With Coco Crisp Injury, Oakland’s Offense Gets Even Weaker

Last season the Oakland Athletics had four players qualify for the batting title and seven players take more than 400 plate appearances for the team. With Coco Crisp out for 6-8 weeks for elbow surgery, none of those seven players will be with the A’s when the season starts. The A’s hectic winter, including the additions of Ben Zobrist, Billy Butler, Brett Lawrie, and Ike Davis, clouded somewhat exactly how far backward they went on the win curve. As Jeff Sullivan wrote in December, The A’s Are Just Doing What They Have To Do, but all the moves they made have the A’s taking a potentially significant drop from last season when they were the fourth-highest scoring team in the league. With Reddick out for the first few games and Crisp now out for an extended period, giving more plate appearances to Billy Burns and Eric Sogard further weakens an offense that was already due for a step back.

With Josh Reddick and Coco Crisp out to start the season, not one of the top nine in plate appearances for the A’s last season will begin the season with Oakland.. Of those top nine, six provided very good production with a wOBA above .330 and Reddick is the only returnee among them. In the FanGraphs Depth Charts projections, 93 Major League Baseball players have a wOBA projection above .330, but only Ben Zobrist plays for the A’s. Imports Billy Butler, Ike Davis, and Brett Lawrie should provide above average offense and a hopefully full season of Josh Reddick will help, but the offense could take a big step back this season.

The A’s were probably due for a slight correction regardless of who they brought back as their .312 wOBA was 13th and their 101 wRC+ was ninth in MLB. The projections show Oakland at 659 runs scored this season, down from 729 in 2014. Losing nearly half a run per game would be a big blow to the A’s, currently projected to rank just 12th out of 15 American League teams in scoring. Using the Fangraphs Depth Charts for playing time, the ZiPS projections for the nine highest players in terms of plate appearances with at least one catcher is below, listed from highest offensive projection to lowest before Crisp’s injury.

Ordered in that manner makes the offense look pretty good, especially when compared to last season’s .245/.321/.382 line, but that line includes no weaker bench plate appearances and last year the A’s were second in the AL with a 117 wRC+ with men on base and also runner-up with runners in scoring position with a 112 wRC+. Taking Crisp away from the lineup further weakens the team. The A’s could give Billy Burns the bulk of the plate appearances in the outfield, but he is projected for a meager .234/.308/.286 line supplemented by a lot of stolen bases. Oakland could let Eric Sogard start against right-handed pitchers and move Zobrist to the outfield, where he will likely be regardless to start the season with Reddick out. The A’s might be able to improve their hitting line a little through appropriate platooning, but without the good luck they had last season with runners on base and the good players they let go, runs scored could go down considerably.

The A’s are one of six teams with 12 players projected to finish with more than 250 plate appearances, the highest in MLB. Of those six teams, the A’s are the only one with a 13th player getting over 200 plate appearances. Oakland figures to spread out plate appearances to maximize platoon splits whenever possible. Ben Zobrist is a switch hitter, and Billy Butler and Brett Lawrie are right-handers who figure to play nearly every day. Marcus Semien figures to get the majority of the plate appearances at shortstop, but the team has four regular left-handed starters in Ike Davis, Josh Reddick, Stephen Vogt and Sam Fuld. The four players figure to lose plate appearances to Craig Gentry, Mark Canha, and Stephen Vogt. Left-hander Eric Sogard could see more playing time with Crisp out, while Billy Burns is a switch hitter, but is not a good addition to the lineup from either side.

Dan Szymborski recently made available platoon split projections so we can see how much of an effect platooning can have in Oakland. Here is the projected lineup (not in projected batting order) against right-handers, nearly identical to the one listed above except Sogard is now in for Crisp and the statistics below are the splits against righties.

The results take a hit without Crisp in the lineup, who was projected to be above league average in 2015. Against left-handers, Oakland is likely to take a different tact. All five left-handed starters are projected to have sub-.300 OBPs against lefties. Unfortunately for Oakland, they only appear to have three viable hitters to come off the bench and take their spots. That leaves Josh Reddick in the lineup on most days, though not at the beginning of the season, and he is projected for a .177 ISO against lefties so he can still do some damage. Billy Burns is likely to receive more playing time as well, although Sogard could be a full-time starter at second. Neither player helps the offense.

Here is a potential lineup against left-handers with their splits against lefties.

Gentry makes a big difference over Fuld, but he does not deserve the full-time job with just a .250/.312/.300 projected line against right-handers. Phegley does not offer much at the plate, while Canha is decent but not an upgrade over Davis against righties. In addition to Gentry, most of the rise against left-handers is due to the everyday right-handed starters gaining the platoon advantage, but slugging moves down with Burns in the lineup. Comparing the everyday lineup without platoon splits to the two with platoon splits help Oakland a little bit, but do not bridge the gap entirely.

Platooning cannot make up for the loss of Crisp without good players to plug in the lineup. Finding platoon players is a useful strategy for Oakland as players like Fuld and Gentry, Davis and Canha, and Vogt and Phegley are cheaper to obtain in salary and in trade without the full-time label. Unfortunately for Oakland, those combinations do not yield much on the field. The A’s should be fine at the catcher position and Fuld and Gentry will be passable in center field, but the A’s will be getting below average production from first base and either left field or second base, wherever Zobrist is not playing.

Since moving Yoenis Cespedes last season, the A’s have also parted ways with Josh Donaldson, Brandon Moss, Derek Norris, Jed Lowrie, and John Jaso. Ben Zobrist can make up for a lot of the lost production. Brett Lawrie can help as well with Ike Davis, Billy Butler, and Marcus Semien all potentially useful players, but the production from last year was going to be very difficult to match before the loss of Crisp. Even a return to form from Billy Butler and a breakout from Brett Lawrie might not make up for the missing players and the high production with runners on from last season.

The Oakland offense was likely to regress no matter who was brought back, but the Crisp injury further weakens a lineup already expected to score less than they did in 2014. They have found surprising sources of offense in previous years. Billy Burns could single and steal his way to a very surprising year or Eric Sogard could improve from a dreadful 2014, but as they enter 2015, they find themselves behind the Mariners and Angels in the AL West.