Oakland A’s

The A’s enter 2004 with more uncertainty than they’ve had to face since at least the end of the 2000 season. They have new players at C, SS, LF, CF, and it looks like 2B as well; hopefully a reborn RF; new 4th and 5th starters; and a new closer. The 2003 team was also the weakest since that 2000 team, posting 94 Pythagorean wins (compared to 97 for Seattle). They will face fierce competition from the upgraded Angels and the ageless Mariners.

Change is of course good for a baseball team, at least in the long run. However, confounding those expectations we might have had for the A’s in 2000-2001, the 2004 A’s, for the most part, are not replacing their lost players with rising young stars but with relatively seasoned veterans.

Back in 2000-2001, the knock on the A’s was that they were a glorified softball team and that without pitching, defense, and baserunning, they’d never win on a consistent basis. Now the knock on the A’s is that they’re nothing but the Big Three (Tim Hudson, Barry Zito, and Mark Mulder) and don’t know how to put together an offense. The only consistent thing about the A’s is that they’re still lousy baserunners.

What went right in 2003? The A’s finished 96-66, winning the AL West for the second straight year. The Big 3 of Tim Hudson, Barry Zito, and Mark Mulder continued to pitch great and Keith Foulke was one of the best relievers in baseball. Miguel Tejada and Eric Chavez again had excellent seasons and Ramon Hernandez was better than expected.

What went wrong in 2003? The A’s again lost in the first round of the playoffs.

After winning the first two games of the series, they truly embarrassed themselves with huge baserunning and fielding gaffes in game 3. During the season, their offense was only mediocre, with the worst-hitting outfield in the majors leading the way. And Mark Mulder came up lame at the end of the season.

What’s happened in the offseason? Tejada and Foulke left as free agents. The A’s upgraded their outfield offense and defense, acquiring Bobby Kielty (for Ted Lilly) and Mark Kotsay (for Ramon Hernandez and Terrence Long). They signed Arthur Rhodes to be their closer (3 years, $9 M). They traded for and signed LHP Mark Redman (3 years, $12 M). After some curious maneuvering, they ended up with Damian Miller as their new C. Pitching coach Rick Peterson moved to the Mets and Assistant GM Paul DePodesta moved to the Dodgers. They signed Eric Chavez to a 6-year extension ($66 M). Mark Ellis is out for either 8 weeks or the whole season with a separated shoulder. Bobby Crosby, Bobby Kielty, and Jermaine Dye have had good springs … which we know doesn’t matter, but still looks better than if they struggled. Perhaps best of all, no controversial books offering an inside-look at the A’s were published.

Looking ahead to 2004. This looks like the A’s toughest season in a while. There are four main questions facing the 2004 A’s: did they replace Tejada’s offense? what are the impacts of Ellis’ injury? did they replace Keith Foulke? and even if they did all those, can they win the AL West over Anaheim and Seattle?

Replacing Tejada. The A’s faced a tough choice – should they resign Tejada or Chavez? The emergence of SS Bobby Crosby made that a pretty easy choice. No matter what becomes of Crosby, if you’ve got a choice between a high-priced SS and a high-priced 3B but have a good SS prospect on hand, you choose the 3B.

Fortunately for the A’s and Crosby, the A’s were smart enough to realize that replacing Tejada’s offense would be a lot easier if they upgraded their awful OF. Bobby Kielty and Mark Kotsay were brought in to shore up the OF offense and defense, though the Kotsay trade also opened a hole at C.

Did the A’s do enough to make up the gap? Below is a table looking at the PAs and runs created (RC) for the 2003 A’s who are either gone or are likely to see their roles reduced and their 2004 replacements (using ZIPS RC estimates pro-rated to the equivalent 2003 playing time), not including Crosby. (Note, I actually expect at least a little less playing time for Dye and probably more for Byrnes, but the math works out nice this way and they’re projected to produce RC at about the same rate anyway.)

2003 A’s	PA	RC	2004 A’s	PA	RC
Tejada	703	100	----
Long	522	54	Kotsay	522	75
Byrnes	460	62	Kielty	460	65
Singleton	341	31	Dye	594	78
Dye	253	14	----
Guillen	185	22	Byrnes	185	26
Hernandez	536	70	Miller/Melhuse	536	60
Total	3000	353	Total	2297	304

If ZIPS is roughly accurate and this playing time distribution isn’t too far off, then Crosby (and his backups) need only produce about 49 RC. That is, Bobby Crosby needs to replace Terrence Long’s offense, not Miguel Tejada’s offense.

