SB Nation User Blog: Faust

Grist for the Mill: "Team source" on Street

Faust — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 10:58:44 -0000

Mychael Urban has a brief but keenly interesting article up about Street's status and injury. The key passage:

A team source said early last week that Street, who has allowed one run over his past nine outings and ranked fifth among AL relievers with a 33 strikeouts, has been dealing with the strain since being used in the ninth inning of a 13-8 victory on June 1 at Texas.

"He just wasn't feeling great physically, and he asked not to be used that day unless there was a save situation," said the source. "But I guess a six-run lead in Arlington, some people see that as a save situation."

"This is a big-inning ballpark," Geren said after Street entered the game with the A's holding a six-run lead.

He threw 18 pitches in 90-degree weather and allowed a solo homer to Josh Hamilton.

"My job is to pitch when they give me the ball," Street said, "and I take the ball whenever I can."

There are two really interesting aspects to this, in my view. First (obviously), if this is true it reflects very badly on Geren. The almost gratuitous risking of a key player with a six-run lead is so clearly wrongheaded that you almost have to believe there was some miscommunication involved. I mean, what does "wasn't feeling great physically" mean, anyway? Maybe Geren checked again before the 9th and Street said he was willing to go in - that is, Geren checking to see if the condition still existed and Street interpreting it as a request to soldier up and pitch. (I'm making this scenario up out of whole cloth merely as an example of how something that seems incredible might be more explainable when more facts come out - if they do - so please don't confuse this with what the quotes actually said.) But even if it was miscommunication of some sort, it doesn't look good.

The second interesting thing is that this "team source" (doesn't that locution usually mean staff? Isn't an anonymous player usually referred to at least as a player?) with his rather biting "some people see that as a save situation" comment, is clearly taking a slap at Geren. (Another possible miscommunication: the source thinks it's off the record, but it isn't?) I don't want to go all tabloid here; this could amount to something quite minor, and in any case we can't hope to approach the level of entertaining dysfunction that you see in Seattle these days. Still, the issues this brief piece brings out are not trivial.

MLB's slotting system and the A's farm

Faust — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 15:19:31 -0000

In the commentary following grover's recent "Phase 2" diary, a discussion arose as to the MLB draft bonus "slotting" system and how it affected the A's (for example, is signing draft choices such as Gary Brown simply a matter of reallocating money within the budget, or are there other constraints on the A's course of action?). Kevin Goldstein at Baseball Prospectus recently wrote a terrific piece explaining how the slotting system works. I'm going to quote it below and offer a couple comments, so you can read those before hitting the link if you choose, but for anyone who has any interest in the draft and in the A's farm system, the article itself is an absolute must-read. And (thank you, BP!) it's one of the few BP offerings that is available to be viewed in full by non-subscribers. Goldstein's article was mentioned in the comments to grovers current recommended diary on August prospects, but it wasn't linked and I think the whole topic is poorly understood and deserves a stand-alone diary.

The system is built around two key structural realities: (1) MLB has no ultimate control of the outcome, in that MLB can't require teams to follow the slotting guidelines; and (2) MLB does have control of the process, in that it can require teams to report back to MLB at several stages of the draftee-signing process. The result is that, each and every time a team indicates a desire to sign a draftee to a bonus over the recommended slot value, MLB will go over the head of the scouting director and GM and pressure the owner directly to try to quash the deal. Given the BFF, old-school-chum relationship between Selig and Wolff, this isn't a good thing for A's fans.

Here's one interesteng quote from the article about which teams are going over slot:

There seems to be two types of organizations that are consistently going over slot: Smart ones, and rich ones, not that the two are mutually exclusive. Four teams that immediately come to mind are the Tigers, the Angels, the Red Sox and the Yankees. Go look at the standings, and then go look and the amount of elite-level young talent in each system. It’s not a coincidence.

I note that Goldstein mentions the exact same four teams I singled out in my comment in grover's diary. I also note two other things about those four teams: they're all in the AL, and they may well be the AL's four playoff teams this year. They are the A's direct competition for scarce playoff spots (including the wild card), they are already all richer than the A's (three of them enormously richer), and the A's can ill afford to spot them any additional competitive advantages.

