Jed Lowrie done for season, Coco Crisp upset with A's

A busy Monday night news wise for a team that's 15 games under .500, as two news items regarding a few A's vets were dropped by the team's beat writers.

Jed Lowrie done for the year

Lowrie's surgery to remove bunion from left foot will end his season.

— Susan Slusser (@susanslusser) August 16, 2016

Thus ends a rather disappointing return campaign for Jed Lowrie, as he'll undergo surgery to remove the bunion on his foot. On the year, he hit .263/.314/.322, coming in at -.5 bWAR. Some of that was undoubtedly due to the injury, which Lowrie played through for a period of time before succumbing to the disabled list.

Lowrie is under contract through 2017 and will be back next season. For the remainder of the year, the A's have a plethora of options in Nashville but seem content to roll with some combination of Max Muncy and Tyler Ladendorf. With news of Lowrie being done for the year, we'll see if the A's do decide to make any changes at the position.

Coco Crisp unhappy with playing time

Per Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle, Coco Crisp is upset with the lack of playing time as he approaches the 130 game vesting mark for his $13 million 2017 option.

Coco Crisp's vesting option has been a topic of discussion all season long, and with a renewed streak of health Coco is at an awkward point between making and missing the option. At 93 games played, Coco would have to play in 37 of the team's final 43 games in order to hit the mark, and his playing time has decreased noticeably as of late.

Monday's contest against the Rangers was a particularly stark reminder of the A's intentions. After lefty Martin Perez was pulled, the A's started to put their left handed hitters in against the Rangers pen. Instead of using Coco against Matt Bush (who Coco has homered off of this season), Bob Melvin went with Max Muncy. It's not hard to read between those lines.

Of course, there's no rule that the A's have to play Coco. As Nico has pointed out, vesting options are as murky as the waters in Rio and there's no clear right answer here. It sets up an ugly end to an ugly season, one which will certainly fuel the anti A's-ownership crowd. That's not to say they don't have a point, but it's important to keep perspective here: this isn't a totally unique situation and it's a known hazard of vesting options.

It's a situation that's going to get ugly and there's no clear right answer. As far as I'm concerned, the 2016 baseball season can find it's proper place next to the 2015 in the dumpster outside the Coliseum.