2007 Oakland Athletics WTFs
by oaklandfan40 on Sep 18, 2007 12:56 PM PDT
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PrintAs Hollywood enters the awards season, I just wanted to throw out some nominations for the WTF? Award, an award I am creating for AN this year and will become known for throughout AN over the next few years should I be able to stomach the way my favorite baseball team is managed off the field (I swear, whether we’re first or worst, our customer service has always been horrible!)
Moving along, this year’s WTF? Award Nominees:
Dan Johnson
You’re averaging a homerun every 23 AB’s this year. The same as Nick Swisher. Overall you’re fourth on the team in HRs, RBIs, OBP and fifth in Hits, Total Bases and SLG among players with comparable AB’s (which, in it self is saying something—you’re 396 AB’s are fourth on the team). Yet, you’re BA of .235 is ahead of only Crosby and Kendall for this year’s starters. AND, you’ve been rightfully replaced at 1B and DH. WTF? One of the top offensive guys on the team and I’m not even going to argue to try and keep you (maybe see if you can learn to play RF or something) because you’re basically a more healthy Bobby Crosby.
Bobby Crosby
The words of Karl Ravech from early this season still ring loudly in my mind, causing both broken blood vessels and uncontrollable laughter. They were something to the effect of "If healthy, this guy is an MVP candidate, right?" And yes, he was talking about you, Bobby Brittle Bones Crosby.
Hey, what do you want me to say? This season you’ve got 15 less HRs than Cust in 12 less AB’s and you went into this season as a "franchise" player. I mean, let’s face it, when healthy this year you couldn’t even put up DJ type numbers and DJ’s been replaced by a career minor leaguer and a rookie out of the minor leagues; neither of whom will be making close to the $9M you’re set to cash in over the next two years.
I mean, WTF. Four seasons after Miggy left and I can remember him playing the field and standing in the box more vividly than you. Freak accidents or just plain old bad luck aside, what have you ever done besides hit a few long balls your rookie year? Your career BA is .240 and HR to AB ratio is 1:33 over 1600 AB’s (a pretty good sample size).
Rich Harden
You are my AN namesake. The last of the Fearsome Foursome. And yet you and Bobby Crosby have played so few games for this team that my 9 year old brother forgets your even on the team.
I’ve seen you dominate in person and on television. I’ve believed in your hype so much I refer to Haren as "the ace until Rich returns." Look at how you started the season (1-1, 1.42 ERA with 20Ks in 19IP your first three games). Look at what the A’s record is in games you start (21-7 coming into this year). WTF!
Tell you what, I’ll make you a deal. You make 10 conscecative starts next season and we’ll win a World Series, if you can’t or don’t, you have to give up playing baseball and help me coach my Little League team and my little brother – he’s small like you, but without the fastball. Of course, he’s never missed a game, either.
Nick Swisher (late entry)
Nick, I like you. You’re good for the kids and the fans and while your tackling needs work (come on man, square up and lower your shoulder into his gut, not his ankles), I’ve little doubt you’re going to be a star in this league.
However, you’ve got to make the list because this season has been a down one for you offensively. Last year you learned to hit the long ball and at the start of the season it seemed like you were understanding how to hit for average too as you hovered around .300 for a while.
So WTF happened? You’re trailing late call up Cust in HRs, you’re average is more Chavey like than Miggy and you’re way off my predictions of a Canseco ’88 type season. Granted, you’re probably clean, but, was a .300/30/100 season really too much to ask? Are you an All-Star or a supporting player?
Billy Beane
Billy, I don’t worship you like the (blind) majority, but I do think you’re the best GM in all of baseball. A part of me wanted you to go to Boston just to see what you could do with that payroll, but I’m glad you stayed. I think.
My WTF with you is two things. 1) How is it someone as intelligent and knowledgeable about baseball as you obviously are, be so naïve and ignorant to think that the goal of the season should be to make the play offs. Yes, only eight teams make the play off and mathematically by making the playoffs you have a one in eight chance of winning the world series. Yeah, and at the beginning of every season every team has a 1 in 30 shot at winning the series too! Come on, just as everyone knows Pittsburg and the Giants don’t have a chance at winning it all, everyone knows that simply making the playoffs doesn’t give you a fair chance.
The goal is to win. Not compete. Win. If you’re not doing everything you can (which, if I am to believe your quote about Wolff willing to spend more money to win) and you’re not doing it, then, well, genius or not, you’re not any good to me as a fan. You’ve proven you can make the play offs. Now prove you can win them.
My second WTF with you is this: what’s with continuously picking role players over stars? Eric Chavez, role player to Miggy and Jason. Nick Swisher, sadly, role player to Thomas/Bradley. Zito, role player to Hudson. Don’t get me wrong, Chavez was kick ass when he didn’t have to do the heavy lifting, Swisher was great last season with Frank carrying the load and Zito won a Cy following Hudson, but, these guys aren’t Batman—they’re Robin.
