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So...

How you been AN? A lot has happened since spring of 2014. Remember that time, a scant nineteen months ago? There was legitimate talk of World Series aspirations. What the gosh darn sam hill happened? The A's sure changed a lot huh? I mean, look at the table summarizing the immense roster churn of 2014.

AN has been there covering it all, and we've beaten many horses to death discussing individual trades and seasonal strategies. Still, I've been left shocked and confused. Something was missing in the analysis. Where was the overall plan or reasoning? How does a franchise go this awry, from WS aspirations in 2014 to last place at the end of 2015? I wanted answers.

To do this, I stopped looking at trees and decided to look at two years of forest.

Generalized Roster Construction

I wanted to see the broad picture, and to do this I simplified the last two years and created snapshots of the roster at five key times since 2014. This is a GENERALIZED look, I omitted quite a few bench players / short term injury replacements in an effort to paint with broad strokes. I also didn't include the bullpens. We all know the story there. 2014 had the Johnson/Gregerson disasters and 2015, well, yeah. Relievers are crazy fungible, and it's not clear what else management could have done. So let's talk lineup and rotation. To wit...

Parker/Griffin Loss, A Hole That Never Went Away

Working on this chart led me to a new approach for analyzing the last two years. Rather than look at individual trades, I realized you could group whole sets of roster moves together to see how the overall roster looked before and after major deals.

In doing this, I realized that the A's are essentially still hurting from the Parker / Griffin losses. Ever since then Beane's been shifting around the holes. He wanted his rotation fixed and did so at the constant expense of the lineup. Without money to buy free agents to cover gaps, Beane's done a massive constant shuffle to (hopefully) ease the loss of 2014's #1 and #3 starters. Let's dig in:

Spring 2014: Parker and Griffin are injured right before the 2014 season starts, followed by continual SP woes.

I've written about this before. At the start of 2014, Kazmir was arguably #4 on the depth chart!!! Then in March/April Parker and Griffin both suffered season-ending injuries right before the season started. Uh oh. The A's persevered, with Chavez being a classic out of nowhere stud, Milone for steady depth, and Pomeranz flashing potential.

As the season went on Straily absolutely imploded and Pom punched a chair, so by July we're pitching Brad Mills, #9 on the depth chart had he been on the team in Spring, every 5th day.

2014 Trade Deadline: Decimated rotation forces the Shark and Lester deals, creates LF and SS holes

And here's where the shuffling to patch roster holes begins. With 4/5th of the Opening Day 2014 rotation demoted or injured, Beane's in trouble. His lineup is on fire, among the best offense in the league. With the farm system already weak, Beane's only major trade chip is Addison Russell, future 2016 SS. Pay big to earn big, Beane cashes Russell for a huge midseason SP prize in Samardzija (and a should've been decent Hammell) . And then, with this amazing lineup clicking along (remember Norris leading the league in wRC+?) he continues the rotation rebuild by buying the best ace on the market, Jon Lester, to cement a deadly playoff rotation. Lester replaced Milone, and it mainly cost Cespy.

Note: Cespedes loss does NOT solely sink 2014 2nd half, still creates a LF hole.

Okay, let's briefly touch on the 2014 collapse. Cespedes was replaced by a hugely ineffective Jonny Gomes and a very meh Sam Fuld. Oops. BUT, #narrative and all, remember what else happened:

Injuries: Coco and Moss both played through injuries and had horrible 2nd halves

Slumps: Norris, Donaldson, and Jaso all disappeared

Cespedes would have helped lessen the offense woes, but c'mon, the entire top half of the lineup collapsed. The Moss and Crisp injuries were the real surprises that couldn't be fixed. Still should maybe have gotten a better 2B, but ultimately nothing was saving that downswing. Poor Reddick did finally emerge and try to carry the team, bless him.

2014-2015 Offseason: Old trouble at DH & 2B, new trouble at SS, LF, and the rotation

If there was a longer term plan in early 2014, it was completely shattered by the in-season rotation collapse and subsequent roster holes. We had absolutely nothing in place for a LF back-up plan for starters. So Beane goes into trade overdrive trying to plug leaky holes like a little Dutch boy. This next bit won't be strictly chronological, again I'm trying for an overall picture. So, off-season moves:

The emergence of Vogt allows Beane to swap Norris for a new top-end starter in Hahn.

