FanPost

Anyone else just tired of

Mark Kotsay?

After his 0 for 5 tonite, he is now OPS'ing .687 on the season - but it is more than that Consider that he consumes over 10% of payroll pretty much to do nothing but play decent in CF.  He is the lowest ranked regular CF in the league this year on offense.  Some key points

1)  He leads the team in GIDP with 12 - Ken Doll is well back tied with 4 others on 7

Kotsay ranks 5'th on the A's for most number of AB's in RISP situations and yet

  1.  He has the lowest OBP of any non pitcher with RISP other than Melhuse - Even Perez is higher
  2.  He is slugging just .246 with RISP - Even Ken Doll is outslugging him by 40 points
His overall OBP for June is .265 - so of course batting him leadoff tonite made sense (dig at Macha) - For the year is OBP is just 313.

He ranks 9'th on the team in OBP and yet ranks second on the team in AB's - Does this make sense to anyone?  Why is he getting so many of the AB's - talk about giving up outs

Anyway, I just don't get it.  To me, Kotsay is just not worth the dough we are paying.  Season is half over and his numbers basically blow.  Even with the very slow start DJ was off to this year, his RISP OPS exceed Kotsay's by almost 150 points.

And it is not just RISP - His overall OPS of .687 rank him 10'th on the team and well below Kielty and Payton.

So, now that I have ragged about him, what about a trade?  Does Kotsay with his chronic back problems and his .581 OPS for the month of June (.687 OPS season) have any trade value?  If so, I say dump him, free up payroll.  I don't think he will be any better next year.

Right now - even without Bradley, an OF of Swish, Payton and Kielty is way more productive than any OF combo that includes Kotsay

And if you start saying that maybe he is playing through pain, remember that he has chronic back problems and is never going to actually get better.  With his $$ off the book for the rest of this year and next that is more than enough to pay for Zito - if you consider the current combined salaries of Zito and Kotsay this year which I believe are about 15 Mil

I expect to be flamed for this post, because whilst there is open season on some players, I rarely read any criticism of Kotsay.  However, I believe that he is the weakest link on the team with regard to the offense, and the defense he provides does not come close to making up for this.

Cheers - TC