the struggle with .500 NEXT year
by notah8er on Aug 27, 2007 1:01 PM PDT
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Printthis year is already into week 3 of glorified pre-spring training for the green and gold. I wish I could say that next year looked better.
But it really doesn't. There isn't a single team in the AL that the A's can be expected to beat at this point, with the possible exception of the Rangers. Cust's tag-out at the plate said everything about the tampa series (though I think it was in the context of a win)...
Is this really what we've become? is it really a discount Adam Dunn who was in triple AAA for years as our offensive centerpiece? has haren already peaked?
In any case, the truly wretched giants are the only "gimmes" in the oakland schedule. let's just hope next year's interleague include some bad teams like the nats. even KC consistently beats us, while the M's could easily be sporting a gleaming new pennant next spring. yikes.
oh well, bobby kielty, eric byrnes, jason kendall, milton bradley and possibly even hatteberg and ethier are going to the playofs... they'll always be A's to me...
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A wise man once asked,
"Why is there something instead of nothing?" After reading this, I can confidently answer, "There isn't."
All that stuff may be true,
but it's also true that last year's team could easily have been as bad as this year's team and vice versa.
I'm convinced this season is just cursed. Nothing goes right. I fully expect BB to put together a good looking team for next year, just like he put together a pretty good looking team for this year, and the year before. Let's just hope the team that finishes 2008 looks something like the one that starts it.
Another positive way to look at things: The Red Sox (a team I often look at as similar to the A's in many ways, except with money and David Ortiz): 2003 - Champions, 2004 & 2005 playoff teams, (or at least major contenders, I can't quite remember off the top of my head), 2006: TANKED, 2007: Right back where they left off.
Have some faith.
by AintEasyBeinGreen on Aug 27, 2007 1:11 PM PDT reply actions
bosox comparison
i'm not so sure about that - they had a huge injury and went from a 95 winner to an 85 winner thanks to a horrible roadtrip to the al west and a 5-game yankee sweep. but, otherwise, they had most of the pieces in place to be what they were this year. what do we have for sure next year of value? we basically have no infield, except mark ellis. we also have no bullpen, and maybe 2.5 decent starters, depending on whether or not esteban wants to pitch.
we certainly aren't going to spend matsuzake money in the off-season, despite possibly being the designated punching bag in a matsuzake/haren matchup for the season opener next year in japan. and speaking of which, why do we have none of the japanese stars which have been filtering through the league? not even a bright spot on an otherwise dull team like iwamura or otsuka... nope, nothing like that to the fans from billy for christmas.
You know, you might actually convince someone
if you didn't comically exaggerate every single thing you say. (Yes, I'm aware of the irony in that sentence. But it's literally true.)
I'm not even going to go into most of this, which is just ludicrous. But I will tell you why the A's aren't getting Japanese players. The entire system is rigged towards teams with huge payrolls. As bad as the free agent market is, at least there you a. don't have to bid blindly against everyone else, raising the specter of the "winner's curse", and b. don't have to negotiate with players from a position of institutionalized weakness. Meanwhile, fees paid to Japanese teams for posting don't get counted against the luxury tax, so if you have a ton of money it could be more efficient to buy Japanese stars than American. I don't blame them at all for not getting caught up in that scam.
I do hope that they get in on the ground floor in China and the rest of Asia, though. That could be a tremendous source of untapped, cheap talent.
That was true of pitchers
Both Igawa and Matsuzaka got huge posting fees and large contracts but the hitters is a different market. Iwamura had about a 4.5 mil posting fee and a 7.7 mil/4 year contract. That's not bad at all. It would be nice seeing him at SS (I know he's a natural 3b but he said he'd try SS for his team if needed). Even Ichiro and Matsui were cheap when acquired. This market might explode with Fukedome this offseason though.
Ugh
According to BPro, Iwamura's a replacement-level fielder at third base. I hate to think about what he'd be like at short. As a hitter he's been pretty solid, but not spectacular, and he's injury prone. Looks like the Rays got what they paid for to me. Not bad, not good (except in the sense that the D-Rays have to get way above-market production from their players to be competitive given their tiny payroll).
In general, though, the system sucks for both the players and the MLB teams. The Japanese teams rake in the dough while basically hosing everyone else.
According to UZR
Iwamura is about average defensively, -2 runs / 150, games at 3b.