We could change the scenario a bit – maintain both the playing time and the production for Byrnes and Dye. Use Kotsay to replace Long and Kielty to replace Singleton and Guillen. That is, in 2004, Byrnes and Dye again produce just 76 RC while Kotsay and Kielty (in increased playing time) produce 149. That’s a further drop of 19 runs, meaning that in this scenario, Crosby et al need to produce about 68 RC. So Crosby would need to replace Ramon Hernandez’s offense, not Tejada’s.

Now ZIPS is very optimistic about Crosby, projecting him for 86 RC in about 80% of Tejada’s PAs – in other words, actually a little better than Tejada. I’m certainly not that optimistic, but when all is said and done, the A’s offense should be no worse than last year and, if Dye rebounds, could be 30-40 runs better.

Replacing Ellis. Ellis separated his shoulder last week in a collision with Bobby Crosby. As of now, ESPN is reporting he’s out for the year while the A’s haven’t budged off the original estimate of 6-8 weeks. I take the latter as GM-speak for "I don’t want everyone to know my guy’s out for the year while I’m looking around for replacements." So I’m assuming Ellis is out for the year.

This is where it comes in handy that ZIPS is not a playing time estimator. With Ellis out, we can now estimate how well his potential replacements might do based on projections using significant playing time instead of extrapolating from 70 PAs.

And what ZIPS and our eyeballs tell us is that replacing Ellis’ offense is no problem. The A’s have three options at 2B -- Frank Menechino, Esteban German, and Marco Scutaro. Menechino and German are about equal to Ellis with the bat and Scutaro looks superior (maybe by as much as nearly 1 win). I think Menechino is likely to get the job.

Where the loss of Ellis causes a problem is on defense. According to UZR, Ellis has been 22 runs above average per 162 games. His defensive projection will be lower than that but still substantially better than Menechino, who’s been an average defender. Scutaro has the reputation of a below-average defender and I hate to judge a guy based on one spring-training game, but German made two gaffes in this weekend’s game against the Cubs. This is a fairly substantial hit to the A’s, quite possibly costing them 1-2 wins.

The A’s could look elsewhere for a 2B, but I can’t imagine they’ll find very much at this point in the preseason. If the Yankees can’t do better than Enrique Wilson, what are the chances the A’s will? Candidates like Junior Spivey, Mark Grudzielanek, and Todd Walker are too expensive even if they could pry them away from their teams. Someone like Keith Ginter is right financially, but if you’re going to go with Ginter, why not give Scutaro a shot? Brian Roberts or Jerry Hairston, who are both in Ellis’ neighborhood offensively and defensively are probably the best candidates. But I’d recommend just living with what they’ve got, then swinging a deadline deal, maybe even for Jose Vidro.

Replacing Foulke. I’m less certain that this was intentional, but there’s a similar logic here as there was in replacing Tejada. You can’t replace Foulke, or at least not his 2003 performance. So replace him as best you can (Arthur Rhodes), then upgrade elsewhere.

Let’s dispense with the silly stat you keep hearing about Rhodes – that he’s only 17 for 44 in save chances. That’s a dumb way to look at setup men. If he comes on in the 8^th with a one-run lead and gives up a run, he gets charged with a blown save. If he holds the lead, he gets taken out and the closer gets the save while he gets a hold. If you want to look at anything, look at his number of holds plus saves versus his number of blown saves (blown holds usually/always mean a blown save). He’s got 127 career holds to go with his 17 saves and just 27 blown saves, so he’s held the lead 84% of the time that he’s been asked to. For comparison, Mariano Rivera has done it 88% of the time. Rhodes will be fine as the closer.

Relievers are notoriously difficult to project but I’d say that the ZIPS projection looks too rosy for Rhodes. Nevertheless, if the A’s get the 2001-2002 Rhodes, the difference between him and Foulke is only a few runs; if Rhodes posts roughly a 3.30 ERA, that’s about 12 runs; if it’s as bad as 4.00, that’s about 18 runs.

Alas, the rest of the A’s bullpen looks pretty much the same. Nothing wrong with that, they’re a solid pen, but they probably won’t make up for those extra runs.

