FanPost

Oakland Athletics Week by Week Breakdown #3 Shortstop

Well Cliff Pennington has been struggling lately, I’ll see you next week when we breakdown…, just kidding of course but that statement pretty much sums up Pennington’s time at the plate very accurately. Cliff has been on a recent slump that encompasses a total of six hits (3 doubles) and only five walks. That equals around a .186 wOBA, through 54 plate appearances. This small sample size made a big impact on his regular season wOBA, which now sits at only .278, despite a hot start to the season. That is very mediocre. One of the major issues with this slump that is extremely disturbing, is the body language Cliff exhibits while he is at the plate. Cliff seems tentative and indecisive, and opposing pitchers have taken advantage of his indecision.

Coming into the year I excepted Cliff to be the kind of player that won’t be the reason why the A’s make the playoffs (hopefully they will), and concurrently will not be the reason why the A’s do not make the playoffs for the 2010 season. So, basically Cliff is roughly a league average shortstop. Cliff’s problem is that he does nothing extraordinarily well, he just plays a solid defensive shortstop, which is where most of his value derives. Even solid defense at the toughest position to man on the diamond is not enough to make up for that pathetic line over the last three weeks.

The greatest issue here is that we do not know if this is some sort of an extended slump or is this just the pitchers adjusting to and figuring out how to pitch to a man that only has 556 career PA, which is about one full season. There have been rumors around the different baseball circles’ that opposing pitchers are finding out that you can pitch to Pennington very effectively with a fastball on the inside part of the plate. If this is true, we may have seen some signs that the Athletics front office suspected something like this would happen to Cliff well before the season. If you recall, the front office tried to bring Marco Scutaro back to the A’s, to play shortstop. This tells me that the Oakland Athletics front office views Cliff Pennington as nothing but a league minimum stopgap at shortstop. Whether or not Pennington can prove the A’s front office (and me) wrong will depend entirely on when or if he can break out of his slump.

The man the Oakland Athletics are hinging the future of the franchise on at shortstop would be their 2009 first round draft pick out of the University of Southern California, Grant Green. Green was a Scott Boras (Gasp!) client, given a 2.75 million dollar signing bonus to play for the A’s. This seems to me like a very good signing, considering that he was projected to go in the top five picks of the 2009 draft before a disappointing college season. I have had the privilege of watching Grant play down at High-A Stockton numerous times and I can honestly say that this kid has the tools to be something special. From my un-trained opinion, I have been a first-hand witness to see Grant’s plus speed slightly above average arm strength and range at shortstop, and a very well-rounded approach at the plate. One of the few question marks is whether or not he will be able to develop much power down the road. "Thin and wiry" are an understatement in the case of this kid. I may be biased and going out on a limb here, but I believe that Grant Green has the offensive and defensive upside of a poor-man’s, dare I say, Derek Jeter.

* Join me next week, at the same time and the same place as I breakdown the A’s third base situation.