One final point: The A's aren't being "cheap" here. Mind you, I think the failure or inability or unwillingness to pay a bit extra to sign draft picks is a HUGE organizational shortcoming and a major obstacle to future success, but "cheapness" isn't the correct characterization of this fault. Beane, Forst, Zaidi et al are certainly smart, and there is no way on this earth that they are unaware of the studies (or they may have made their own studies) showing draft choices to be one of the best investments around. And specifically with regard to over-slot signings, Goldstein refers to a study by Jim Callis that "showed an overwhelming success rate for players who received well-above-slot bonuses." Using the Moneyball theme, draftees are just about the best undervalued assets available anywhere (largely because the draft itself and the slotting system artificially depress the cost of draftees relative to what their true market price would be), and you can bet that Beane knows it. Wolff himself is obviously familiar with the concept of investing money to make more money, and over-slot signings are money-makers, by all accounts. If the A's don't engage in the practice, it won't be because of cheapness but because of relationships and decisions at the ownership level. That still sucks for A's fans, and it certainly counts as an important organizational defect that stands in the way of future success, but "cheapness" is not the name of that defect.

Here's hoping the A's decide to address this problem - effectively, and soon.

Will Carroll on Frank Thomas's health

Faust — Tue, 31 Jan 2006 11:41:07 -0000

I e-mailed Will Carroll of Baseball Prospectus to see if I couldn't get more precise analysis of Thomas's condition than I'd seen so far. Will has said elsewhere that he liked the Thomas pickup for the price, but he is more pessimistic about Thomas' prognosis than I would have hoped. Here is the exchange:

Will,

I read absolutely everything about the A's, and so far I seem to see a near unanimity of opinion that Frank Thomas can be expected to play a very limited number of games for the A's in 2006. Just to cite 3 examples from among the brighter set:

Joe Sheehan: "I just don't think he's going to be healthy enough to come to the plate more than 300 times, and a figure closer to 200 is likely."

Rob Neyer: "It does seem unlikely, though, that Thomas actually will play more than 50 or 60 games."

Will Carroll (on BP Radio): "I think 300 [at-bats] is about as much as you can hope for."

What I haven't seen from even one of the scores of opinions I've scanned on the topic is the reasoning behind these assessments. "I just don't think," "It does seem unlikely," and "I think" are not arguments. It sounds as though all of you are doing some really basic back-of-the-envelope guestimating: "Frank played a lot in 2003, very little in 2004-5, he seems to be rather better now but given age and the past couple years why don't we split the difference and call it 200-300 ABs."

That's a perfectly normal approach, but can't we do better than that? Most specifically, can't YOU do better than that? What I'd like is an assessment that takes into account Thomas's specific condition. Is his left foot problem a chronic one, rather like Barry Bonds' knees, where you'd expect him to have to take 3 days off per week to rest (although as a DH it's basically his JOB to rest all but a few minutes per game, so I don't see how that helps)? Or is it an acute either/or thing: Either the weakened bone breaks, and he's out from that point forward (like most of last year), or it doesn't break, and there's no particular reason he doesn't get in 600 PAs.

What I don't understand (please enlighten me!) is why a 600 PA season seems to be considered simply out of the question under any circumstances. I understand why that should be the case for Bonds, given the nature of his injuries, but I don't understand why Thomas, if his bone doesn't snap, crackle, or pop (and shouldn't he have a fighting chance at that outcome?), shouldn't have a shot at a more or less full season.

I'll post your response for the benefit of the eager eyes of Athletics Nation unless you specify otherwise.

Thanks

Will's prompt reply:

"I'll have a TON on this in the upcoming A's THR. I hate to be a tease, but there is reasoning behind it. Here's something you can run -- 'Bones heal, except when they don't. Thomas' foot/ankle didn't hold up under a normal rehab, the load placed on a DH, and really, nothing's changed. Absent new information, there's no reason to change our expectation from last year.'"

THR is the Team Health Reports series he runs each spring, one on each team, strung out from February to the season's beginning. So we'll have to wait a bit for the promised "TON" of info. Here's what he wrote about Thomas last year's White Sox THR:

"Thomas' work at rehabbing his ankle from off-season surgery is counteracted by a low pain tolerance, but mid-May looks most likely barring additional setbacks. He was on crutches for seven months, and somehow still had lost 15 pounds upon his arrival to camp. He'll DH exclusively to protect the foot. When healthy, he's still a dangerous hitter."

(Right above his 2005 paragraph on Thomas was a very gloomy assessment of Jermaine Dye's chances of staying healthy, but -- freed from the weight of carrying around all those A's dollars -- Dye finally put in a healthy year.)

Notice there's a bit of an "out" clause in Will's e-mail: "absent new information." The A's certainly have newer medical information than Will has access to, so let's hope that Thomas's saying his ankle is now 90% (vs. "70%" when he came back last year) is an indicator that things are materially different this time around. I still don't see why we shouldn't expect Thomas to play pretty much every day as long as the bone holds up, with the key question being whether the bone can actually hold up. Time will tell.

