The Athletics placed Seth Brown on the injured list after a positive COVID-19 test, per Matt Kawahara of the San Francisco Chronicle (via Twitter). Daulton Jefferies was recalled from the taxi squad to claim his roster spot.
Brown has been part of the fix in right field after the club lost Ramon Laureano and Stephen Piscotty to a suspension and wrist surgery, respectively. Brown’s walk rate is a little low (8.2 percent) and his strikeout rate is a little high (29.2 percent), but he brings power to the position with a .254 ISO. With 254 plate appearances, the 29-year-old has not been an insubstantial contributor for these A’s, despite just a .219 BABIP that, along with the metrics above, paint Brown as a boom-or-bust type of role player.
Of course, the greater part of the story for Brown is that he’s been strictly a platoon player, with 233 plate appearances coming against right-handers. For that kind of limited usage player, you’d like to see even stronger splits, however, as Brown’s 100 wRC+ against righties suggests he’s holding the line as an average bat — but not much more than that.
Without him (and maybe even when he returns), the A’s piece together their final outfielder with infielders Tony Kemp, Josh Harrison, and Chad Pinder, depending on match-ups. Mark Canha also plays a role in Frankenstein-ing this roster spot, as he slides from left to right field depending on who else is in the lineup. The A’s seem more comfortable with Pinder in right, while Kemp and Harrison have taken their turns in left.
As for Jefferies, he’s most likely just an insurance arm in this short interval without Brown. The 26-year-old has served as a starter in all 16 of his outings this year, of which only one took place in the bigs. His arm should be fresh, however, as he hasn’t started a game since August 20th in Triple-A.
Okay, first speedy recovery of course.
Off topic reaction: Is Billy Beane a cursed Warlock? I noticed the players mentioned in the article are all “less than star caliber”. Yet he often makes the playoffs with an ever changing mix of “less than star caliber” players. But he might be cursed because they can’t quite compete with the big boys (or Tampa Bay recently)
The Marte move took serious balls. If Luzardo regains his confidence Beane is going to be called dumb for years. But he doesn’t care. He felt he had a shot at it this season and he took it.
I applaud him.
Have you seen moneyball this what he does the A’s have one of the biggest payrolls behind the Yankees , Redsox and Dodgers. He wants baseball players not people who play baseball. I would like to see him win a World Series tho
What are you talking about? The A’s have one of the lowest payrolls in MLB. The Dodgers payroll is 3 times what the A’s payroll is. The Yankees payroll is about 2.8 higher than the A’s. The Yankees OF last night makes more than the entire A’s roster.
Read Moneyball, you mean. The movie, while fabulously entertaining, bears only slight relation to the book.
The book is by no means a story it’s more of I’d say a journal it feels like
A bit outdated at this point. The A’s appear to have dropped the heavy obp approach in favor of homeruns. Of course, you have to stay ahead of the curve when other organizations offer your front office employees big money to transfer and share trade secrets.
Hollywood movies isn’t the game of baseball. …. Ummmm can you send me what you are smoking? I’ll trade you my bat.
Tampa plays Beane’s game so much better than he does it’s not even funny.
I think a change of scenery would help Beane at this point. He almost left the A’s last off-season, maybe he’s got to do it this time.
True, they do have the only stadium that is worse than ours.
Great take Weasel! But re James A’s comment, the A’s always have one of the LOWEST payrolls in the league, including this year. So I’m not sure where James is coming from.
I heard the Yankees are going to try to trade for Ramon this offseason. Makes sense since they like PED players. Needle Needle