The prevailing argument on AN recently has been, unsurprisingly, "are the A's good enough to contend?"

Those labeled as the "optimists" are the ones who say "yes."

Those labeled as the "pessimists" are the ones who say "no."

The truth is that everybody on AN knows that there is a certain probability that the A's will make the playoffs and a certain probability that they won't. In fact, it seems to me that a fair amount of this argument has been entirely semantic, in that if two people were to see that the A's had a 10% chance of making the playoffs, one person might say "the A's are unlikely to make the playoffs" and the other might say "the A's might make the playoffs if things break right!" Of course these are both true, and the difference between these two outlooks actually does depend on whether or not the poster wants to be optimistic or realistic (I'm not going to suggest a false equivalence between optimism at 10% and pessimism at 10% — obviously the "pessimist" here is more likely to be right. A pessimist would be someone who sees as 50% chance of winning and says "the A's probably won't make the playoffs.")

The point here is people should indeed allowed to be as pessimistic or optimistic as they choose, but to make the choice, they should have some grasp of the probability of their desired outcome — i.e. the A's making the playoffs.

The truth is, a really solid formula for playoff odds (like Baseball Prospectus) requires a lot of different variables, or some sort of game simulator, neither of which I (or the regular person around) has access to.

Instead what I will give you is a fairly simple method of calculating playoff odds from a basic set of numbers. The idea here is that, though far from perfect, this methodology will provide a simple total probability of the A's chances of winning the division (I'm leaving the Wild Card out, because it would require a much longer formula and I think the A's chances of winning the WC are pretty slim, but if anybody else would like to do it I encourage them, and I recognize it as a flaw in this formula. Those of you who think the final probability I come up with is too low, for instance, feel free to suggest that it should be higher because the A's might win the wild card.). This formula will also have a fairly basic set of input numbers which are up for debate at all times, and by changing, you can alter the final probability of the A's making the playoffs.

Without any further ado, follow me to after the jump.

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Something which has come up, sometimes indirectly and sometimes head-on, in many recent discussions on AN is the following or a variation on the following question:

What causes a player to perform significantly better or significantly worse than his median performance or than his perceived "true talent level?"

Recent manifestations of this question have appeared in the "Mountain out of a Cahill" thread, referring to Esteban Loaiza's career year and whether or not this represented a change in talent or luck, about Cahill in the same thread, referring to his ability to sustain a ridiculously low BABIP, about Pennington and Kouzmanoff in Nico's recent post about their streakiness, and in numerous other game threads and posts throughout the year.

Over the course of a year, a player who ends up with a .400 OBP will have periods with a .500 OBP and periods with a .300 OBP. This is always true, though the sample of each is ever in flux. When flipping a coin, some periods of time will produce strings of 100% heads, other periods will produce 100% tails.

Thus, if the desired result is heads, and a coin is flipped once and lands on heads, the 100% success rate is an unsustainable product of luck. We know that the coin (assuming it is a truly perfectly weighted coin) will eventually regress towards 1/1 heads/tails ratio after enough flips.

But here is the question which I am interested in: What causes EACH result?

We'll start by continuing with the coin analogy, because it's the most simple way of looking at the question. When a coin is flipped, we assume a 50% chance of the coin landing on either side. But as you are well aware, that doesn't mean that the coin lands on its side every time. Rather, it means that every time it is flipped, the coin lands squarely on one side, but the total aggregate of flips will produce a balanced result. So if we know that a singular coin flip will produce a singular result, what are the causes of the result? It cannot be the coin, because as we know the coin is perfectly equal between the two sides. Thus, the result of the coin flip is determined by an indescribable amount of various other factors: wind, angle of toss, speed of toss, material of landing surface, even air resistance. These factors are vast, many are minute, many are uncontrollable, and the ones that are controllable (speed of toss, angle of toss, etc.) are so immeasurable that people do not (rightfully so) expect to be able to control the result by changing them.

So we refer to these factors as "luck."

