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By Connor Byrne | at
Email a copy of 'Offseason Outlook: Oakland Athletics' to a friend
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arc89
Connor must have never seen Alonso play 1B. Alonso biggest asset is his glove he is a gold glove canidate at 1B. The problem is he has no power for a power position. My guess is the A’s keep Alonso to shore of the team’s poor defense around the diamond. Valencia is all but gone. Where the A’s will spend money is on a CF who they don’t have. No need to spend on 1B because they could put a number of internal options there.
A'sfaninUK
Healy, a lifetime 1B, should be there. Go grab a short term 3B or just go with Chapman all year and deal with his 200+ K’s, 30 bombs and stellar defense..
rycm131
This was the most depressing article I’ve ever read on this site. (A’s fan)
McGlynnandjuice
Imagine if Beane had the money to lock up some of the core players from 2014…
Cespedes, Donaldson, Reddick, Moss, with Addison Russell at SS, the team would look completely different
julyn82001
Oh they have the money only they don’t want to spend it, new venue or not. Billy can only do so much. He is just a minority owner….
A'sfaninUK
They do have money, and spend it whenever Billy asks them to. He just rarely does, as his big signings rarely pan out. I do think he will get the owners to throw a mountain of a deal at Rich Hill, and will beat whatever deal the KBO will offer Eric Thames for LF. They aren’t in as bad a shape as the tone of this piece implies.
NineChampionsips
Yeah, the article could of been a bit more balanced by mentioning guys like Chapman, Barreto, Puk, Holmes, Shore, etc.
I think the A’s have a brighter future than most teams in the AL because they have a ton of arms all through the minors. It’s crazy that this two year stretch is the worst the A’s have been in 40 years. Just two years ago the A’s were coming off a 3 year run as one of the best teams in baseball. I think they can get back to that level pretty quickly but Billy needs to be more proactive with his younger talents and sign them to long term deals sooner before they become unaffordable. Take a page from Tampas book and start by trying to lock up Davis before his price gets crazy high.
A'sfaninUK
Great post, also,no one is talking about how Puk was regarded by many to go to #1 in the draft, he looks every bit like a Kershaw clone. Agreed with Davis too, that power is so rare, anyone who can hit 19 HR in 74 games in the Coliseum is a guy you hold onto, even as a DH only type.
Juansbz
Yes and this next draft has pretty good arms the A’s can take. Perhaps Houck or Bulauskas
digimike
Tebow in CF when he is still affordable.
arc89
Tebow is a gate attraction in the minors. Learning CF and hitting the breaking ball will never happen for him. If Jordan couldn’t become a good ball players I don’t give Tebow any chance.
A'sfaninUK
Tim Tebow hits like Madison Bumgarner and can’t play any defense. He will never see a day above A ball.
A'sfaninUK
The biggest issue the A’s have is that the front office commits to ideologies loosely related to Moneyball – like all-platooning and “getting the most offense out of non-offensive position” – yet they don’t scrap them, and they don’t work in unison. Both of those styles need to be scrapped entirely. Because of this, they constantly played 4 regulars out of position all last season, to poor defensive results: Vogt (C instead of LF), Semien (SS instead of 2B), Davis (LF instead of DH) & Healy (3B instead of 1B). Simply playing those 4 at places they’re more comfortable would make up a lot of defense, but there remains a lot of questions about Vogt’s bat, who appears to have been figured out by the league. I see him on the trading block for a team that needs a C, even though he’s only one in name only.
While I don’t agree with or believe in a lot of things in this write-up (they were perfectly happy to dole out $46M to Butler, Nakajima & Johnson – its not 2002 anymore, they do not have payroll constraints), there are plenty of good prospects who they absolutely could just slot into the opening day lineup, if they decide defense matters, that is. Their pitching future looks great and there has been a lot of indications Beane will be going hard after Hill and even Nova too – he loves those risky moves.. Both Healy and to a lesser extent Maxwell broke out and there’s not much preventing them from playing them everyday next year.
Really the only thing preventing them from taking the next step is they have no OF, either on the big league team and on the farms.
