, regardless of how solid defensively some of these players may be.

His story may not follow the same Hollywood storyline as Chris Coste, but Athletics rookie reliever Brad Ziegler has made quite a splash since his call to the big leagues on May 30. Ziegler, who maintains his own blog titled Getting Ziggy With It at Athletics Nation, was drafted in 2002 by the Athletics before returning to school, incidentally where he played alongside Ryan Howard. The Phillies drafted him the following year but, following shoulder tendinitis, deemed him unworthy of even their low single-A affiliate.

Though the outlook appeared to be bleak, Brad caught on with an independent team and, after four starts, found himself a member of the Athletics farm system. After a few seasons in the minors, Ziegler shifted to a sidearm or submarine delivery and steadily improved. Following a strong start in AAA this year, the Athletics brought him up to “the show,” where he has yet to disappoint.

In fact, he has tossed 27 innings without allowing a runner to cross home plate. While not even half of Orel Hershiser’s consecutive scoreless innings streak it is actually the new record for most scoreless innings to begin a major league career. The previous record, 25 innings, belonged to George McQuillan who did so in 1907, his rookie year with the Phillies.

Brad doesn’t throw hard but currently possesses a groundball rate of 69.9%; his GB/FB is a ridiculous 4.64. Given the amount of flyballs given up we would expect him to have surrendered at least one home run, so it isn’t as if his lack of gopher balls is extremely lucky. Overall his numbers look like this:

0.00 ERA, 2.86 FIP, 0.81 WHIP, .202 BABIP, 4.33 K/9, 2.00 BB/9, 2.17 K/BB, 100% LOB

He isn’t striking out many hitters but his low walk rate has resulted in a quite respectable strikeout to walk ratio. Few runners have reached base thanks to an extremely low BABIP and the aforementioned walk rate, and as his 100% LOB and new record suggests, none of these runners have scored. 27 major league innings isn’t really enough to gauge anything with regards to a true talent level or expected results moving forward, but here are Brad’s current ranks amongst relievers with at least 20 innings pitched:

T-1st, least home runs allowed with 0
1st, 0.00 ERA (second place is Joe Nathan at 1.05)
1st, 100% LOB%
1st, 4.64 GB/FB
2nd, 69.9% GB (Roy Corcoran of the Mariners is higher)
4th, .202 BABIP
4th, 0.81 WHIP
6th, 1.44 REW
T-9th, 1.05 WPA/LI (tied with Jonathan Papelbon)
10th, 2.00 BB/9

Suffice it to say, Brad Ziegler has had a very impressive first 23 games, ranking in the top ten in a number of statistical categories. His numbers may regress as the season goes on but he has done enough at this point to be known as more than a former teammate of Ryan Howard. Brad is definitely, as his blog suggets, getting ziggy with it, and opposing hitters are paying the price.

If I asked you who the best setup men in the American League were, I’d imagine you’d probably rattle off the list of usual names: Joba Chamberlain, Rafael Betancourt, Scot Shields, and Pat Neshek to name a few. It might take you a while before you got to Santiago Casilla, but 2008 has been his coming out party, and he’s quickly establishing himself as a potential relief ace.

Always a guy who could get swings and misses, he’s blowing hitters away with increasing frequency, but more importantly, he’s now commanding his power fastball/slider combination, walking just three of the 62 batters he’s faced this year. With that combination of command and swing-and-miss stuff, he is yet to give up a run in 2008, and his dominance in the 7th and 8th innings is one of the reason the A’s are hanging with the Angels in the A.L. West race so far.

Relievers are fickle by nature, but Casilla’s always had the arm, and he’s showing now that he’s able to pound the strike zone with dominating stuff. If Casilla continues to throw strikes and not get himself in trouble, the A’s will have found themselves another legitimate high leverage weapon to help them win close games.

This offseason the Diamondbacks struck gold in winning the Dan Haren sweepstakes. The young, 27-year old ace looked mighty fine when placed right next to Brandon Webb. Billy Beane decided it was time to rebuild and sent Haren to the desert for six prospects: Dana Eveland, Carlos Gonzalez, Brett Anderson, Gregory Smith, Aaron Cunningham, and Chris Carter. Many had only heard of Eveland and Gonzalez but, as usual, concluded that the other four must have solid value because they attracted the attention of Beane.

Haren has pitched quite well in the early going, legitimately posting a 4-1 record with an FIP of 3.26. Further west, though, Gregory Smith and Dana Eveland have been flying under the mainstream radar and paying dividends to a surprising Athletics team. Of course the season is still young, but these youngsters deserve some credit.

Smith has pitched at least six innings in four of his five starts, and is yet to surrender more than three earned runs in any of them. He currently sports a 1.06 WHIP and an LOB of 75.5%. His line drive percentage of 17.2% expects a BABIP of around .292, yet it currently sits at .226. Additionally, his ERA of 2.73 translates to a 4.20 FIP. He has not been as steady with the luck-based indicators as Eveland but ranks 9th among AL starters with a 0.73 WPA/LI.

Eveland’s ERA of 3.13 translates to a still quite good 3.46 FIP. Allowing 16.8% line drives we would expect his BABIP to be around the .288 mark; it is currently .291, so he has not been unlucky in that regard. He currently ranks 16th among AL starters with a 0.52 WPA/LI, just slightly ahead of teammates Chad Gaudin and Joe Blanton. Yes, four-fifths of the Athletics rotation ranks in the top twenty. His K/BB of 1.86 is nothing to write home about but he has pitched quite well for a 24-year old with just six major league starts entering the season.

Though Eveland pitched poorly last night. based solely on April performance, this trade has definitely benefited both teams, and the Athletics still have four more prospects yet to scratch the surface.