Without Batman, we’ll always be stuck playing side kicks to the likes of the Angels, Yanks and Indians.
Who you voting for? Who's missing from the list?
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So far, Bobby's winning -- by acclamation!
Missing: 
i think dallas braden
deserves recognition for allowing magglio to go yard not once but twice in the same inning. i don't think i've ever even seen that in slow pitch softball. a definite wtf moment for me.
lol
you haven't seen enough slow-pitch softball...well, you're better off not seeing it anyway, not when the baseball players the caliber of myself are playing. I saw a few 2-HR innings this year...in a league with a 10-run-per-inning mercy rule. Sure, you can still bat around the order, but...
by Cutthemullet on Sep 19, 2007 12:41 AM PDT up reply actions
you mean the same loaiza
dan meyer has an ERA over 8
guess we should just give him away
by black beane and rice on Sep 19, 2007 12:08 AM PDT up reply actions
meyer
does he throw 80mph fastballs? is he a drunk-driving 35 year old? is he making $1 million per start this year? does he have knee problems but wait to have surgery until he's fully recovered from his other injuries? does he have a reputation of not caring?
did you mention any of that in your statement?
No. I'm just being as simple as you were
by black beane and rice on Sep 19, 2007 9:19 AM PDT up reply actions
Question ...
when was the last time that the best team -- the team with the best record, the best expected record and/or the most star players won the World Series?
It sure as hell wasn't St Louis.
Okay, it might have been Chicago ...
but it wasn't Boston and it sure as hell wasn't Florida. Anaheim was a Wild Card, so was Arizona and the last time the Yankees won it, it was after they had won only 87 games in the regular season.
The evidence is more than clear -- it doesn't take a juggernaut to win the series.
Chicago?
I certainly wouldn't pick them as the one World Series winner in recent years who'd possibly be considered the best team...the pitching overachieved tremendously. Garland, Contreras, Buehrle to a lesser extent--these guys were having career years. At least Arizona had one of the best playoff rotations in recent memory, and...refresh my memory...what did Boston have going against it in '03? It swept the Series IIRC...obviously they themselves could've been swept in the ALCS.
Ok, I just looked some stuff up from 2004 on baseball-reference. The Sox were the WC that year, but their record was an impressive 98-64; and, while their run differential projected a 96-66 finish, the division winner Yankees had only an 89-73 Pythagorean record (actual record: 101-61). The Cards were a gaudy 105-57, but...isn't 2004 about the year when the AL really started to emerge as the better league?
by Cutthemullet on Sep 19, 2007 1:03 AM PDT up reply actions
Did the White Sox
not have the best record in the majors? Sure, they had guys having career years, so?
In 2003, IIRC, it was Aaron Boone that was the villain for the Red Sox.
mistake
"what did Boston have going against it in '03?"
I meant 2004.
Devo kind of left his definition of "best team" open for interpretation with the and/or there...mine would emphasize talent as much as results. If you have what's perceived to be the most talent (based on track records and to a lesser extent subjective observations of "ability"...relying on these alone don't always work out, even for good teams, see Wily Mo's disastrous stint with Boston this year), and, say, a top-3 record in the league...that's a vague formula too, but the bottom line is, talent must be taken into consideration. The Sox did have some established power hitters playing well in 2005, but they also ran/bunted into outs with Podsednik and co trying to execute the infamous "smartball." The fact that they scored the number of runs that they did seemed to defy the odds, odds which they themselves were skewing against them.
As for the career years of the pitchers, this may be the most important factor of what perspective you take towards that team. Given the seasons Contreras, Garland, Buehrle, Vazquez were having at the time, sure it seemed reasonable within the context of the that season only to say they might be the best team. In retrospect, though, no way. Contreras and Garland have never equalled those efforts. 2004 Boston, on the other hand, had a team that, if kept together, you would expect to contend annually.
by Cutthemullet on Sep 21, 2007 12:57 AM PDT up reply actions
You lost your credibility when....
you started hating on Beane and Swisher.
Swisher has played through a lot of shit this year, including massive team turnover and having to play CF. Nonethless he is in fact a star, a superstar? maybe not til next year, but Swish still has a .390 obp and a .464 slugging, stop complaining. He has less homers than Cust, but you know what he is still better than Cust, making more contact, having defense value, and Swish has 57 extra base hits to Cust's 42...and doubles and homers tend to even out, though in Custs case you never know.
Also, Beane has made good moves this year...Cust, Hannahan, Blevins, Snelling, Brown...HELLO! Beane has potentially saved this ship from sinking in the near future.