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I'm back to continue my series of making the case for the future of various A's players with Daric Barton.

I'm going to warn my readers now that this will be a fairly math-involved fanpost, but I assure you, it is not to put off those who are wary of the old number, but rather to prove a point. Moreover, my data comes from before tonight in which Barton had quite a good game, getting on base a few times, and stroking a double.

This post will tie in as well to Nico's excellent luck/skill debate on BABIP on the front page.

Without further ado, I give you Daric Barton's rate stats from 2009 in 114 PAs.

BB: 14.3%

K: 17.7%

ISO: .156

BABIP:  .237

Other useful information: Barton's career BABIP in the majors is: .278, and he has hit 3 HRs in 114 PAs so far this year.

Join me after the jump as I use these numbers to predict a full season of Daric Barton based on what appears to be his skill level right now.

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I'm back to discuss another of our current outfielders, and once again to make the case for his extended reign over the green grasses of the Coliseum.

Yes, this has been discussed before. But it needs to be discussed again.

Here's the question: should Rajai Davis be the starting center fielder on the A's in 2010, and the deeper question, does Rajai Davis deserve to be a starter on a good team...? (Hopefully these questions will be one and the same because the A's will be a good contending team next year! Right...? hopefully...? I'm always optimistic)

Obviously, the reason I'm writing this fanpost is that I think the answer to both questions should be an unequivocal yes.

Join me after the jump for statistical evidence to back up my bold thesis!

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I am going to try to make the case that Ryan Sweeney could be the future of CF for the Oakland A's, an argument which, though of course debatable, I think is long overdue.

Let me first make clear that this is not a conclusion I had ever expected to come to. Since we first got Ryan Sweeney, I have felt that he was drastically overrated and just can't imagine him ever honing his swing so that those batting practice moon shots will happen during the game. I've always wanted Travis Buck given the shot over Sweeney in RF and think that those people who say "Sweeney is our best hitter!!!!111" are crazy... 

Moreover, there has always been the thought that while Sweeney is a great RF, he is a subpar CF because of his bad routes taken to the ball.

But according to UZR, Sweeney has been an exceptional CF this year.

Now, UZR is known for its fluctuations in relatively small sample sizes, however it is also known for noticing  and showing when players make improvements in their defensive skills and ability.

I think it is safe to say that Sweeney does indeed look much better in CF this year, obviously making the spectacular plays, but also he seems to be getting to balls he didn't get to last year.

UZR shows his range being worth 4.3 runs above average so far this year, up from -1.6 last year.

In total, 13.9 RAA / 150 games in CF, which rates him as one of the best defensive center fielders in the league.

Ryan Sweeney this year is on pace to be a roughly league average center fielder. Considering that he's cost controlled for a while longer, Sweeney is a valuable commodity in center field.

The point here is that what we really should be looking for in Sweeney's development is his continued progress on his defense in center field. Because as long as he keeps fielding like this, it doesn't matter whether he ever hits for power.

Dallas Braden, in my opinion, is going to be a star.

Before I go on to backup my opinion with controversial evidence, I would like to explain, for what it's worth, that I've held this belief since the very first time I saw Braden pitch in 2007 and am only using the opportunity of one of his most successful major league starts to espouse my optimistic projections, not merely jumping on his bandwagon after one good start.

Firstly, there seems to be absolutely no contingent of ANers, Scouts, Bloggers, or even fans who agrees with me. Even the most optimistic projections I've seen have claimed that Braden can be a good #3 starter.

Before the year started, there were a fair amount of people that believed Braden would eventually end up in the bullpen, and most figured that he didn't enter into the A's plans after 2010 with the affluence of young pitching about to break through.

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Every year, the schedule changes. Sometimes, from our perspective, this is good, sometimes it's bad. The people behind the scenes in the MLB keep working it and working it, in a seeming constant search for perfection. Interleague play, Bay Bridge Series, Unbalanced schedule... These are some different types of innovations that are used to try and, hopefully, achieve balance in all schedules.

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