Sportsfrog.com

The A’s scored the fewest runs in the American League in 2008 and it’s easy to see why. Scoring just over 4 runs per game, Oakland was tied for worst in the AL in OBP at .318 with Seattle, and had far and away the worst SLG in the majors at .369, 20 points lower than the Mariners. But that blame lies with the A’s BA and not the walk rate. Oakland hit just .242 last season. And that is NOT ideal. Obviously, the A’s youth movement had a lot to do with it, but at the same time, this team was only four games out of first place on July 1. While Billy’s move for Matt Holliday may seem like a sign that he perceives the Angels to have a weakness, don’t underestimate the possibility of Holliday being traded at midseason, especially given the relative reasonability of the final half year of his deal. (On a related note, has anyone seen the rumors about a Moneyball movie? What was movie-quality about that book?)

C: Kurt Suzuki flat out ran out of gas in the second half of 2008, and with good reason. He played 148 games last year, and after getting hot in June and July, Suzuki went on a freefall in August and September, hitting .250/.343/.359 and .234/.322/.273 respectively. But at the same time, the A’s had no good options as 27-year-old backup catcher Rob Bowen hit .176/.219/.286 in 97 ABs. Ouch.

1B/DH: The gold thong is back! Giambi alone should help improve the team’s OBP immensely. Sure, he may not be able to hit more than .250 and lefties are completely out of the equation, but he’ll post a .360+ OBP and whack 20+ HRs among those hits in that .250 average. Daric Barton struggled in his first year being a starter, and since he’s also lefthanded, he’ll have to settle for playing first when Giambi DHs or gets the day off. Jack Cust will be the team’s primary DH, but he’s also lefthanded. While his AVG only declines 20 points and his walk rate remains the same, he SLGs 70 points lower against lefties, so Beane would be served well to find a righthanded bat or two to complement Giambi, Cust and Barton.

2B: Mark Ellis increased his walk rate 20 points in 2008, but hit 40 points lower, making the increase in free passes worthless. Ellis was also hurt for part of the year, and that may explain his paltry .373 SLG. However, he’s 32 and has played in less than 125 games in three of the last four years. Eric Patterson isn’t a viable alternative because his PECOTA projection is basically in line with Ellis’s, but with worse defense.

3B: It’s set with Eric Chavez. Well, at least for a few days until Chavez hurts his back. Chavez hobbled up to the plate just 95 times in 2008 and hit just .247/.295/.393 and he enters 2009 as a 31 year old with a bad back. Not good. His replacement at third, Jack Hannahan, hit even worse than Chavez did at .218/.305/.342. Oh boy!

SS: The corpse of Bobby Crosby’s back is still haunting the middle, and it isn’t pretty. (What is it with backs and the left side of Oakland’s infield?) Crosby can’t hit or play defense, and last I checked, they were the two basic requirements of a shortstop. I still think an Oakland-Orlando Cabrera pairing is likely, but it may not come until just before opening day, or possibly in June to avoid costing the A’s a draft pick.

OF: Here’s where Holliday comes in. He’s an upgrade defensively over the times when Cust attempted to play the outfield, and he’s a massive upgrade at the plate over It’s Not A Snack It’s Emil Brown. However, it’s really worth noting that while still a good player, Holliday is very much a product of Coors Field. Through his career, Holliday has hit .357/.423/.645 at Coors while .280/.348/.455 on the road. And it’s a well documented fact that McAfee Coliseum is a pitcher’s park, thus, Beane’s dilemma. Obviously Holliday has more value to a contender when he’s posting that Coors line half of the time but it’s not unreasonable to suggest that Holliday’s season line will be considerably closer to his career road split, limiting what Beane would get in return if he flipped him in midseason. The other two outfield spots seem to be Ryan Sweeney’s and Travis Buck’s. Sweeney was one of the few young A’s players to play well, even though he slugged just .383 while Buck couldn’t even crack a .300 OBP.

SP: At the front, the rotation is dependent on a repeat performance from Justin Duchscherer. However, if Vegas had odds on him repeating 2008 (and hell, they may) they’d be astronomical. He hardly touches 90–and is a righty–and doesn’t have a great K rate. Hardly the stuff of a guy with a sub 1.00 WHIP. If he can keep the walks down where they were last year, he’s still a good candidate for a sub-4.00 ERA. But behind him, it’s a pile of muck. There’s no one here that should be more than a below average #3. Sure, with the youth in the four spots behind Duchscherer, a breakout or two is possible, but Dana Eveland will have to stop eating and figure out what went wrong after the All-Star break, Sean Gallagher will have to be better than the 5.88 ERA he had in the AL and Gio Gonzalez still is a bit away from being an effective big league starter.

RP: Joey Devine is the favorite to be the closer after fanning 49 in 45 IP, while Brad Ziegler will be the primary righthanded setup man. Russ Springer was signed to be a dependable bullpen arm, and it still remains to be seen whether Santiago No I’m Not Jairo Garcia But I Am Three Years Older Casilla will be the stud that everyone expected him to be.

In 100 words or less: The additions of Holliday and Giambi help the middle of the order despite Holliday’s relative ineffectiveness away from Coors, but Eric Chavez will have to stay healthy–a huge gamble–for the offense to show any type of major improvement. The strength of the team is it’s bullpen, and if the A’s want to be a legitimate contender, they’ll need two or three drastic improvements in the rotation, and it isn’t going to happen. But thanks to playing in one of the weakest divisions in baseball, second place is not out of the equation.