Meet Mark Redman, the crafty lefthander picked up this offseason. He replaces Ted Lilly and that replacement should be an improvement of, oh, 6-15 runs. And while Rich Harden may not become the fourth musketeer just yet, he’ll likely improve at least a little on the A’s collection of fifth starters from last year. So small improvements in the starting pitching should offset small declines in the bullpen.

2004 Forecast. After working with some numbers, I was surprised to find that I actually expect the A’s offense to be a little better, despite losing Tejada. Or perhaps I should say that I expect them to be about the same, but they’ve got more upside than downside. It will be nothing special, but 1-4 wins better would be a nice improvement under the circumstances.

The main problem with the offense in 2003 was the low OBP. That should be helped greatly as Kielty, Kotsay, Crosby, and probably Ellis’ replacement should post OBPs well above the players they’re replacing. Furthermore, Dye can’t help but post a higher OBP … and if he doesn’t, hopefully the A’s won’t show their usual patience with their bad hitters (see Long, Terrence).

Defensively it’s hard to judge the overall impact. Kielty and Kotsay should represent a defensive upgrade and a healthier Dye should help. But there’s likely to be a big downgrade at 2B and at least a little one at SS. I’m guessing it all averages out to be about the same.

As to pitching, they’re still a great pitching team. They’ve been first or second in the AL in ERA and runs allowed the last three seasons. If the defense declines, those numbers won’t be quite as shiny this year but they’ll remain among the top 3.

I see the A’s at about 95 wins again.

This year, 95 wins might not take the AL West or the wild card. Or more precisely, given the competition in the AL West and the unbalanced schedule, we can probably shave a couple wins off that projection. The ageless Mariners outperformed the A’s last year and, although they look a little worse to me, they’re barely if any below the A’s if they can stay healthy. The Angels have upgraded tremendously and have an solid shot at 90-95 wins, especially if they swing a deadline deal for a 1B. And I see the Red Sox/Yankees loser as the likely wild card.

I’m still picking the A’s, but I won’t bet more than a six-pack on it.

What could go wrong? Well, we’ve already had a taste of it – injuries. The loss of Ellis is likely to be minor. But avoiding injury has been one of the cornerstones of the A’s run. Lots of folks have noticed that the Big 3 have stayed pretty healthy (Mulder’s hip notwithstanding), but they’ve also had few significant injuries to position players the last few years (with the exception of Dye who has still managed nearly 200 games played the last two years).

I decided to take a look at this. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find disabled list time by team, so I had to use a crude proxy. Since our interest here is in starting players, I looked at the percentage of a team’s PAs accumulated by their 9 most frequent hitters. Then I did something similar looking at the number of starts by a team’s 4 most prolific starters. Finally, I looked at the number of appearances by a team’s 3 most prolific relievers. There are major limitations to these measures – good teams will almost always dominate the top of the list because their players are good and they’re not trying out prospects at the end of the year.

Below are the A’s AL rank in percent of total team PAs by the top 9 hitters, number of starts by the top 4 starters, and number of games relieved by the top 3 relievers from 2000 through 2003:

	% PA	# GS	# GR
2000	#2	#1	#9
2001	#3	#1	#4
2002	#8	#1	#1
2003	#2	#4	#3
2000-2003	#3	#1	#2

Whether that’s the result of luck, youth, quality or smarts, that’s impressive. Except for 2002, the A’s have had 7 batters with 500 or more PAs each year. Their top 4 starters (which includes going outside the Big 3) have averaged about 127 starts a year over the last 4 years, which means that other than Mulder’s injuries last year, they’ve rarely had any missed starts, much less injuries.

Sooner or later, they’re going to get hit by injury. So what if this is the year? Within the context of the 2004 season, the A’s have excellent depth. Let’s look at this position by position:

C: Damian Miller and Adam Melhuse look to split time this year, Miller presumably better on defense and Melhuse on offense. If either goes down, Mike Rose and Jeremy Brown are in the minors. While neither Rose nor Brown is really ready for prime time, they can probably match Miller’s output.

1B: Scott Hatteberg and Eric Karros will probably be a true platoon. If Hatteberg goes down, Graham Koonce is an equal or better hitter waiting at Sacramento. Alternatively, they can give Durazo some time at 1B with McMillon/Byrnes at DH. If Karros goes down, you find somebody to take his 125 PAs against lefties.

2B: As discussed earlier, the A’s have three decent and roughly equal options here. Menechino is likely to miss the first week or so, but I expect him to get the starting job when he returns.

