The A's Cannot Compete for a Playoff Spot with their Current Roster...Or can they? (No, They can't)

In my post yesterday I presumed that the A's would need to make some improvements to their team in order to compete in 2009.  What did I base that on?  Well, nothing, or more accurately it just seems like they'll need to do more than just add Holliday.  That's not good enough for me so I'm going to try to see if my assumption was correct.

The A's biggest problem last year was their inability to score runs.  They were last in the AL scoring 4.01 runs a game (the average AL team scored 4.78 runs a game).  Here's a position by position breakdown of who the primary player or players were in 2008 and if the A's can expect improvment in 2009. By "expect improvement" I don't mean "hope for" improvement.  Because they will most likely only have Holliday for this season (despite what I wrote a few days ago), it would be foolish for the A's to waste the season by hoping that mixing Holliday with a bunch of gambles pays off...unless the gambles are worthwhile bets.

Catcher

2008 Kurt Suzuki  588 PAs .279 .346 .370

Suzuki was a league average hitter last year and will be the starter again in 2009.   It's reasonable to expect some improvement as Suzuki was just 24 last season.  However, his minor league numbers do not suggest that he'll become an offensive star, so the A's should not count on Suzuki to provide appreciably more offense than he did last season.

First Base

2008 Daric Barton 523 PAs  .226 .327 .348

The only thing he was able to do last season at the plate was to walk.  He still struck out almost 100 times, which indicates that he was overmatched.  There was always a question about his power, and whether his lack of power would prevent him from being a successful big league hitter (See Sean Borroughs).  He only slugged over .500 once in the minors, albeit as an 18 year old in the Midwest League, a league dominated by pitchers parks.  His slugging percentages ranged in the mid.400s in A - AAA ball, all of which were in hitter friendly parks and leagues.  What does this mean for his future?  Well, the A's don't really have any other options for first base and he's shown enough promise in the past that the A's will have to play him and hope last year was a fluke.  He can't be this bad and has to be better, right?  The biggest question marki s how much better.  If he lives up to his potential this season, it'd be a bonus, but because there's a real chance that he just doesn't have enough power to be a big league first baseman, the A's can't count on production from him and will need to look for reliable offense elsewhere. 

Second Base

2008 Mark Ellis 507 PAs .233 .321 .373

Yuck, and he'll be back for 2009.  Oh, and he'll be coming off surgery to repair a torn labrum for the 2009 season.  And he'll be 32.  There is, however, reason to believe that he too will be better next year.  Last year his average on balls in play was .248, when his career average for balls in play is .290.  This suggests that his horrid batting average was mostly the result of bad luck.  He has put up good seasons before,  hitting .276/.336/.441in 2007 and .316/.384/.477 in 2005.  So the A's can reasonably expect improvement, but not the kind that will transform the A's into contenders.

Third Base

2008 Jack Hannahan 501 PAs  .218 .305 .342

2008 Eric Chavez  95 Pas .247 .295 .393

Chavez will be the starter and if he puts up his career average numbers it would be a huge upgrade from the "production" they got last season.   Can the A's expect him to hit as good as his career averages?  He's hit .269/.346/.484 for his career, but he hasn't slugged over .466 since his career year in 2004.  Furthermore, how much can the A's count on Chavez to play?  He played in just 23 games last year and 90 games in 2007.  If he misses time, the A's still have Hannahan, whose performance last year is probably indicative of his value, and Joe Dillon who would be better offensively, but I doubt he could handle significant playing time at third base.  The A's could also look at Cliff Pennington, Yung Chi Chen, or Jeff Baisley at third, but counting on them for anything would be big trouble.  As of now, the A's are betting on a return to health for Chavez, and a return to his career numbers and do not have a good insurance policy.  This is not the type of situation a contending team should be in.

Shortstop

2008 Bobby Crosby 605 PAs .237 .296 .349

Again, yuck, and again, he's slated to start 2009 in the lineup.  Crosby hasn't had a good season since 2005 there's no reason to think he'll be good in 2009.  If the A's decide not to go with Crosby, their other option is Cliff Pennington, who was horrible in the minor leagues since getting drafted, until last year when he put up decent numbers, but mostly on the strengths of walks.  Neither Crosby nor Pennington will do much to improve the A's offense from the shortstop position.