Are you saying Ichiro! was not a bargain when he first signed with the Mariners? Tadahito Iguchi when the White Sox signed him? Otsuka when the Padres signed him? Hideki Okajima? Takashi Saito of the Dodgers? Would you rather have had the black hole that was Kendall or Kenji Johjima?
Just because the A's have, for whatever reason, decided not to seriously go after Japanese players, doesn't mean that Japanese players are overpriced.
thank you for the dose of reality
though i wouldn't call JK's term with the A's a 'black hole'. though he was seemingly unable to hit .200 early this season let's not rewrite history and forget that he was a consistent source of OBP when the a's had those nasty springtime cold streaks for most of the past few seasons.
in any case, it's a shame that the a's ability to scout seemingly stops at the borders of the lower 48 (though getting ellis from the dakotas was certainly inspired)
It's not a question of scouting
It's a question of gambling huge sums of money on players who may or may not actually work out, basically blindly. Remember Irabu? Shinjo? Igawa? The success rate is probably 50% or so. Even if you're getting guys at a 50% discount from the free agent market price (which I don't believe for a second is consistently accurate), you're not looking at much gain, if at all, relative to the free agent market.
If the player allows you to market your team in Japan, that's a different story. But those guys are the ones, like Matsuzaka, getting the huge fees and contracts. The rich get richer.
i'm just doing another midmarket whine thing
i know that if we had another 50 mil we could be players at that level.
let's just hope wolff makes enough money on real estate in this challenging climate to be generous enough to make the team winners again in the new house.
And the success rate with mediocre
veterans like Loaiza? What about the success rate with formerly great players like Piazza? Kendall?
So, a few signings have turned out badly, thus, signing any player from Japan is a blind gamble, and not a question of better scouting?
Tadahito Iguchi cost 2 years/$4.95M, signed in 2005. Takashi Saito was signed as a Minor League FA. Akinori Otsuka's price was 2 years $1.5 million + 300k posting fee, total of $1.8 million.
Also, if Shinjo is considered a bust, that's entirely due to idiotic expectations. He was never an offensive star, his value was defensive. Part of his reputation was due to him being a showman, not because he was a great hitter.
Kendall's OPS+ in his years with the As
77 in 2005, 89 in 2006, 46 this year. So, only in 2006 did he approach being a league average hitter.
Just a random comparison, Jose Molina: 71, 68, 52.
In 2 of his 3 years here, Kendall was basically Jose Molina, offensively.
I have one problem with that
Using OPS+ with Kendall doesn't strike me as the most accurate way to measure his offensive value. We KNOW he had zero power, but what he did do well in 2006 was get on base. OPS implies that OBP and Slugging are EQUAL because it just adds the two numbers together but in reality it is generally accepted that 1 point of OBP is better than 1 point of Slg. Therefore, OPS+ understates Kendall's offensive contributions because it essentially penalizes his OBP prowess.
Also worth noting
Fair enough
From BRef, Kendall's bRuns from 2005: - 17.4 runs below average, - 5.5, - 22.6. bRuns is a linear weights based stat for calculating runs created. It takes into account playing time, so Kendall looks worse than Molina. Jose Molina: - 8.0, - 10.4, - 10.8.
The UZR is based on
about half a season's worth of data ... it doesn't mean much.
And BPro's data does?
Fukudome doesn't have to go through the posting
process. He's also put up an OPS over 1.000 in three of his last four seasons, so even with a steep drop in his power numbers, he's probably at least good for an 850ish OPS in MLB.
I'd actually much rather the A's go after Fukudome than someone like Rowand or Cameron, despite the unknowns that come with a Japanese import. If you're going to risk hugely overspending, you may as well take a risk where the upside is 300/400/500 with 30 homeruns. Rowand is certainly capable of these numbers, but he'll probably cost more.
Last year's futility was epitomized by
getting swept at home against the lowly Diamondbacks, who were losers in 18 out of their previous 21. If that didn't show how pathetic a team we were, nothing would.
Except we went to the ALCS.
we were pathetic without ellis
but with him (and bradley and payton and thomas and kielty and kendall and a healthy kotsay healthy chavez and healthy loaiza), we were able to beat the angels in close ones and pound on the m's as well as shock the twinkies.
