The Oakland A’s Defense Errs Toward Infamy

The 2015 Athletics have been talked about more than one might expect given their place in the standings. It might actually be because of their place in the standings that they’re getting talked about so much. Having a record in one-run games of 2-13 will do that to a team. They’re unlucky. Their bullpen has chosen the worst possible times to implode this season. And, while this hasn’t gotten as much attention, their defense has been a serious problem, so much so that they might be one of the worst overall defenses in the past 15 years if they continue this level of play.

Those defensive issues are mostly on the back of the infielders, especially third baseman Brett Lawrie and shortstop Marcus Semien (the latter leads all MLB infielders with 15 errors and was profiled on these digital pages just last week). Last night, with a game against the Rays in the eighth inning, it looked like the A’s might put up a zero in the error column, which is more of an exception than a rule in 2015. Then this happened:

It was a prototypical 2015 A’s error: a slow grounder that probably didn’t have enough steam for a double play, an attempt to make the play anyway, and an off-balance throw that sailed high. Though Lawrie has contributed his fair share, Semien has been missing both fielding and throwing chances in bunches, and for that reason, the A’s now find themselves dead last in overall team defense this year by UZR/150. DRS is kinder to them, putting them just below the middle of the pack. Let’s take a look at a graphic of UZR/150 and DRS for all teams this year (to be clear, we shouldn’t use this chart as a strict comparison between the metrics, more for reference):

It’s still early, and we know UZR takes a long time to stabilize, but we have the 2015 Athletics just edging-out the also-terrible Padres defense for last in the league. We should regress this data a ton, but as we’ll see, there’s a reason the A’s are where they are with respect to UZR. As you can also see, there’s a bit of a disagreement between the UZR and DRS on where the A’s should stand, which we can expect out of two different measurement systems: there’s a lot that goes into how both UZR and DRS are calculated, but UZR is probably putting more weight on the A’s making errors than DRS is, and the A’s have made a lot of errors.

If we’re fair to DRS, the other parts of the A’s defensive game — range, arm strength, etc. — are probably a little better than overall UZR/150 would have us believe. Looking at the UZR breakdown for the A’s confirms this:

• ARM: -4.1
• DPR: 0.9
• RngR: -10.1
• ErrR: -8.2

That error component is a big one, taking the A’s from a poor defensive team to the worst. That component also really separates the A’s from the rest of the league: no other team has an ErrR rating lower than -3.4. We know errors aren’t an ideal stat, but they do provide some use, especially as a tool for historical context on where this A’s team might fit in with other error-prone teams in the past.

Errors have decreased as time has gone on, so comparing this A’s team with other teams from the early 1900’s, or even those from the 1950’s, proves a little difficult. It’s best to focus on the most recent past, and that tells us this A’s team is historically error-prone if they continue playing this way. The 2015 A’s are currently on pace for 169 errors, which would be by far the most since 2000 (the 2001 Padres had 145), the second-most since 1990, and tenth-most since 1980. Let’s look at the teams with the most errors since 2000, along with the 2015 A’s current pace:

It’s clear for this era of baseball that 169 errors is almost unheard of. Players who make as many mistakes as Marcus Semien has made this season are generally hidden in a place where they will make fewer of them, or else they lose playing time in favor of someone who can field; however, the 2015 A’s are locked into their current left side of the infield for a couple reasons. First, they don’t really have any other options — Ben Zobrist is still working back from a knee injury, and his range at shortstop will be anything but assured when he returns; prospect Joey Wendle is probably out of the picture due to service-time reasons; and Renato Nunez is the only other option in terms of infielders. He’s currently struggling in Double-A.

The second reason is that Semien can hit. He’s second in wRC+ among shortstops this year, and provides a spark to an Oakland offense that has scored only 19 runs in their past seven games. It’s simply not easy to take his bat out of the lineup when he’s been one of the better hitters on a team that has no viable replacement around. Manager Bob Melvin has reiterated that they want Semien to be the full-time shortstop this year, but just how long the team can stomach this sort of defense remains to be seen.

What do the A’s do in the meantime, then? They’ve already taken steps to do something: hire Ron Washington as a special infield coach. Washington was the third base/infield coach for the A’s from 1997 to 2006, and he’s often credited with forming Eric Chavez into the great defensive third baseman he was during much of his time with the Athletics. He’ll join the team for tonight’s game against the Rays, and you would have to think the lives of Lawrie and Semien in particular will be filled with infield drills for the foreseeable future. Whether Washington can right the A’s ship is anyone’s guess: defensive problems like these don’t usually just disappear.

For the A’s, the poor defense has been just another part of the reason they’ve lost so many one-run games, a record that has the potential to be historic for its confluence of poor timing and bad luck. They also have the potential to set another ignominious record if they don’t get their defense under control: most errors in a season in the past 15 years. Defensively, they might not be this bad for the rest of the season, but it seems like there’s only one place to go at this point — up.