Left Field

2008 Jack Cust 598 PAs .231 .375 .476

2008 Emil Brown 438 PAs .244 .297 .386

Finally, some good news.  While Holliday's numbers are going to be down after moving away from Coors Field, there's plenty of reason to think that Holliday will still be a superstar level hitter away from Denver, and the argument is best made here.  The defensive benefit is obvious, Jack Cust is an awful fielder and Holliday is a great fielder.  The offensive benefit isn't that Holliday is so much better than Cust (although he is clearly better), it's that it allows Cust to DH full time, replacing Frank Thomas' production from last season (see below).

Center Field

2008 Carlos Gonzalez 316 PAs .242 .273 .361

2008 Ryan Sweeney 292 PAs .286 .350 .383

2008 Rajai Davis 207 PAs .260 .288 .372

Sweeney actually played mostly in right, but I put his numbers here because as of now, he's the A's best option in center.  Gonzalez is gone and Davis proved not to be anything more than a defensive replacement/pinch runner.  The A's also have Chris Denorfia and Aaron Cunningham.  I discussed the A's center field options yesterday, but the conclusion is that none of thses options are good bets to be much of an improvement over the 2008 efforts.

Right Field

2008 Travis Buck 172 PAs .226 .291 .432

2008 Ryan Sweeney 292 PAs .286 .350 .383

This is probably the A's best bet for an improvement for a returning player.  Buck hit .288/.377/.474 as a rookie in 2007, and whie he may have been playing over his head a little, his minor league numbers do not suggest that his 2007 was a complete fluke.  Even if you split the difference between Buck's 2008 and 2008 you get a .265/.347/.459 hitter, which is much better than what A's right fielders produced last year.  

Designated Hitter

2008 Frank Thomas 217 PAs .263 .364 .387

Here is where Jack Cust will play in 2009 and where he belongs.  His career line of .239/.382/.475 is what I'd expect from Cust in 2009.

Overview

The A's will score more runs than they did last year (it'd be hard not too). They can probably count on having one great hitter (Holliday) and two quality players in Buck and Cust.  Moderate improvements by Barton and Ellis whoever plays 3B can also be expected (albeit from horrendous to not-so horrendous).  So how much better will this lineup be?

I plugged in the following numbers (OBP/SLG) into the Lineup Analysis tool at Baseball Musings and though it is rough (as are my projections) it can provide a sketch of how much the lineup is improved.  

Matt Holliday .380/.500 (Fangraphs' estimate)

Jack Cust  .382/.475 (career numbers)

Travis Buck .347/.459 (career numbers)

Kurt Suzuki .346/.370 (last year's numbers)

Daric Barton .323/.363 (Barton's 2007 Minor League Equivalency)

Mark Ellis .337/.407 (career numbers)

Third Base .332/.421 (average of Hannahan and Chavez's career numbers (this is me basically assuming that Chavez will play 1/2 a season with a crappy backup playing the other half))

Bobby Crosby .306/.380 (career numbers)

Ryan Sweeney .350/.383 (last year's numbers)

This lineup projects (roughly) to score about 4.98 runs a game, about a run per game better than last year's team.  This overstates the improvement of the lineup.  First, the tool is not calibrated to last year's offensive levels; plugging in the numbers from the A's top 9 ABers yielded a lineup that scored 4.39 runs a game.  Second, it assumes that the above players (except Chavez, which I tried to account for) will play 162 games.  To make another rough estimation, I think the A's can expect to improve their offense by about a half a run per game, based on the addition of Holliday and internal improvements.  Had they scored 4.5 runs a game, instead of the 4 a game they actually scored last year, they'd have placed 11 out of 14 AL teams.  

So my initial assumption that the A's don't have enough offense to compete as is right now has actual reasoning behind it.  On to the pitching side next time...