“What’s So Different?”

Last season, Jack Cust and Kurt Suzuki were probably the A’s best hitters.  Especially considering the only guys who played enough games to be considered “regulars” were Bobby Crosby, Jack Hannahan, Daric Barton, Emil Brown, and Mark Ellis.  Ryan Sweeney was on the borderline, and was stastically (percentage based numbers only) a little better than Suzuki.

So the A’s beefed up the team.  Matt Holliday replaced Emil Brown, Jason Giambi replaced Barton, a healthy Chavey replaced Hannahan, and Orlando Cabrera replaced Bobby Crosby.

The result?

The team’s two best hitters, so far, are Jack Cust (OPS .848) and Kurt Suzuki (OPS .835).  Among regulars, no one else is even above .630.  In other words, it’s not even close.  Cust is essentially the same.  His power numbers are down but his contact numbers are up.  But to his credit, Zook has jumped 120+ points so far this year and is currently on a tear. But otherwise, the offense has been nothing if not disappointing.

So what went wrong?

Well basically, the guys with the big names are hitting like the crappy guys we has last year.  Chavvy is particularly bad, with an OPS of .262.  In case you were wondering, the newly re-called Hannahan’s OPS was .647, good for worst in the league among regular players, but still more than twice what Chavez currently stands at.  Orlando Cabrera’s OPS is a putrid .525 (even WITH him hitting a respectable .286 Batting Average).  Last year, Croz had an OPS of .645.  Giambi and Holliday currently stand at .626 and .629, respectively.  Last year, Brown and Barton were at .683 & .675.

So this year’s team, with all the big names, is actually batting WORSE than last year’s league-cellar hitting team.

 

My Kinda Team

In Billy We Trust

The Billy Beane-era A’s are always the type of team that’s fun to root for. They almost always over-achieve, they cycle the big stars out so there’s always unproven but hugely talented kids. They put together teams of high-valued prospects (Carlos Gonzalez, Rich Harden, Bobby Crosby), passed over veterans (Jack Cust, Justin Duchscherer), and under-acknowledged, over-achieving glue guys (Mark Ellis, Emil Brown). We almost always have good chemistry, good pitching, solid-to-great defense, and enough offense for us to compete. But this year has been extremes.

This is the ultimate A’s team. The Dan Haren and Nick Swisher trades were made when it looked like our farm system was underachieving. Well I don’t know if its simply a case of the new guys’ arrival pushing the older guys harder, but the underachievers are now back on track and we have this shitload of top prospects up and down our system. To put in perspective the turnover the A’s have had in the past season-and-a-half, let’s point out that the A’s were in the ALCS just a year-and-a-half ago. Out of our regular starting 9 from that season, 3 players remain (Ellis, Croz, and Chavy). And Croz missed those playoffs (and most of the 2007 season) with injuries. It was getting to the point where we wondered if he’d ever play a full season, but so far so good this year. He’s been one of our most productive players. Chavy we just got back and into his normal swing, but Jack Hannahan is certainly pushing him for playing time. Ellis, as he has since he’s been here, has remained the team’s constant. It’s great to hear he’s working on a new contract. He is one of the best 2b’s in baseball.

But of the rest, Jason Kendall stopped hitting. We had Zook in AAA, so we traded Kendall for next-to-nothing. Swisher was my favorite player, but we traded him for some GREAT prospects including Ryan Sweeney, who has almost matched Swish’s production and essentially taken his spot in the lineup. Kotsay was a guy who wasn’t as productive as one would think but a great fielder. But we were running out of spots in the OF for him. So we traded him for a couple prospects. One, Joey Devine, is thought to be our closer of the future should we trade Huston Street. Jay Payton had a very good run with us. But we essentially let him go and replaced him with Emil Brown. Brown has actually been Payton with more RBIs. And Frank Thomas, off his monster MVP-worthy season, was let to sign in Toronto, and replaced with Mike Piazza last season. Of course that didn’t work out for either us or him, so now he’s back and on the DL. So we replaced Frank with Piazza, then let Piazza go and replaced him with Mike Sweeney. Then Sweeney wasn’t playing too well and got hurt. So we replaced him with Frank. So essentially, replaced Frank with Frank (and got a 5-time all-star to back him up for, basically, nothing).

Marcos Scutaro was replaced by Jack Hannahan. And as much as i hate to say it (all A’s fans should remember Marcos fondly), that’s an upgrade. Dan Johnson is replaced by, essentially, Sweeney. Johnson sucked. Sweeney’s not much better so far, but he’s an improvement. Bobby Kielty was a fun player to watch. But Carlos Gonzalez kills him on almost every level. CarGon might be the next A’s superstar/MVP-candidate. We’ll call Adam Melhuse and Rob Bowen a split since neither got/gets much playing time. But i will say this, Harden’s best starts have been with Bowen catching.