Ellis to sign: 3 years, $11 million

Faust — Sat, 28 Jan 2006 14:54:58 -0000

That's according to Susan Slusser in today's Chronicle. I'd love to see a club option on the end of that, but it doesn't appear that's part of it. This must have come together quite quickly, because only a week or so ago there had been no discussions along those lines, according to reports at the time.

I love this deal, which buys out Ellis's remaining arbitration years. That's a pretty good price for the last 3 arb years of a fine middle infielder, especially given that Ellis was a super-2 (meaning he had four arb years instead of the usual 3, inflating his salary development).

Here's what we've had from Ellis so far in his career (in addition to consistently outstanding defense):

.272/.359/.394 .753 OPS
.248/.313/.371 .684 OPS
Did Not Play
.316/.384/.477 .861 OPS

That's a solid rookie season at age 25, with a particularly fine OBP. That was followed by an inadequate sophomore season that was out of line with his development arc (including his minor league days), so there was a pretty good chance for a bounce-back season. Instead, there was the collision with roller derby guy and the season was lost. In 2005 he got back to where he would have got with normal development in 2003-2004, and then some: it was a hell of a year. Certainly he's due for some regression in his batting average; you'd expect that from someone hitting .316 in any case, and there are BABIP and PrOPS figures to back that up. So be it; he should still get on base plenty often, and I think his power will surprise a lot of people. Given the occasional pop he'd shown in the past (which showed he has no trouble getting the ball over the fence when he makes good contact), a normal power development curve, and the way he drove the ball harder and harder the farther he got away from that injury, I tend to take his power development as real and wouldn't be surprised to see him hit 20 HRs this year.

That 2003-2004 period makes it difficult to project Ellis with confidence, but I think it also leads a lot of ANers (among others) to undervalue him, to see him as possibly a one-year wonder. He snuck up on us all. But in truth, his 2005 is not really out of line with his record from his minor league days through his rookie year; it's the two years in between that seem anomalous to me. Anyway, we've already gone through the early, teething, semi-effective years for Mark Ellis (and hopefully for Crosby as well), and now we've got ourselve a fully-developed, championship-caliber ballplayer. Let's not be too eager to shove him out the door so we can quickly get to the early, teething, semi-effective years for Melillo or Pennington, who one day hope to be as good as Mark Ellis is right now.

Mark Ellis is going nowhere for at least 2 years (I can see a possible trade when he heads into his walk year). Let's enjoy him while we can.

On another topic completely, I was highly amused by a tidbit in Tim Kawakami's feel-good piece It's not too early to board A's bandwagon in the Mercury News this morning: Acccording to Ken Macha, the A's lineup now has ``a little more bling to it, so to speak.'' Kenny!

Blez in AZ

Faust — Thu, 24 Mar 2005 14:21:50 -0000

Blez' buddy Kos reporting on what Blez is up to... which is more interviewing. Blez returning to his reporting roots. Here's what Kos says:

"My best friend Tyler, of AthleticsNation.com, got press creds thanks to Billy Beane, who pulled rank on the team's reluctant press manager. He's on the field right now interviewing players. Another small victory for the blogging medium.

Chavez is driving them out of the park consistently during BP. A good sign for the upcoming season?"

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/3/23/133954/505

Friends in high places...

Gary Huckaby on Harden and the A's in '05

Faust — Sat, 29 Jan 2005 18:30:12 -0000

Gary Huckaby did a recent chat on BP that had a couple A's-related questions. Huckaby is a smart guy and I think you'll find his answers most interesting. He is identified as "a Consultant to the Oakland Athletics and Founder of Baseball Prospectus." I don't think his consultant role was public knowledge until recently; at least, I didn't learn of it until the recent Baseball America scouts vs. stats debate. I'm delighted he has a role with the A's and the bigger that role is the better, in my opinion. (Think of him as a very good free agent signing.)

Anyway, here are the two A's-related questions along with his answers:

Estoppel (Fresno): I was a bit shocked at the conservative PECOTA forecast for Harden. 148 innings and a 4.46 ERA seems outrageously pessimistic for a pitcher of his talent. Notwithstanding PECOTA's prediction, is this the year Harden takes over the mantle as staff ace for the A's?