IF 4 of these 5 health concerns are healthy next year I think we win the west easy: Harden, Chavez, Duke, Street, Crosby. We are not giving up on Crosby next year, he is better than Murphy still. Our defense has been shitty without him, Chavez, Kotsay and its showing in our pitching staff. Even Crosby is the same next year, our lineup is fine with him hitting 9th.
by SwisherSweet on Sep 18, 2007 2:17 PM PDT reply actions
Beane's good moves.
I'd hardly call Brown and Snelling "good moves." Plus, you're cherry-picking the ones that have had the most value. There are some of them, but there are some bad ones, too.
He's earned the right to an off-year, though.
gambling on Snelling for cash...
was a good move in my book.
by Cutthemullet on Sep 21, 2007 12:58 AM PDT up reply actions
That being said...
Crosby is the WTF winner. At least the other guys have excuses. I wish DJ had panned out, but he is just a ground ball and strikeout machine.
by SwisherSweet on Sep 18, 2007 2:18 PM PDT reply actions
I voted for Swisher in the poll
not because I want to hate on him, but because of all the others on the list, his poor performance this season was the least expected. Johnson, Crosby, Harden, etc pretty much gave me what I expected them to give, unfortunately.
Here is another WTF of mine for the 2007 season: Calero. Seriously, WTF happened to Kiko?
Also, I think the WTF awards should have a positive slant as well. Sometimes, a WTF is a good thing. Like Jack Cust. He would get my WTF That Guy is Amazing award. Or maybe Freakish is a better word than Amazing, but in a good way.
by AintEasyBeinGreen on Sep 18, 2007 3:57 PM PDT reply actions
How has Swisher's performance been poor?
He has an OPS+ of 128, better than his 126 last year. So the argument could be made that he's even better than last year despite the less home runses.
by Dusty Baker on Sep 18, 2007 4:10 PM PDT reply actions
part of that is
ops+ is giving him a bigger park effects boost this year, which doesn't really make sense.
another part is more doubles
He had a freakishly small 2B total last season considering how many HRs he hit. He's already hit 9 more doubles this season in about 70 fewer ABs. You can throw in a jump in OBP from .372 to .385 as well.
His OPS last
year was 865. It's 854 this year. His slugging has dropped 29 points but his OBP has gone up 18 points.
He is hitting less HRs, but is striking out less, walking more, hitting more 2bs.
Has he "broken out" into superstardom? No. But I don't see how he is having a down year.
Also, it's not unreasonable for park effects to change slightly each year.
My point was just that
it makes more sense to use ops than ops+ for Swisher. His ops+ is better than last year, but that's because the A's have a pretty dramatic home/road split on offense this year, and because league offense is down. I don't think the Coliseum somehow became tougher for hitters this year, and I also doubt that the drop in league offense indicates that he faced tougher pitchers to any significant degree.
I'm all over BB #1
I couldnt agree with you more re: the goal is to WIN, not compete. Every team competes at some point over 162 games. The season is a marathon which leads to a sprint in the playoffs. If BB and Co. cant deliver on this, then they are UNsuccessful, not successful.
Can you imagine Walsh never winning anything? He'd still be a genius, just unrecognized.
I am still bitter this club didnt win at least 2 WS from 2000 thru 2003. We should have beat NYY and BOS.
"dont care if the above are factual or not"
by saying that...
you were basically saying that your post wasn't meant to be taken seriously.
by Cutthemullet on Sep 21, 2007 1:00 AM PDT up reply actions
Re: Playoffs
You can't blame the GM for what happens in the playoffs. The GM assembles the pieces necessary to get to the playoffs and once there it's up to the teams and lady luck to determine who wins.
This can even work in the season some times - I remember a year or two ago, the Yankees lost the season series to the D-Rays by a huge margin but no one in their right mind would say that the D-Rays were a better team. If it were the playoffs the Yankees, despite being a clearly better team in the long-haul, would have lost. Can you blame Cashman for these losses? The same way you cannot blame Billy for the A's losses in the playoffs.
Here is an article on the best GM's in the game at Baseball Evolution that elaborates on my point.
this nonsense?
"Billy Beane needs no introduction, but I should be clear: I am no fan of sabermetrics, and so his inclusion on this list is a great testament to his leadership and abilities. Though I do not particularly care for his numbers or those who espouse them, I can not argue with the results."
It's nonsense
because the author doesn't like Sabermetrics? Why? The author acknowledges the results.
