FanPost

A Rebuttal To "A's Refuse To Rebuild"


Over the weekend, CBS Sports released a damning article on the Oakland A's front office and their commitment to building a winning team. The article, "MLB Hot Stove: A's refuse to rebuild, and their youngsters are paying the price" by Mike Axisa can be viewed here: http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/mlb-hot-stove-as-refuse-to-rebuild-and-their-youngsters-are-paying-the-price/

The framing of the article is true: four seasons ago, the A's did make it to 96 wins, and have had two 90+ loss seasons in a row. No one is predicting them to even compete in the division in 2017, but I think they may be somewhat stronger than they appear.

But what of the front office's commitment to the fans? Have they done enough?

2014 was the year the A's went "all in". Yes, they traded a fan favorite Yoenis Cespedes to get Jon Lester, who while he didn't do what the A's needed in that season, has proven that he is one of if not the most valuable pitchers a franchise can have. Cespedes's numbers have left much to be desired. While he is still a decent player, the prospect of him being elite has proven to be fool's gold. The A's did go all in, showed the commitment for trying for a deep run in the playoffs even though it didn't pan out.

Even in that year, the base of that team's offense was sluggish at best. the A's got to where they were with a couple of stars and a bunch of scrubs who could barely hold up a bat compared to most of the American League. The A's rested on their pitching and a deep bullpen, which makes sense given their hitter-unfriendly ballpark. The one exception to the A's offensive woes was Josh Donaldson. While the Donaldson trade ended up being painful for A's fans to watch, I'm not sure that they would have been able to offer the money to keep him by this season anyway, leaving us looking at a moot point by 2017.

The A's went into 2015 with the worst prospect system in the league. Their "Four Aces" were all but gone with Lester and Samardjiza heading onto bigger contracts, and Jared Parker out for the count. Sonny Gray was all that remained with a core of hopeful young pitchers who were shaky at best. Everyone understood there would be no hope for that year.

Then 2016 hit. The A's signed Rich Hill, another of the best pitchers in baseball. Injuries struck him, struck Sonny Gray, struck down the line. At one point, Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle reported that the A's had the most players on the injured reserve in their franchise history. Injury took its toll on the back end as well, with Sean Doolittle out for most of the year. Despite all of the problems that their pitching had, we did see their bullpen improve over the year compared to 2015. Let's not forget that, in terms of position players, the A's were short Mark Canha and Jed Lowrie, and subsequently subbed in triple-A players at those positions. Coco Crisp was injured much of the year, and didn't contribute to the levels he used to when he did return. A big signing, Billy Butler, didn't work out and required some digging at DH as well. It's not that the A's didn't assemble a decent small market team, but everything that could go wrong did.

What about the A's young talent? Are they not developing them fast enough or giving enough playing time?

2017 begins with the A's having already cycled out much of the old, in an attempt to freshen up the club. Ryon Healy will return, who shone at the end of last season. The starting pitching depth looks respectable, presuming Sonny Gray is back to form and Jharel Cotton's success wasn't a fluke. Their pitching core is fairly young and strong, with Sean Manaea and Daniel Mengden having been put through an incredible trial by fire last year. So what were the A's supposed to do in this off season? How are they supposed to develop what they have?

The real problem stems from the existing A's position player young talent and to some extent the prospect system, which is still lacking from the "all-in" year. The original article mentions Brett Eibner of a casualty of the recent signings. Based on his limited stint in the big leagues he posted a 65 wRC+, so he certainly isn't ready for an everyday spot. That young player would be, by all accounts, better progressing at AAA.

Ryon Healy is also mentioned in the CBS article, but he was never a natural third baseman. He will probably flourish more moving to 1B and DH. He's unlikely to see reduced playing time as long as he produces.

As far as the rest of the budding prospects we saw in 2016: Jake Smolinski, Chad Pinder, Bruce Maxwell, they leave much to be desired. Building a franchise around them at this point would be resigning to a completely lost season, or perhaps even multiple seasons, before it even began. The A's don't appear to be in that bad of a shape with a robust bullpen and depth at pitching to need to do that at this juncture.

One must conclude that the prospects and rookie classes seem to be getting the playing time they deserve.

Where else have the A's not shown dedication to rebuilding? Have they truly opted for too many veteran free agents?

2017's free agent class is lacking as much as the A's prospect system. Starting pitching is a wasteland, position players are mediocre at best. So I beg the question: what should they have done? There aren't players worth signing to 3-5 year contracts for a long term franchise slot. The A's were never going to spend the crazy money on relievers like Chapman and Jansen that clubs floated about, numbers that most of us are still shaking our heads about to this day. So what was left after that?

Edwin Encarnacion was a good idea, and they A's showed their commitment by offering real money to him. There were rumors that they had put offers to Mark Trumbo as well. With the two big names on the board, the A's made a respectable showing, even if they didn't land the big fish. Though there will have to be a couple of roster displacements, they are making up for positions in which they bled last year with the losses of Danny Valencia, Coco Crisp and Josh Reddick.

The team's response was to add Matt Joyce, Rajai Davis, Trevor Plouffe and Santiago Casilla.

With Matt Joyce and Rajai Davis, their outfield looks strictly better than it did last year with Coco Crisp and Josh Reddick,or as we saw toward the end of the year painful combinations to watch of Jake Smolinski and Max Muncy. Those are quality signings and do allow youth like Smolinski some back up potential should he show that he has some more potential than last year.

Plouffe gives the A's infield depth, which doesn't short anyone excepting Matt Chapman, who has been confirmed recently as not quite ready for the big leagues as of yet. With a one year deal, if Chapman turns out to be the answer many expect him to be, I'm sure he will displace Plouffe in a heartbeat.

Casilla, though he struggled a bit last year, did have a respectable K per 9 rating higher than he's ever had. He gave up some saves and the long ball specifically, so if he can work that out, he will make an excellent addition to an already solid bullpen. If John Axford doesn't recover to his prior abilities, they will need that depth at the back end of their bullpen. He is also a nice hedge against an injured player ruining a season.

There's not a lot of pieces left where one could argue the A's aren't playing the right person in the position, or that someone else should come up to get a shot. They don't have star names, true, but it doesn't look like they have many star names in the pipeline at the same time. If someone unknown does look to be a future answer, I don't doubt the A's will find that in spring training and give them the playing time they need. Bob Melvin has done a great job with the A's band of misfits in the past who weren't supposed to perform anywhere near where they did, and will be able to do so in the future.

I can't help but conclude that the A's are at least trying to compete to some extent in 2017, and not at the expense of rebuilding. The last thing this fan base needs is to see the A's completely tank seasons from the get go for the next two to three years by playing too many of the Nashville Sounds when they're not ready for the big leagues.