Ooh, the People Be Bumpin' (at Bump City)

http://daboogiedownbronx.mlblogs.com/da_bronx_bombers/images/da_reg_1.jpg


For those of you who don't listen to horn-based soul music, today's post title comes from a Tower of Power song. "Bump City" is slang, of course, for Oakland, home to Tower of Power and Connie Mack's Philadelphia Athletics.

Flashing the Trivia! Which former Tower of Power bass player is now considered to be a father of one of the worst scandals in Major League Baseball history?


The Athletics have qualified for the playoffs five times since 2000 (reaching 100 wins twice, in 2001 and 2002) and have posted at least 87 wins eight of the last nine seasons. Unfortunately, the one season where they didn't manage 87 wins was last year (76-86). Last year it all seemed to fall apart for the A's, who had been considered a top-flite club for years. Whether people have caught on to Billy Beane's highly statistical sabermetic approach or it was just a combination of bad luck and injuries is up to speculation.

The focus of this article is not to discuss sabermetrics, so I will not do so, but I would like to point out that my opinion is that there will always be inefficiencies in the market for ballplayers (and anything else) and so sabermetrics will never truly be outgrown. Some argue that walks, for example, were underappreciated (players with high BB/PA were not rewarded enough in their salaries) five years ago, but that the current market has adjusted to value them properly. While this may be the case, the point of Moneyball was not that walks are underappreciated, but that something was underappreciated. The key to winning an unfair game is to exploit whatever is undervalued at the time and I firmly believe that, although it is cyclical as to what will be undervalued, there will always be something, whether it is speed, fielding ability, power, reliability or any other player attribute.

Anyway, I apologize for that tangent, but I do think it is relatively necessary to discuss sabermetrics, at least a bit, in any, even relatively accurate, analysis of the Athletics as long as Billy Beane is still General Manager there. So, the A's seem to have lost some of their flair last year and traded away the ace of last year's staff, Danny Haren, to Houston for six prospects this past offseason. They also swapped one of their best hitters, Nick Swisher, to the Chicago White Sox for three prospects. This year's team does not look competitive and, indeed, it does not look much like Beane is trying to be. Sometimes you are better off rebuilding and it looks like that is what the A's will be doing this season. Although PECOTA projects Oakland to finish 2nd and Seattle to finish last, look for the Athletics to finish third or fourth again, 10+ games behind Anaheim and Seattle.

Team Projections

Lineup (2007 OBP, SLG, AB, HR, SB)
OF Travis Buck (.377, .474, 285, 7, 4)
1B Daric Barton (.429, .639, 72, 4, 1)
3B Eric Chavez (.306, .446, 341, 15, 4)
DH Jack Cust (.408, .504, 395, 26, 0)
2B Mark Ellis (.336, .441, 583, 19, 9)
OF Emil Brown (.300, .347, 366, 6, 12)
SS Bobby Crosby (.278, .341, 349, 8, 10)
OF Chris Denorfia* (.356, .368, 106, 1, 1)
C Kurt Suzuki (.327, .408, 213, 7, 0)
*Denorfia's stats are from 2006, he spent 2007 recovering from Tommy John surgery

Starting Rotation (2007 Record, ERA, IP, K/BB)
Joe Blanton (14-10, 3.95, 230.0, 140/40 )
Rich Harden ( 1-2, 2.45, 25.2, 27/11 )
Chad Gaudin (11-13, 4.42, 199.1, 154/100)
Justin Duchsherer ( 3-3, 4.96, 16.1, 13/8 )
Lenny DiNardo ( 8-10, 4.11, 131.2, 59/50 )

Bullpen (2007 Record, ERA, IP, SV, K/BB)
CL Huston Street ( 5-2, 2.88, 50.0, 16, 63/12)
RHP Santiago Casilla ( 3-1, 4.44, 50.2, 2, 52/23)
LHP Alan Embree ( 1-2, 3.97, 68.0, 17, 51/19)
RHP Kiko Calero ( 1-5, 5.75, 40.2, 1, 31/21)

Manager
Bob Geren

Why They're Good

Travis Buck is a good, patient leadoff hitter who will likely improve upon his performance last year. His .851 OPS last year was good, especially when it is OBP-heavy as a leadoff-hitter. We'll see what he can do if he gets 500 AB. Although he doesn't have much major league experience, Daric Barton projects to become a beast and is the A's top prospect at 22 years old. While Eric Chavez's career appears to be on the decline, look for at least a bit of a rebound from his dismal season last year. Jack Cust looks sort of like a late-blooming Adam Dunn (though without as much power) and should post similar numbers to last year's. Mark Ellis is adequate at second.

Joe Blanton is a pretty good starter, though I would not say that I'd want him as my ace. He does not really overpower anyone, but his stuff is decent enough and he is very durable. He's not terribly different from Barry Zito, except he's younger, right-handed and probably not quite as good. Rich Harden is like A.J. Burnett, only less durable (if you can believe it); he could be an ace on most staffs, if he could manage stay even relatively healthy through a whole season. The rest of the rotation, in my opinion is well-balanced enough. I think Duchscherer will be decent enough and Gauden and DiNardo should eat some innings.

No one in their bullpen is Mariano Rivera, but Street is good and Embree can fit more tobacco in his mouth than you'd find in a Gurkha Beast.

Why They're Not

Well, first of all, they're not really trying to be good this year. You can't take a shower while you're installing a new bathtub and you can't win a World Series while you're rebuilding your baseball club. And that's okay, provided that the Athletics are able to hold on to some of their good players as they reach their peak phases (like Buck and Blanton) and their prospects (like Barton and Brett Anderson) are as good as they hope they'll be.

The numbers that their pitchers will put up will look better than they are in pitcher-friendly Oakland Colisseum. The back end of the lineup is not particularly threatening and, although I hope Chavez is able to rebound, he might not, though it's hard to think he'll have a worse season than last year. Behind Blanton and Harden, their rotation is nothing really special, and Blanton doesn't dazzle you and Harden probably won't make more than 20 starts. Although it's fine to have a fifth starter be an innings-eater, it's not particularly attractive to look at more than one guy in the rotation like that.

Their bullpen should be fine, but don't expect it to make the difference between a moderately bad team and an average team.

Wildcards

Since they aren't really trying to be competitive, there aren't many wildcards, but I guess Harden's health could be considered one, though I don't think anyone expects him to stay healthy. I suppose you could call him making 25+ starts a dark horse. Look for Street to develop as a closer and Buck and Barton to continue their development as good, young hitters. Let's hope, for his sake, that Eric Chavez is able to bounce back and earn his salary, since it's more than 15% of their total payroll.

Fantasy Spin

There's a good chance that you will be able to start Justin Duchscherer in the relief pitcher slot. If you are playing in a deep league, can make daily changes or are not trying to win Saves, he's probably worth a look.

Overall Offseason

None of the moves the A's made can really be evaluated before the prospects they received in return develop into major leaguers, so I'm not going to grade them.

Offseason Grade: Incomplete
Overall 2008 Grade: C-