Here’s what the team -should- look like on Opening Day based on who they currently have so far, no platoons, no one playing out of position:
1B: R. Healy
2B: M. Semien
SS: F. Barreto (he’s a stud and ready, no need to season him any more, they are rebuilding and you bring up guys like him to test them and give them every shot to adapt)
3B: M. Chapman (the bat might not be there, but his defense is, and they cannot afford to have bad defense again)
C: B. Maxwell
LF:
CF:
RF:
DH: K. Davis
Bench: S. Vogt, J. Lowrie, J. Phegley, J. Smolinski
How do the A’s fill out that OF? This is Beane, as smart followers of the A’s will tell you, we have no idea what he’s ever going to do. So in a way these kinds of early looks at the offseason are largely pointless to do for this team, but what we do know is that the A’s are too thin at OF, so he’s going to definitely do something there. The pitching is there, Cotton was excellent, Graveman and Manaea turned the corner, Gray’s injuries look in the rearview mirror and the bullpen has a lot of positives with Dull breaking out and Frankie Montas poised to join the big league team at some point. Will Beane trade any of these pitchers to fill out the OF, or will he hold as many as he can and get high risk guys for the OF? I don’t know, but what we do know is that the Raiders are officially moving to Vegas, so the A’s will be getting a new Stadium in some way soon, and they have wealthy owners who have not shied away from bowing to Beane’s payroll requests in the past. Here’s some ideas.
Sonny Gray for AJ Pollock or Adam Eaton straight up could be something explored.
I think the A’s are the absolutely perfect landing spot for Eric Thames, a local guy (San Jose) who they could promise an everyday role in LF to, in the same way they promised Hill an everyday role. So that’s a no-brainer. Pay him whatever it would take for him to leave the KBO and get him here, his numbers equal or destroy Jung Ho Kang’s at the basically same ages in the KBO, plus he’s already been in the bigs, I can’t see a better fit for Thames personally. So, that’s my choice for LF.
Other than that, it will be fun to see what Beane does. He never ever puts a bad-looking team on the field on Opening Day (imagine if they got full seasons from Alvarez and Hill last year?), so he definitely will be wheeling and dealing like usual.
sacball
I’d love to see them give Jaycob Brugman and Matt Olson a chance in the outfield
A'sfaninUK
Brugman isn’t good at baseball though? Just because he’s in the system and plays OF doesnt mean they need to look at him, I already hated Joey Wendle and his .600 OPS with meh defense bad enough. Unless they are trying to lose 110 games, filling the team with Wendle and Brugman types is not going to be a positive thing for the team.
NineChampionsips
Yeah you forgot about Olson. Either Olson plays RF or they put him at 1B which is his best position and DH Healy with Davis going out to LF. You’ve also got Nunez who is probably going to be limited to 1B/DH so if he plays DH then you could potentially move Healy to RF. Although having Healy and Davis in the corners without a great defensive CF to cover them would be incredibly risky.
A'sfaninUK
Neither of those two showed anything this season that they would be factors in 2017, so I didn’t “forget” about them, they simply aren’t going to be looked at.
Olson is not ready for the bigs yet, he’s looking more like 2018 and beyond (he’s still really, really young). I see him as being a factor when he’s 25 or 26, but not currently.
Same goes for Nunez, who has a lower ceiling and is probably trade bait as it looks like Healy is going to end up the 1B for a while.
Phillies2017
I dont believe JB Wendelken had the service time requirements to elect free agency.
Connor Byrne
Good catch. He shouldn’t have been on that list.
Pops
I’ll never understand why the Orioles allowed Triggs to leave. (sigh…)
A'sfaninUK
He was a 26 year old reliever at AA, not unreasonable to let him go. No one saw him turn into a guy who can start after a lifetime relieving. Really crazy turnaround from him. Funnily enough he’s probably still the 6th or 7th SP on the team, the longman.
NineChampionsips
A’s should make a move on Peter Bourjos for their CF job. He’s a low-risk, high-reward player who when healthy with the Angels was a 5WAR player. He’s still 29 and after making some plate adjustments went on a tear from June onward slashing 294/.347/.471. Sign to a two year deal, put him back in CF full time where his speed can cover for Davis and whomever you have in RF.
OaklandKAM
Gotta do much better than Bourjos. He had one big month. at the plate in June and otherwise was ultra MEH. He will be 30, his best days in the field are way past him. If he wants to take a minor league deal, sure. But starter at CF? Hell nah.
A'sfaninUK
Bourjos is a career 4th OF who has a career .237 (!) OPS in Oakland, NOPE NOPE NOPE.
dobsonel
Gardner, Mason Williams, and two minor league arms to A’s for Grey and Doolittle. Yes? No?
A'sfaninUK
Frazier, Gardner, Sheffield & Tate would need to be the package, but that’s probably not happening on the Yankees end, and Gray isn’t being moved unless its for an All-Star impact CF like AJ Pollock or for 3-4 of a teams top 5 prospects. There’s zero reason for the A’s to trade him while his value is at it’s lowest in his career.
I really want Soler-Doolittle straight up to happen, but I don’t know if the Cubs would take the view of having a superpen > having Soler.
OaklandKAM
WAYYY too little