Gary Huckabay: I certainly think so. Rich Harden's a tremendous pitcher playing in a good pitcher's park, with an absolutely tremendous defense playing behind him. I believe he'd take over the mantle of staff ace even if Hudson and Mulder were still here. I hope he'll be healthy all year, and if he is, I expect his ERA will be closer to 2.46 than 4.46.

Darius (Bellevue, WA): Can the A's really contend this year? Seattle's gotten Beltre and Sexson, and are better than they showed last year. Anaheim's turning into a West Coast version of the Yankees, and you all lost two great starting pitchers for minor leaguers. Are you just admitting that you can't compete, and are living just to make money and keep costs down?

Gary Huckabay: Hell yes, we can contend. Yes, Hudson and Mulder are gone, but there's a great deal of talent on this team, and it's not as if we didn't receive outstanding players in return. The A's organization is not filled with wallflowers. Losing sucks, and everyone in the organization shares that view. Baseball operations is focused on winning, this year and every year. Are there decisions to make and tradeoffs to evaluate? Sure.

I don't know how you can get by in this industry, or really any industry, if you don't physically feel that "crazed mule kick to the stomach" when you lose. I really don't. We absolutely can compete, we absolutely can win, and all we really want out of the season is two things -- (1) To make the postseason, and (2) To win the last game we play.

Beanewatching: How should we evaluate the Kendall trade?

Faust — Sun, 28 Nov 2004 01:54:57 -0000

AN has been obsessed lately with the Jason Kendall trade, and rightly so: this trade is huge for the franchise. But is it good or bad?

Purely in terms of talent, the trade is an obvious slam-dunk huge upgrade for Oakland. As the headline over Ratto's column so succinctly put it: "One good plus, two good minuses for A's". So what's not to like? Why is there a raging debate over whether this is good or catastrophically bad for the green and gold? It comes down to the "one bad plus" that didn't make Ratto's headline: additional payroll. Quite a lot of additional payroll. Is this bad enough to ratchet the value of this trade down from "wonderful" to "neutral," or even to "poor" or (god forbid) "disastrous"? And what are the proper criteria for determining that? The following is a lengthly and rather geeky analysis; I hope it's worth the trouble for those who bear with it.
First let's assemble the facts, so far as we can discern them.

Kendall's contract: $10M, $11M, and $13M over the next three years, $34M total value. All sources seem to agree on these numbers.

Rhodes' contract: This is more uncertain. Numerous sources agree on the total of $9.2M for three years, but I've never seen an authoritative year-by-year breakout of that sum. The only sources that purport to give year-by-year numbers appear to be simply averaging the total over three years for lack of better information. However, contracts tend to be backloaded, and both USA Today and ESPN show a $1.8M salary in 2003. That leaves $7.4M owing over 2005-2006, which is exactly the figure used by Mychael Urban as well as Alan Robinson of AP, so let's go with that. If anyone has better information, please speak up.

Redman's contract: Heavily backloaded. $500,000 signing bonus, $1.75M in 2004, $4.25M in 2005, a player option for $4.5M in 2006 (assuming the club turns down its option at $4.95M). There's also $250,000 per year in incentives. I haven't seen these specified anywhere, but I believe the A's mostly stay very basic when they consent to incentive clauses, probably using very realistic innings pitched goals to protect the club a little if the player gets hurt or isn't good enough to stay in the rotation. So I think we have to consider those incentives as a likely part of the cost of the contract, such that the best estimate of the 2005-2006 costs (assuming the signing bonus was paid up front) is $4.5M and $4.75M, for a total of $9.25M remaining of the original $11.75M. The 3-year average would be $3.9M, but the remaining 2-year average jumps all the way up to $4.625M.

So Rhodes and Redman together: $16.65M over the next two years. That's higher than most estimates being used; on the other hand the CC Times has been saying $17.5M, which I have to assume is simply wrong (although you can get there by using the club option number instead of the player option, and if payment of the signing bonus was deferred).

Now for the additional cash: Slusser seems to have been the most precise, so let's assume her information is the most accurate until we find out otherwise. Slusser said the A's pitch in about $1M in 2005 and 2006, but that the overall cash adjustments favor the A's by about $5M, which implies a $7M Pittsburgh contribution towards Kendall's $13M 2007 salary. (Urban says only $5M from the Pirates in 2007, but I think he may be re-reporting and misinterpreting Slusser's figures. If not, that's a nasty $2M extra hit for Oakland.)