SS: Bobby Crosby is the only realistic option the A’s have. Menechino was slated as the backup SS, but German has played here some this spring, and Chavez could even do in an emergency. They can’t afford to lose Crosby for an extended time.

3B: Eric Chavez is the only option the A’s have here. If Chavez misses significant time, it’s hard to see how the A’s can win the West. Some combination of Menechino, German, and Scutaro will probably spell Chavez for 5-10 games against tough lefties.

OF: Bobby Kielty, Mark Kotsay, Jermaine Dye, Eric Byrnes, and Billy McMillon are pretty much interchangeable parts with Kotsay being the only one that really makes a difference offensively and defensively. Still, if he’s hurt, Kielty probably shifts to center and (mostly) Byrnes to left, so it’s not likely to be a disaster. Mike Edwards lurks at AAA, and again he’s not great, but there’s also little dropoff from Byrnes/McMillon to him.

Starters: Tim Hidson, Mike Mulder, Barry Zito, Mark Redman, Rich Harden. A loss of any of the Big 3 would be …well, big. Mulder is the most likely candidate given his injury last year and his soreness this spring (though all current reports say he’s fine). But if one of the Big 3 is going to go down, it might as well be this year. Redman and Harden would still be a formidable 3-4 and Justin Duchscherer, Mike Wood, and Joe Blanton are waiting in the minors. It’s impossible to replace any of the Big 3, but the A’s are in better shape than most any other team is. Certainly they’re in better shape here than at 3B or SS.

Relievers: Arthur Rhodes, Chad Bradford, Ricardo Rincon, Chris Hammond, Jim Mecir, and Chad Harville. According to the last reports I saw, Harville had the inside track on the 11th pitcher slot after a great spring (13 IP and 1.38 ERA) and good AAA season (57 IP, 2.05 ERA, 57 K, 21 BB). In case of injury, in addition to the guys listed above, the A’s have had Lou Pote, Britt Reames, Eric Cammack and even Steve Woodard in camp. Heck, Jeremy Fikac might still be around somewhere.

Looking Beyond 2004. It may not be exciting, but expect the 2005 A’s to look a lot like the 2004 A’s. Dye, Hatteberg, and Miller will likely all be gone but won’t be hard to replace. All 5 starters are due back as are Rhodes and Bradford. The offense will still be in need of a big upgrade but isn’t likely to get one from the A’s prospects other than improvement from Crosby.

And that presents a bit of a dilemma. Blanton’s coming, Duchscherer looks ready to be a solid if unspectacular ML starter, and Wood puts up good numbers despite a pedestrian K rate. But there’s no room in the rotation for 2005 and only one slot open in 2006, and that only if the A’s don’t resign Hudson which I’m sure they’d like to. Resigning Hudson will probably require a little more payroll room.

There are two solutions to this. First, stick with what you’ve got for 2005 and don’t resign Hudson. Second, extend Hudson but trade Mulder or Zito this coming offseason.

It would take guts to trade either of those two, but it seems the most obvious solution to the problems the A’s will have. It would relieve some payroll pressure – both are signed to quite reasonable contracts for 2005 and 2006 but it would still give the A’s an extra $6 M per year to play with. Ideally, they’d get a young slugging 1B or RF in return, thereby creating a good offense. Alternatively, they could restock their system, helping to extend their run.

Which should they trade? I wish I could offer unique insight into that question, but I’m as uncertain of the answer as anyone. Zito is the one with the Incredible Shrinking K Rate (from 8.6/9 in 2001 to 5.7/9 in 2003, a 30% decline) that’s not being matched by a decreasing walk, HR, or P/IP rate. But that 5.7/9 K-rate isn’t that much worse than Mulder’s most recent 6.2/9 and Mulder’s got the hip injury. In baseball years, they’ll both be 26 in 2004, though Zito is actually almost a year younger. Both have had pretty heavy workloads for young pitchers though Mulder has thrown many fewer pitches. I wouldn’t be surprised if neither of these guys had a particularly good long-range projection, so maybe they should trade them both!

In truth, I’d trade the one I could get the most for. My guess is that Zito is the sexier of the two, what with the nasty curveball and the Cy Young Award.