9 - 9 = 0 (no offense to swish)
Eithier?? always an A??
Never played a game for the A's, but always an A to you??
by Hawk on Aug 27, 2007 3:28 PM PDT reply actions
he had over 1000 ABs for the A's system
how many has piazza had?
Never said a thing abt Piazza??
I honestly wih we would have shipped out Piazza long ago.
by Hawk on Aug 27, 2007 6:15 PM PDT up reply actions
LOL you are such a h8er
by Dusty Baker on Aug 27, 2007 3:30 PM PDT reply actions
This kind of pessimism makes me wonder why you
are even a fan of the A's. If you are already predicting somewhere around .500 for next season then you simply aren't taking into account what actually happened this year. The team was "snake bitten" with injuries that no organization could have overcome. I'm not convinced that Larry Davis is this bad but he should be fired at the end of this season regardless. "Health" will determine success in 2008 and I'm not even including Harden because he would only be a bonus.
Our starting pitching going into next season should be as good as any staff in the majors. If we can somehow scrape together an average lineup then I believe we will compete for a division title... maybe more. If I thought the A's had no chance to compete next year than I would be ashamed to call myself a "fan" of this team.
by ohtobe21likehuston on Aug 27, 2007 6:11 PM PDT reply actions
This kind of rational comment makes me wonder
why you are even posting on this blog.
<Hey, don't blame me--it was the toaster's idea; I just refined the wording.>
Hmmm... my toaster is missing. Did you come
cross country and take it from me you cROoKeD Californian?
by ohtobe21likehuston on Aug 27, 2007 6:53 PM PDT up reply actions
HEY--that would be a CGV
if it weren't true.
I think this diary is a troll
even his user name sounds fake
Oh check that
Not a troll, just the author of a whole collection of shitty diaries...
Burn!
by rubin sierra on Aug 27, 2007 10:30 PM PDT up reply actions
Well at least you made me laugh. I cried last
night after watching that crap and then today comes "rebirth."
by ohtobe21likehuston on Aug 28, 2007 6:54 AM PDT up reply actions
lame diary
But just to put your mind at ease, the A's 3rd order record sits at 70-64. They've been lucky in some past seasons, this year they're a little unlucky.
Relax.
Question for the geeks
- What does "third-order" refer to? Third order of what?
- How is it calculated? (Approximately, I mean, not the exact formula.)
see the bottom of the BP standings
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/st...
W1, L1 ("First-order wins"): Pythagenport expected wins and losses, based on
RS and RA.EQR, EQRA: Equivalent runs scored and equivalent runs allowed (equivalent
runs, generated from the opponent's batting line)W2, L2 ("Second-order wins"): Pythagenport wins and losses, based on EQR and
EQRA.AEQR, AEQRA: EQR and EQRA, adjusted for strength of schedule: the
quality of their opponent's pitching and hitting. If AEQR is higher than EQR,
the team has faced better than average pitching; if AEQRA is higher than EQRA, the team has faced worse than average hitting.W3, L3 ("Third-order wins"): Pythagenport wins and losses, based on AEQR and
AEQRA.
and ps third-order sucks
by the time you're making adjustments on top of adjustments on top of adjustments, you're pretty much left with crap because of the importance of the order of adjustments
they are particularly meaningless now
that pitching staff from spring largely doesn't exist, so that tiny RA is only a memory now. pythagoras and his crew were definitely in tampa bay last week, letting us know just how good our pitching is.
which spring pitching staff are you speaking of?
The stats are the A's overall performance for the year. That includes only 25 innings of Harden, 14 from Loiaza, 40 terrible innings from Kalero, etc. The vast majority of the innings have been pitched by people currently on the ML or AAA roster.
The biggest loss for the team was clearly Bradley, and that is likely to hurt us next year, but we also got Kendall out of the lineup.
Regardless, if the 2008 A's play exactly as well as the 2007 A's, we're likely to be a winning team.
There isn't really any "order" of adjustments
They're simply normalizing the statistics to make them progressively more comparable.
BPro's 1st order
standings are just straight RS / RA. I'm not sure whether they're using the basic Pythag formula, or whether they're using PythagenPat.
2nd order is based on EQR and EQR allowed. 3rd order is 2nd order plus adjustments for the strength of the opponent.
They explain this on the page where you can find the standings.
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