No one in the league has been better in 2008 than the Duke

As for the staff, it’s hard to say how tremendous our staff is this season. A lot of it is because we might have the two best pitchers in the AL this season. One of them (Harden) I refuse to go into detail about for fear of jinxing him as i did earlier this season. But he’s the typical “golden boy,” a guy that everyone knows is good. And when he’s on, he’s unhittable. Completely. But Duke, no one saw that coming. In 2006, we also had a monster staff. But that staff of Zito/Haren/Blanton/Loaiza/Saarloos (remember Harden kept getting hurt, and Duke was an all-star as a reliever). Our top two this year, are probably both all-stars. In fact, they should be all-stars. That’s if they stay healthy. Would you believe our top two starters have a completely ridiculous combined ERA of 2.06. That’s completely nuts! Duke’s already under 2.00, and the Golden Boy is at 2.15. I’m not going to go into their other dominating stats, but they’ve been pretty easily the best two pitchers in the AL. Greg Smith and Dana Eveland have pitched VERY well on their own.

As great as Haren is/was, what we got for him was even greater

Let’s go back to the 2006 staff though. Zito left and signed the biggest contract for a pitcher in history following his out-dueling Johan Santana in the playoffs. Let’s just say that didn’t work out too well for him or the Giants. Haren had an even better season last year, and ended up starting the All-Star game. He’s having another Cy Young-worthy season this year so far. But boy, we got a TON for him. Brett Anderson is currently our #2/3 prospect (behind Trevor Cahill, who is, essentially, our next Harden and CarGon, whose already in the pros). Dana Eveland and Greg Smith are already our 4th and 5th starters. Both should be in the running for rookie of the year. In fact they’ve been so good, that our #4 starter from last year (Chad Gaudin) has been pushed into the bullpen and our #5 from last year (Lenny DiNardo) has been sent back to AAA. Aaron Cunningham has been an average player in our system, and Chris Carter leads the A Class Pacific League in Home Runs. And of course, they gave us CarGon, who immediately envoked dreams of Griffey and Beltran.

Would i take our rotation over the 06 one? That’s a very close call. I still to this day think that if we’d had Harden in the playoffs, we had a very legit shot at going all the way. A final year of his prime Zito/Harden/Haren/Blanton/Loaiza top 5 is better than anyone had in the league. We would’ve then had Harden pitching against Verlander, and that would’ve made it Haren vs. Rogers and Blanton/Loaiza vs. Bonderman. I feel we can win those matchups. But today, the top 5 of Duke/Harden/Blanton/Smith/Eveland is very very good as well. Obviously Duke and Harden are pitching better than any of our pitchers in 06. Blanton, despite his horrible record, currently has a 4.58 ERA and a 1.4 WHIP. He was also the third gun of that 06 staff when he had a 4.82 ERA and a 1.54 WHIP. But the team’s obviously not hitting as well, so we’ll call it a draw at the Blanton spot. Eveland and Smith both have ERAs under 4 and WHIP’s under 1.4. Loaiza and Saarloos were both in the high 4’s and both over 1.4.

In the bullpen, Street was better in 06. He has about the same WHIP but his ERA is almost a point higher this season. But he has more firepower in front of him. Our bullpen top 5 then was Kiki Calero/Gaudin/Duke/Brad Halsey/Joe Kennedy (RIP). This year’s top 5 behind Street are Casilla/Embree/Foulke/Brown/Ziegler with Devine waiting in the wings for Street’s job, should we trade Huston. One could very well make the argument that we have 4 or 5 closers on this team. In fact, we even have a sixth starter in Gaudin who we didn’t even mention. I personally think we have the best bullpen in the league. We probably have the best pitching staff in the league, top to bottom. Consider that we have two dominant starters, two rising stars (both with ERAs under 4), and a solid fifth guy (who was the THIRD guy on our ALCS year), two former closers, a well established closer, one of the top 3 or 4 setup guys in the league (Casilla), a future STAR closer (Devine), and two very intriguing prospects (Brown & Ziegler).

CarGon has A’s fans day dreaming of Griffey and Beltran

But it’s all gonna come down to hitting. And our offense has a ton of holes. When Frank can finally stay healthy, he’ll solve our biggest need (a righty slugger), but we also don’t have a true leadoff guy (i assume CarGon will end up there, though Ryan Sweeney has an outside chance), and we have 4 guys for 3 outfield positions. Basically, our day-to-day lineup goes Suzuki at C, Deric Barton at 1B, Ellis/Croz/Chavy on the left side of the infield, and CarGon/Sweeney/Brown in the OF. Cust then becomes the DH. But the problem is that Jack Hannahan is too good to sit for too long. And we’re getting Frank back at some point. This is where we have to make a choice:

A.) We say, screw it, we’re close enough to make run at it all this year! In this case we’d probably have to get all the vets in there. Frank moves to DH and pushes Cust to LF. CarGon/Sweeney rotate in Center and we keep Brown in Right. Hannahan probably replaces Barton at 1B, but Mike Sweeney gets minutes there too. Essentially it’s a 3-man plateau.

