Off-Season In Review: Oakland Athletics

            In honor of the Greek God of slow starts, Chris Carter, being designated to the minors I figured now would be an excellent time to recap exactly how General Manager Billy Beane came about blocking the most powerful farmhand in the Athletics system.  Before we begin this off-season review was meant to spark conversation. I am by no means an expert, simply a sixteen-year old teenager trying to make a name for himself instead of working on his calculus homework. One more item before the jump, I recently have re-booted my twitter account to become Oakland Athletics central. So, if you have any A’s related questions, have a topic that you would like to seen investigated, or would simply like to follow my live tweets while I watch the Oakland Athletics games once the season begins; make sure to follow me at Ryan_Rigato.

            The Oakland Athletics Off-season began with some tough decisions to make over some club options pertaining to key veteran players. The toughest of which was to accept or decline the club option for Zombie Eric Chavez, but seriously the Athletics declined the 12 million dollar option on what puts an exclamation mark on a sad end to a once promising career. What intrigues me the most of the club options that the Athletics decided to exercise was the six million dollars that Billy Beane decided to spend on Mark Ellis. While Ellis did have a bit of a "bounce back" year, his uptick in offensive production was due to a .321 BABIP, which is certainly to regress due to the fact that it was approximately 30 points higher than his career numbers. This is reflected in his Marcel projected .310 woba, while I believe that is slightly optimistic, it would indeed place him to be worth ~1.5-2 WAR providing that he can stay healthy, which is a big if.

            After the re-signing of Ellis and Coco Crisp, the Athletics front office and most importantly their devoted fans turned to what I like to call the dream portion of off-season. Throughout the winter we were told about the A’s pursuit of Adrian Beltre and the nearly 80 million dollars that was offered to him for a chance to play in one of the worst hitters parks in the league. While it was fun to sit by the fireplace in the cold of winter envisioning Beltre smacking home-runs off of his right knee in a Green and Gold uniform, it was far from realistic. It would be insane for the Athletics to pay nearly 20 percent of their payroll to one player who does not have an excellent injury history and is on the wrong side of 30. The other "marquee" free agent that the Athletics attempted to pursue was Japanese import Hisashi Iwakuma. The A’s were able to "win" the rights to negotiate with Iwakuma with a posting fee of 19.1 million dollars, but were unable to come to an agreement on the contract which led to Iwakuma returning to Japan. Ultimately, I believe the A’s realized they had multiple options for their rotation and did not need to expand their offer in order to overpay for a pitcher they did not need.

           The next segment of the off-season can best be described as when you sleep through your alarm clock and need to be at work in the next ten minutes. Realistically, the A’s had a lot of catching up to do. As a result they went out and explored the trade market in an attempt to solidify the outfield which was rather horrible last year. In two separate moves, the A’s acquired David Dejuses for RHP Vin Mazzaro and LHP Justin Marks; and Josh Willingham for Corey Brown and Henry Rodriguez. The Athletics did an excellent job of buying low on these two outfielders, as pursuing either of them at the trade deadline last year would have been much more costly. The only prospect that the Athletics gave up that they might one day regret is Corey Brown who has shown a balanced hitting ability with the chance of remaining in center field while in the upper minors. However, since both Willingham and Dejuses are in the final year of their respective contracts, the A’s front office has allowed for flexibility heading into the future.

           The final segment of the off-season involves the free-agent signings that the A’s made. The A’s signed Hideki Matsui to a one year deal in order to help fill the gap left by Jack Cust. The gap between the two players in talent level is similar at this point in their careers as long as Matsui does not completely fall off the cliff at age 37. Then, the A’s made a few under the radar low-risk, high reward signings in Rich Harden and Brandon McCarthy. If either of those players can stay healthy they will be able to provide great value in the number five spot in the rotation. The A’s closed their free agent period by signing Grant Balfour and Brian Fuentes. While both will help provide excellent value towards an extremely deep bullpen, signing relievers to multi-year deals has consistently proven to be a waste of money, but only time will tell how they fare.

            In conclusion, I believe the only thing holding the Athletics back from having major free agents come over to East Bay is the Oakland Coliseum. Without a consistently high attendance, the Athletics are unable to invest payrolls over 65 million dollars in even the best of years. Add this to the fact that the no hitter known to man wants to play in this pitchers paradise and it becomes very clear as to why the Athletics are always unable to attract free agents such as Adrian Beltre. The A’s front office did the best that they could with the little money that they had, but ultimately being able to catch and more importantly pass a team such as Texas will lean heavily on small signings such as Matsui or Harden paying off in a big way. Thus, the 2011 Oakland Athletics will need improvement and good health from young players in order to overtake the Rangers and qualify for the playoffs.