"or those who espouse them"
He still acknowledges the results
I'm also pretty sure many of those same people don't care for that lifestyle AND those who espouse such a lifestyle.
the A's dont know how to get one run
they dont practice it (bunting/hit and runs/steals/pinch running ) they cant execute it if asked and they cant do it when its needed in the playoffs. We lost several critical games by one run(no pinch run for G.Giambi is one) that we possibly could have squeezed out if we were not not such a one-sided put no pressure on the other guy team. This can directly be attributed to the GM. im not saying his stlye is all wrong just that we leave too many tools back in the shed.
by Anarch on Sep 19, 2007 8:36 PM PDT up reply actions
my WTF award
WTF, people still don't know the difference between your and you're?
by black beane and rice on Sep 19, 2007 12:10 AM PDT reply actions
Your nitpicking you're spots, isn't you?
however
I voted for Crosby. His inability to make obvious adjustments is maddening, and his "freak" injuries (some being from years past, granted) are way more perplexing than Harden's. Relievers are pretty replaceable; MVP-caliber shortstops are not, we're finding out the hard way (despite Gammons' pre-2006 hype). The true spirit of this award is the amount of times the candidate would cause you to literally say "WTF"; thus Crosby wins. Beane might actually be the runner-up this year; in years past, there would be initial "WTF" moments that would yield good results, or be more out of surprise rather than disgust...this year, well, I don't want to start citing mulderfan or anything, but there have been moves that have retained their "WTF" value. Bradley being first and foremost.
by Cutthemullet on Sep 19, 2007 12:47 AM PDT up reply actions
My WTF...
My WTFy award goes to people that still bitch about Milton Bradley being traded. Bradley, but the way, hasn't played in almost two weeks, and has been injured 5 times this year. He's played in 58 games this year. FIFTY EIGHT!!!!!!
by Travis Buck Nuckin on Sep 19, 2007 4:05 AM PDT up reply actions
58 productive games
about as many as your average middle reliever (like, say, Andrew Brown) will play, too.
by Cutthemullet on Sep 21, 2007 1:04 AM PDT up reply actions
WTF runner-up to Crosby...
not really breaking news, but the trainers/medical staff/lack of holding them accountable. So thoroughly dysfuntional that some significant players' health problems are forgotten (I knew about the shoulder injury; didn't occur to me that he should've been shelved early on when it was apparent he was serving up hanging sliders. Should've occurred to the people being paid to track such things, though).
by Cutthemullet on Sep 21, 2007 1:10 AM PDT up reply actions
Calero's slider is like a horse:
Well hung.
Agreed with the comment
about losing your credibility when including Swish and Beane.
The former because his numbers are comparable to last years, where he's lost some homers but gained a significant number of doubles, and he's also shown an improved BB/K ratio. Not too worried about him, especially as he hasn't shown nagging injury concerns.
As for Beane, the part I've got beef with is "Billy, I don’t worship you like the (blind) majority..."
First off, who in AN was calling for blind obedience when he let Bradley and Loaiza go for a song? The general consensus was first "WTF?" followed by "well maybe he's trying to accomplish <various theory>" followed by "No, that's crazy talk."
If anything, I've found that the majority of AN tries to make a thoughtful attempt at understanding Beane's thought process (as he's earned their trust by his record for the past 10 years), even if they don't agree with them.
Your parenthetical implying that you're one of the few blessed followers who don't need sunglasses and a cane comes off as snide and self-serving, and does a disservice to your fellow fans.
+1. My WTF?: People who think there are blind...
followers of BB.
Well, there is the matter of the tee shirts
Still, though, I can't think of a single one of the 200 most frequent posters on AN who could remotely be described as blind Beane followers. Except Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman.
by FreeSeatUpgrade on Sep 19, 2007 9:26 AM PDT up reply actions
RE: "Followers" of Beane
Does it matter who "blindly follows" Beane? It's not like the A's are a democracy that would allow us to vote him out or something; it's not like the president, where if he sucks he won't be reelected.
by Travis Buck Nuckin on Sep 19, 2007 2:30 PM PDT up reply actions
president,where if he sucks he won't be reelected
I see what you did there.
by Dusty Baker on Sep 19, 2007 3:02 PM PDT up reply actions
Blind might be too strong a word
but there are those who will jump on you fairly instantaneously when he is criticized.
Should be:
"There are those who will jump on you instantaneously when he is critized you say something that doesn't make any damn sense." Stat-worship, so to speak, (which I wholeheartedly support) exists here far more than Beane-worship.
Critized doesn't make any damn sense.
Nor does stat worship. Intensive stat use, yes. Worship, not so much.
so to speak
A commitment to empiricism, which is what I really mean by "stat worship," is inimical to any sort of actual worship.
Empiricism relies on more than data.
That's what I feel like gets missed in the commitment to data.
Seriously, God: WTF?
Wars? Famine? Sick puppies? The Angels, Red Sox, and Yankees?
WTF?
Oh, and Kathy Griffin???
Joe Kennedy
And his reaction to the A's cuttinglooseitude of his suckitude.
I expected Harden to die, so no WTF there.
Swisher has had a decent year, DJ's never been that good, and Beane has done about as much as he can with so many injuries, albeit with a few possible missteps. Crosby's the closest to WTF for me of those you listed.
How about just Joe Kennedy's
last few outings? What the F*** was that?
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