2004 ZiPS Projections

Name               P    AVG   OBP   SPC    G   AB    R    H  2B  3B  HR  RBI   BB    K  SB  CS 
Chavez*            3b  .295  .365  .539  159  610   97  180  38   3  35  115   65  102   8   3 
Koonce*            1b  .247  .385  .454  131  449   68  111  22   1  23   74   97  118   0   0 
Durazo*            1b  .257  .380  .432  135  451   75  116  25   0  18   68   87   91   1   1 
Crosby             ss  .285  .365  .450  138  487   76  139  26   3  16   69   57  103  13   4 
Edwards            lf  .289  .369  .424  124  453   65  131  21   2  12   59   53   74   4   5 
McMillon*          lf  .273  .356  .436  101  344   47   94  24   1  10   48   41   68   1   2 
Kielty#            lf  .246  .369  .405  126  378   56   93  22   1  12   50   68   78   6   2 
Kotsay*            cf  .285  .362  .419  138  520   71  148  29   4  11   63   61   81   8   6 
Scutaro            2b  .281  .363  .423  123  395   55  111  23   3   9   49   47   68   7   7 
Melhuse#           c   .258  .342  .427   85  267   38   69  19   1   8   37   32   61   1   2 
Byrnes             cf  .265  .314  .452  123  396   64  105  23   6  13   52   25   66  10   3 
German             2b  .279  .371  .357  125  487   83  136  18   4   4   45   66   78  21  12 
Hatteberg*         1b  .252  .345  .391  136  488   53  123  33   1  11   59   62   50   0   1 
Dye                rf  .244  .328  .411  121  455   60  111  23   1  17   64   50   89   3   0 
Karros             1b  .261  .322  .423  125  421   39  110  27   1  13   58   34   66   2   2 
Menechino          2b  .231  .365  .356   93  303   47   70  15   1   7   34   53   62   1   2 
Watson*            lf  .270  .333  .412  109  371   47  100  21   1  10   48   31   52   4   5 
Ellis              2b  .257  .334  .384  143  518   74  133  31   4   9   56   54   83   7   3 
Rouse*             ss  .264  .350  .355  116  397   58  105  22   1   4   39   48   75   4   3 
Rose#              c   .229  .346  .356   75  253   35   58  12   1   6   28   43   58   1   3 
Bynum*             2b  .251  .326  .325  137  514   72  129  16   5   4   42   52  128  18  13 
Miller             c   .219  .300  .349  111  338   30   74  20   0   8   38   37   86   0   0 
Morrissey          2b  .238  .308  .322  122  450   57  107  19   2   5   41   42  107   7   2 

Name                  ERA   W   L   G  GS     INN    H   ER  HR   BB    K 
Rhodes*              2.43   7   2  68   0    63.0   47   17   4   13   69 
Mulder*              3.15  17   9  30  30   203.0  179   71  16   45  155 
Hammond*             3.18   5   2  62   0    68.0   59   24   3   20   48 
Bradford             3.21   5   3  68   0    73.0   62   26   5   19   57 
Hudson               3.27  16   8  34  34   234.0  207   85  16   61  172 
Rincon*              3.67   4   3  67   0    54.0   45   22   4   22   44 
Zito*                3.67  15  11  35  35   218.0  188   89  19   79  182 
Redman*              3.70  12   9  28  28   180.0  169   74  16   49  115 
Duchscherer          3.72  11   6  27  24   155.0  143   64  17   35  103 
Harden               3.77  12   9  31  29   167.0  135   70  12   79  155 
Mecir                3.88   4   4  53   0    58.0   50   25   4   25   47 
Brooks*              3.97   5   4  51   0    77.0   71   34   8   25   55 
Wood                 4.04   9   7  20  20   118.0  115   53  13   33   72 
Bazzell              4.14   5   4  36   7    76.0   67   35   4   40   54 
Rheinecker*          4.15   9   6  29  29   178.0  169   82  18   42   97 
Pote                 4.29   1   1  37   0    65.0   61   31   8   25   50 
Harville             4.50   3   3  54   0    62.0   56   31   8   28   52 
Gomes                4.86   4   5  58   0    76.0   71   41   8   43   62 
Cammack              4.87   3   3  46   0    61.0   54   33   5   40   52 
Snow                 4.89   2   2  41   0    46.0   41   25   5   29   39 
Ramos*               5.07   8   8  29  25   151.0  164   85  18   57  100 

ZiPS Projections are not playing time predictors; they project a player's performance given playing time in the majors in their accustomed role. As with all projections, specific knowledge of non-statistical attributes of the player should temper what the computer says. ZiPS Projections are computer projections and not generated by the author.