B.) We decide to trade/release Brown We could very well still compete with a Cust/Sweeney/CarGon outfield. Of course, we’d still have to figure out what to do with Hannahan. That leads us to….

C.) We send Barton back to AAA Sacto. We start Hannahan at first and let Mike Sweeney hit lefties. Problem Solved.

D.) We decide to play the kids. In this case we probably unload both Brown and Mike Sweeney. Probably get rid of Embree and/or Foulke as well. Blanton & Street too. Then we’re probably rushing Cahill and/or Anderson up by the end of the year so they get a good look in the pros. Actually, we might do that anyway.

Whatever we do, i have faith in Beane. And I’m sure it’ll be fun to follow.

 

B.I.G. Hurt

So if you follow the A’s at all, you know Frank Thomas re-joined the club the other day. It’s about-fuckin-time! Dude had an MVP-caliber year in 06 when we went to the ALCS, then signs with the Jays in the offseason only to completely fall off the radar. How does this happen? How does he go from single-handedly bringing us to the ALCS to completely going MIA in Toronto? The thought of him hitting behind Suzuki, Ellis, and Barton is definitely getting hyped. But let’s calm our enthusiasm (yes, i’m actually talking to myself).

We should realize that The Big Hurt is hitting only .159 this season. His on-base and slugging percentages are 100 and 200 below his career averages. He’s now 39, and who knows how much gas he still has in the tank. That said, the Jays didn’t have the OBP’s that the A’s guys in front of Frank have. And we don’t need Frank to be his-2006-self either. We were doing pretty good without him. What we need from him is to provide some pop to our lineup until/in-addition-to Carlos Gonzalez, whenever we finally call him up (to be the team’s savior!). And did i mention we still don’t have a legit leadoff man? The fact that Travis Buck forgot how to hit has left us with our catcher, who never even takes decent leads off of first base, leading off.

Don’t get me wrong, Suzuki is great! In fact, he’s only in his first full year, and i would have trouble finding 10 catchers i’d rather have this season, much less for the future! But he’s not a lead-off hitter. Keep in mind that we are a team in progress. I think Mark Ellis will have to be moved to leadoff. We could have Suzuki bat second, or CarGon hit there and move Suzuki to the end of the lineup. Then we’d have Barton (Mr. OBP) and Thomas (Mr. SLG) to knock in the runs, and have the Golden Boy (Bobby Crosby) hit fifth. Some combination of two more outfielders (Cust, Buck, DeNorfia, Brown, or even Daniel Putnam from AAA) would hit six and seven. One out of Hannahan, Chavy, and Murphy would play third and hit 8. Then either Suzuki or CarGon would hit 9 (whichever one doesn’t hit 2).

Now for the staff.

Forget about Harden. Yes, he’s good. But forget about him. (I think i actually have more trouble with this than others (see this post and this one).

Joe Blanton doesn’t have the stuff to be an ace. But he’s damn sure trying his best. Gaudin, Smith, and Eveland are in the 2-4 slots, with Dutch rounding out the staff. Of course, one of them is going to the bullpen when Gio Gonzalez comes up. And we have two potential dominant pitchers in AA Midland right now (James Simmons and Henry Rodriguez), and that’s not even getting into the (now) four aces in Stockton. So we’re loaded for the future. If Gonzalez has a couple more good starts, i expect him to be with the club right around the all-star break. Same with the other Gonzalez, actually. Did i mention that Gonzalez (Gio) is supposed to be Harden without the injuries??!!

The Bullpen has arguably been the best in the league. We already have six studs in the bullpen. Six! Yes, six! I’d expect Hutson Street is going to be traded at some point, so maybe that number will drop to five. Embree/Foulke will switch off with the closer role, Casilla is the set-up guy. Devine & Brown will work the seventh, and DiNardo can do long relief. If DiNardo can transition back to the bullpen, there isn’t a hole in taht set up. If our starters can go 5 or 6, we’ll win.

Did i mention that both Gonzalez’ are supposed to be more talented than anyone currently on our club, sans Frank and Harden (who as far as I’m concerned, doesn’t exist right now)??!! And the team is already 14-9 and tied for first place.

Ok, I’m sounding a little too much like a homer now. Time to taper my expectations a bit……