Having Hahn frees up Shark to get traded for a new MLB-ready SS prospect in Semien

Semien frees up Daniel Robertson to be traded for Ben Zobrist to plug LF and/or the infield

Still needing rotation depth, the Donaldson trade. Downgrade 3B in an effort to plug rotation holes.

Summarizing the ramifications of the 2014 pitcher injuries

Taking all this together, looking at all the moves by the positional holes they filled rather than individually, here's what those pitching injuries cost us:

A) Jon Lester cost us Daniel Robertson but netted Manea.

Incredibly oversimplifying, we essentially traded Daniel Robertson for Zobrist to replace the Cespedes gap. So, kinda, sorta, Jon Lester cost us Daniel Robertson (forced by 2014 pitcher injuries). Then Beane deadline flipped Zobrist for Manea. Still a LF hole though.

B) Russell turned into Semien

C) Donaldson was sacrificed to back-fill the rotation and start restocking the very depleted farm

This one obviously really stings. Beane got very cute here. This will like a fantasy move trying to have your cake and eat it too. Beane downgraded 3B but retained an MLB-ready caliber starter with Lawrie. That downgrade allowed Beane to build up needed SP depth (ghost of Parker/Griffin strikes again) and rebuild some farm depth. The farm SS need and SP depth was all present only because of the 2014 SP disaster and the subsequent Shark and Daniel Robertson trades.

Where We Sit Today versus healthy Griffin/Parker?

Adding it all up? With ALL of that Beane wheeling/dealing? We could have stood pat and been left with a weakened rotation. Without any trades, the 2015 rotation would have left Arnold Leon as your #5 on the depth chart (or keep Shark and have no long-term SS). Instead, Beane chose to essentially completely replace the 2014 rotation. Very roughly, talent-wise:

Hahn = Parker

Graveman = Griffin

Bassitt = Straily

What did revamping that rotation cost us? The farm is better than it was early 2014, even with the Russell loss. The line-up though

A) Cespedes was always leaving, we at least turned that hole into Sean Manaea, but still have a 2016 LF hole.

B) Russell turned into Semien. Not ideal but that's part of the price of a new rotation.

C) Donaldson turned into Brett Lawrie.

Conclusion

So I just don't know. 2015 could have been a whole different story without the bullpen collapse.Fewer one-run losses combined with Kazmir and Zobrist second-half surges? We certainly had a chance in 2015, if not a hugely strong one, which is exactly what Beane wanted.

Was it worth downgrading Russell and Donaldson for that shot at competing in 2015? It was a classic Beane "compete now but still keep future potential alive" build. I don't know how I personally feel about it.

It's worth reflecting on all the new farm talent. Barreto, Manea, and Nottingham are all nice pieces.

No matter how you feel about the approach, my takeaway will be that injuries really, really hurt the A's (just think Chavez). The Parker/Griffin losses made the 2014 team markedly worse (I think we all downplay that given how strong the 1st half squad turned out to be). Lacking money to throw at the problem, there was just no recovery,. Left with a suite of not-savory options ranging from "punt 2015" to "sell the future and go all-in in 2015", Beane, as usual, fascinatingly chose the less traveled middle road of compete while also rebuilding.

Addendum: Same Old Holes

Beane basically fully recovered from the 2014 rotation disaster at the cost of some talent elsewhere, most notably Donaldson. While he was busy doing that, the roster was left with three classic trouble spots (and one big blunder) that have plagued the team ever since early 2014:

1B: Moss was an amazing find, but the injury / old man syndrome doomed him. Until Olson arrives, this is a problem

LF: HELP!!!!!

2B: Sogard still tops the depth chart (yikes!), unless you shift Lawrie over and then you have a 3B hole

DH: Independent of everything else, Butler has been a huge disaster.

It took all of Beane's powers to recover from 2014 and keep us afloat into 2016/2017. Exactly because of Beane's "middle road" compete while still rebuild there's all sorts of future options from full on tanks to pushing all-in again. And there's still a bright 2017 ahead, which is pretty neat given that we had three years of playoffs from 2012-2014.