So the cost of Kendall's contract, counting cash adjustments but disregarding the Rhodes and Redman contracts:
$11M 2005, $12M 2006, $6M 2007, TOTAL $29M, yearly average $9.7M

Net of the subtracted Redman and Rhodes contracts (calculating Rhodes at $3.7M/yr):
$2.8M 2005, $3.55M 2006, $6M 2007, TOTAL $12.35M, yearly average $4.12M

So those are the relevant facts (as close as I can establish them at this time). But what are we to make of them?

Kendall is better than some here give him credit for. OBP is the single most important offensive stat, and Kendall's OBP has been a magnificent .390 or better in 6 out of 8 years, with the two exceptions being due to a single lingering injury. It's also a big plus that his OBP is due more to a high average than lots of walks, as hits are on average more useful than walks. His high batting average is a well-established core ability, not a short term gift of the trickster god BABIP. His VORP in 2004 was higher than Varitek's (as was also the case in 2003), slightly ahead of Victor Martinez, and right in line with Ivan Rodriguez' normal VORP (although IRod spiked well upward this year). It's true that he owes part of his VORP to his large amount of playing time, so that his per at-bat value is slightly less than some of these competitors, but we who watched our incumbent catcher (among others) waste into uselessness from late-season exhaustion should appreciate durability.

Should we evaluate the deal by its net cost (i.e. Kendall minus Redman minus Rhodes minus cash adjustment)? In that case the question amounts to: Would you sign Jason Kendall to a 3-year $12.35M deal, backloaded such that the first two years cost a little over $6M? If that's the question, the answer is obviously "Hell yes! Hell yes!" But is that the right question?

Now look at it from the opposite pole: What if you had the ability to simply nuke the Rhodes and Redman contracts, giving them away and getting nothing in return but assuming none of their future costs? If we assume that to be doable, then going ahead with the Kendall deal is the equivalent of signing him to a front-loaded $29M 3-year free agent deal. Would that be a good deal? The answer to that is clearly "Hell no!" But that's not quite the right question either.

Let's try this thought experiment: What if you could auction off the Rhodes and Redman contracts, what would you get? In other words, how much would we have to pitch in to entice someone to simply take the rest of these contracts off our hands, not asking anything in return?

Rhodes signed as a free agent, so he got what the market would bear: $9.2M for three years. And that was based on the assumption that he was really quite valuable. Due to the backloading of his contract most of that money is still to be paid, and the per-year average going forward is up to $3.7M. Meanwhile, Arthur has done an extraordinarily efficient job of absolutely demolishing his perceived value, what with seriously reduced velocity, a rotten attitude, a serious injury, and a passel of neck-swiveling appearances on Baseball Tonight's "Touch-'Em-All" feature. But let's imagine that some delusional GM out there would still voluntarily pay $3M for 2 years of Arthur's service, that leaves the A's with a $4.2M contribution.

As for Redman, well, grover seems to think the A's wouldn't have to pitch in anything. Maybe so, but I it seems unlikely to me. Consider: When Redman signed, he was a completely free agent (the A's traded for him but non-tendered him so he was free to negotiate whatever the market would bear). His market value turned out to be less than $4M per year, even when heavily back-loaded. And that came from the GM perhaps most well-disposed in baseball toward Redman's type (Beane loves lefties even more than most GMs, loves guys who throw changeups, isn't prejudiced against soft-tossers). It was also coming off his best year, a 3.57 ERA posted in a pitcher's park. In his only other full season he put up a 4.21 ERA in Comerica Park at a time when that park was configured so as to utterly neutralize right-handed power hitters, Redman's chief nemesis. Since signing the deal Redman has worked off the cheapest part of his contract, such that his per-year price is up to $4.65M, while moving from a 3.57 ERA to 4.71. That's the kind of year you can get for a hell of a lot less money than that, and it cannot help but have significantly eroded his perceived value from the previous year. So his cost has gone up and his value has gone down, and it doesn't stand to reason that someone out there would actually bid higher for him now than a year ago. Still, I will agree that you wouldn't have to bring the price down too drastically before someone would bite; I can imagine him getting 2 years, $7M if he were a free agent. That implies the A's could dump him if they were to pitch in $2.25M of his remaining $9.25M

So by my (very hypothetical) line of reasoning Billy could have simply dumped the two contracts by agreeing to eat a total of $6.45M, with some other patsies chowing down on the remaining $10M poison pill. If that's true, then the real cost of this deal is the $12.35M of additional payroll we're taking on PLUS the $10M we might have been able to discharge without taking on someone else's problem contract. Is $22.35M for 3 years of Jason Kendall a good use of the A's payroll? Well, Varitek is going to get more than that, and you can make a solid argument that Kendall is the better player, or at least Varitek's equal (Varitek's reputation is such that I think most people will balk at this conclusion, but the data support it). But at nearly $7.5M per year, he's not a bargain (although neither is re-signing Chavez or Hudson or Tejada or Mulder; you can't win with bargains alone).

(By the way, one thing I'm intentionally leaving out of this analysis is the savings we get by not signing Miller, or the savings of Blanton over Redman, etc. Those are all certainly relevant to how the A's freed up the money that went into this deal, but they're not relevant to whether the deal makes financial sense on its own terms.)

The bottom line is that the A's have seriously improved themselves on the field, but at a premium price. It may be too high a price, but I think the price is not so grossly out of line as to justify the worst fears of grover and monkeyball. Time will tell. If you make different assumptions and judgments than the ones I've made here, you can of course judge this deal as either much worse or much better than I have argued. Perhaps against my better judgment I feel rather positive about it. Maybe that's because the on-field improvement is so palpable, while it's the other team that has to look at those two bums while talking bravely about "payroll flexibility." In addition, whether this is an optimal use of dollars or not, you have to assume Billy has calculated that it's something he can afford. One inference from the deal is that the payroll budget MUST have been bumped at least to the low-to-mid 60s, or this trade would simply be unmakeable.

There's plenty more to consider, but I'll have mercy on any fellow A's-obsessed nut jobs who have mustered the stamina to read this far. Spring training doesn't start soon enough.

AN! Do not give up on the 2005 season!

Faust — Sun, 14 Nov 2004 03:46:14 -0000

(Lately Peter Gammons has been saying, more or less, that Billy Beane is going to tank 2005 as a rebuilding year and shoot for 2006. I don't buy it. I think too many in AN are getting caught up in the negative feeling: trade Zito, trade Hudson, trade Durazo, get prospects, maybe we can be good again some day. I was writing the following as a comment on ohad's diary about Gammons' remarks on ESPN, agreeing with monkeyball's observation that every year is a retooling year for the A's, but my comment metastasized to where it needed its own diary entry.)

The A's "re-tool" every year. It's important to understand that "re-tool" does not necessarily mean "dismantle" (although sometimes it does). Some teams, like the Indians a few years ago, or the Mariners in 2004, hit the wall because too many people got old and/or expensive at the same time, and have no rational choice but to tear down the mess and start over. Beane, on the other hand, has been remarkably good at retooling on the fly, balancing outgoing talent with incoming talent without any "collapse" seasons. Damn difficult, especially given the onerous budgetary constraints, but he's done it very well. There is no reason to expect either the intentions or the results to be very different in 2005.

I saw the Gammons bit on Sportscenter, too, and not only does does seem insistent in recent weeks that the A's are going to have a down year in 2005, but he implies further that they are going to almost deliberately scrap the 2005 season as a necessary sacrifice on the road to better things in 2006 and beyond. A lot of ANers seem to be endorsing this defeatist notion. Bullshit!

Mychael Urban quotes Beane as saying, "We expect to contend for a division championship in 2005 no matter what happens this winter. That is, and will always be, the goal here." That's pretty damned emphatic, isn't it? Believe him! If 2005 is a bad year, it won't be by design, it won't be a deliberate write-off. Beane may not always give away his innermost thoughts, but there's no evidence that he flat-out lies about his intentions. And EVERYTHING in his record indicates that he is as loath to write off the present in favor of the future as he is to sacrifice the future to the present.

Beane famously said of his first playoff team (in 2000) that it would be the worst team the A's would field in the next several years. Sure enough, in 2001 and 2002 the A's fielded great teams that gave Oakland an outstanding chance of grabbing a championship, although that unfortunately did not happen. In 2003 it was still a very good team, and in 2004 a somewhat less good team, but still good enough to have a reasonable shot at the whole shebang with good health and a few breaks. In 2005 we should have another good team, one that could win it all if things break right (or, admittedly, win 80 games if all the breaks are bad ones).

Now the kernel of truth in what Gammons says is that 2004-2005 may in fact represent a low point in the A's talent cycle, with 2006 and 2007 having the possibility of a surge back to 2001-2002 levels. But it isn't necessary to accept Gammons' conclusion that the bottom of the cycle (if 2005 is the bottom) must be the kind of ugly year usually associated with the term "rebuilding year." Beane's balancing act means that even the transition year offers the team and the fans a shot at all the marbles if things go well.

And another thing: after 2003 the A's lost both Tejada and Foulke, two superior performers, high-level All-Stars. They still won 91 games. After this season the best player they are losing is Jermaine Dye, whom age and injuries have reduced to a merely average player. A bunch of pitchers had subpar years and can expect some rebound. And over 2004-2005, the influx of talent (Swisher, Johnson, Street, Garcia, Blanton) for once outweighs the outflow.

So buck up, AN! It's more than 3 months till the start of spring training--a little early to be giving up on 2005, don't you think? Forget Peter Gammons. The A's have both the intention and the ability to be competitive in 2005. They won't have as good a shot at grabbing the brass ring as the Red Sox will, or the Yankees, or as good a shot as the 2001 A's had, and maybe not as good a shot as the 2007 A's will have, but they'll have a respectable shot. More than most teams, by far, and better than some teams (e.g. the 2002 Angels, the 2003 Marlins) that have actually gone all the way. How much more can you ask for?

And you know what? Even if they do have an off year, they'll still have a shot--probably a better shot--in 2006, and again in 2007. There's enough talent coming up, and the management is in good enough hands (Schott notwithstanding), that the A's could remain competitive if they lost all three of the big three, painful as that would be (and I'm sure they'll hang onto at least two of them for next year and I hope to retain at least one long-term). We have a small-market team, but we're lucky: we have the most special of such teams. Hope is not irrational. Do not be overly influenced by yammerers on ESPN or the sour ending of the recent season. Sure, it's an uphill battle for the small-market, disrespected Oakland A's, but victory, when it comes, is sweeter for David than for Goliath, don't you think?

Keep the faith.

Your 2005 Oakland Athletics outfield

Faust — Sat, 16 Oct 2004 17:47:47 -0000

The outfield: A terrible weakness in '03, a strength in '04, an area of transition and intense discussion on AN so far this post-season. Let's take a close look at the issues and personnel for 2005.

1. Mark Kotsay. In my mind, with all the discussion about Byrnes and Dye, the #1 question of the A's offseason is going unnoticed: Mark Kotsay has an opt-out clause in his contract. Here's something from Susan Slusser in the Chronicle, 11/27/03: "The A's will pay Kotsay $5.5 million in 2004, and $7 million each of the following two years. He can opt out after any season, but said that he will not do so." (I've seen Kotsay's contract listed as $6.5M each year for 3 years, but let's assume Slusser's numbers are correct and the other figures are just someone taking a 3-year average.) From Josh Suchon on the same date: "The trade allows Kotsay to become a free agent after either of the next two years, but Kotsay doesn't expect to exercise that clause. 'I don't plan on using the contract anymore,' Kotsay said. 'I'm excited to be in Oakland and excited for the next few years.'"

Well now. I hope that's true, but it's not as if he waived his contractual rights. At that time, it seemed like a moot point, since he was coming off an injury-marred, underperforming year, and his contract looked like a bad one. That's one reason Billy was able to unload T-Long: The deal was, in part, an exchange of "bad contracts." But now the money remaining on Kotsay's contract is down from $19.5M to $14M, and Kotsay is coming off a career year. Suddenly the contract is almost a bargain. Kotsay is from southern California, he's played for the Padres, the Pads are a newly-rich team with a lucrative new ballpark with a roomy center field, and they're desperate for a center fielder. It's not hard to see them (or the Dodgers) being willing if not eager to pony up more years and dollars than Kotsay currently has on his contract, and Kotsay's agent will know this. He could change his mind about opting out, or use his leverage to get Billy to add years and/or dollars to his current contract, sucking needed dollars out of Billy's budget. Kotsay's current contract is a perfect fit for the A's in another way: It expires after 2006, which is just about the time that Javier Herrera and/or Richie Robnett, a couple prospects currently in the low minors who have potential all-star ceilings and who can both supposedly handle center field, may be ready to start providing quality performance on the cheap.

2. Eric Byrnes. Let's get one thing clear right off the bat: There is absolutely, positively no way in hell the A's will fail to offer Eric Byrnes arbitration. This is not the same thing as to say that he'll be in the Oakland outfield next year. It's merely to say that he is a valuable commodity, a solid performer at a bargain price, and the A's will realize that value either by playing him themselves or by trading him for something of real value. Not to offer him arbitration would be to lose this valuable commodity for nothing, which would be stupid. The A's may be cheap, but they aren't stupid.

Let's look at a few numbers from 2004:

Byrnes: .814 OPS
Dye: .793
League average (corner outfielders): .792

Byrnes was better than Dye last year (also, of course, in 2003), while Dye provided just about exactly league average offense at a gargantuan price. Dye is a better outfielder, but Byrnes is younger (28 vs. 30), faster, a better baserunner, much more durable, a high-energy guy and a fan favorite, and of course vastly cheaper. And Byrnes will still be a bargain. He's a first-year arbitration-eligible coming off a $328,000 salary and a solid (not great, but good) year, he isn't going to break the bank. I'd say Taj Adib's estimate in another thread of $1.2 - 1.8 million for Byrnes next year sounds about right.

And remember another important fact about Byrnes: He's not only our starting left fielder, he's our backup center fielder. As such, he keeps the A's from having to blow a roster spot on a light-hitting defensive specialist in that role (Chris Singleton, anybody?). He's also a perfect complement to Kotsay: If you want to rest Kotsay a dozen times a year, you can choose to do it when there's a lefty starting (you always want Byrnes in the lineup when a lefty is out there anyway), preferably when one of our groundball pitchers is starting. I'm assuming here, until shown otherwise, that the A's would not trust center field to Swisher except in an emergency, not as their "regular" centerfield backup. I know they played him there in the minors, but that's likely a case of trying to challenge a prospect to test his maximum capabilities; I've never seen a single comment from anyone outside the organization who feels Swisher can handle center on a regular basis, and the A's have been pretty conservative about their defense at the big league level for several years now. Blez, you watched him a lot, do you have a feel for the team's thinking here?

As useful as Byrnes is on the A's roster, Billy could decide to utilize his value as a trading chip instead. I disagree with Tal Adib's expectation that Byrnes could be a .300/30HR guy: That's not impossible, but it's quite unlikely. Odds are pretty good, given his age, that his 2004 season is about his peak, and I'd be happy if he just repeated that performance instead of backsliding a bit. But he has a lot of qualities--good 2004, reasonably young, fast, always hustling, "hair's on fire" plays, white, fan favorite--that make him the sort of player other teams might overpay for. I'd miss him, but I trust Billy Beane to make the right evaluation here. Byrnes is useful, and entertaining, but not indispensable. (Unless we lose Kotsay; Billy can't do anything with Byrnes until he's certain Kotsay is staying.)

Jermaine Dye. I like Jermaine, but I don't want to see him back, and despite the polite noises made in today's newspapers that seem to indicate a willingness to explore bringing him back at a lesser price I'd be absolutely shocked if Billy brought him back at any price. I talked a lot about Jermaine in my Eric Byrnes comments above, but the bottom line is that he's provided two league-average years and one horrible year in the past three, he's a major injury risk and is on the downslope of his career, and with all that he will still command a stiff salary. It's nothing personal, it's just a consequence of Dye's early-career success, his subsequent injuries, his high current salary, and his free agent status that whoever signs him has no chance whatever of getting a bargain, some chance of getting what they pay for, but a very high risk of getting badly burned. As an aging and expensive but about league-average player, Dye is exactly the sort of player a smart organization should not consider offering a multi-year contract to, but should be able to find reasonable alternatives.
Nick Swisher. And here is that alternative. I have a strong feeling that the A's will just commit to the rookie from the get-go, as they did with Crosby in 2003. This will not result in nearly the steep offensive dropoff we experienced from Tejada to Crosby, because the post-2001 Dye is not nearly at Tejada's level. In fact, I rather expect that Swisher, as a rookie, will match or exceed Dye's 2004 production. I expect a mediocre batting average, a ton of strikeouts (but Dye is a champion striker-outer himself), lots of walks (enough that his OBP should be an improvement, maybe a big improvement, on Dye's), and 20 home runs (that's not that many for a full-time player, and Swish hit 29 HRs in just 125 games at Sacramento). Defense: Sometimes flashy good, sometimes the erratic path to a fly ball, quite a few more errors than you'd like to see. (Blez, as our "eyes-on" Swisher expert, does that sound right?) Adequate, and improving.
Reserve outfielders. I don't really understand Billy's handling of the scrubs last year--as bad as Kielty (.214/.321/.370) and McMillon (.185/.255/.326) were last year, he never called up guys like Watson or Edwards from AAA. What are those guys there for, if not as potential major-league reserves (after all, they aren't really prospects)? Anyway, whatever he does next year, a force stronger than Billy Beane will improve the 4th and 5th outfielders next year, whoever they turn out to be: A little thing called "regression to the mean." That is, they sucked so bad the A's would be hard put not to improve those spots even if they tried not to.

Sorry for the godawful long post. I hope it provided some useful food for thought. What do you think, AN?

And oh yeah, Go Cal! KILL the Bruins!!!