You Be the Mastermind: Are the Oakland A’s Legit?
Posted by Alan Hull on April 30th, 2008
I don’t have time to post something tonight as I have a midterm and a paper due tomorrow, so here is a question for today. Feel free to comment on it and discuss. Regular posting will resume tomorrow.
Question
With the addition of Frank Thomas and a relatively strong pitching staff and defense, will the Oakland Athletics give the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim a legitimate run for their money?
What are your predictions for wins for each team?
I say that Oakland will play good baseball, but fall short, winning 83 games but they will get solid contributions from Carlos Gonzalez and Gio Gonzalez down the stretch. The Angels will win 88 games, but they will out-perform their Pythogorean record and it will have been much closer than it looks.
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April 30th, 2008 at 10:43 pm
Rotogod here: This man is lazy! Just kidding…
Angels will win 89 games. Nick Adenhart will pitch well for them down the stretch and Ervin Santana will win 15 games with a 3.70 ERA. Saunders isn’t half bad either.
Oakland will win 81 games (.500) and Rich Harden will give them (drum roll)…nothing. Carlos Gonzalez will have flashes of brilliance but he will only on-base .320 and hit for a little power, so his contribution will be marginal.
April 30th, 2008 at 11:44 pm
I’m an Angels fan here, and love these predictions.
So how far back does Seattle finish?
May 1st, 2008 at 10:11 am
I think the A’s are better than most people give them credit for. They have enough pitching to go toe to toe with the Halos this season. I think Harden will pitch well for them down the stretch, until he gets traded at the trade deadline and Eric Chavez will hit .250/.330/.450 for them in the middle of the lineup with his usual gold glove defense.
Lackey will only be a shadow of his former self and Escobar will come back to the bullpen but won’t make it into the rotation.
A’s 87 wins. Angels 86 wins.
May 1st, 2008 at 10:14 am
Angels win 91 games. A’s 79.
Vlad comes in third in MVP. Frank Thomas big bust. A’s better in ‘09.
May 1st, 2008 at 11:26 am
The A’s just don’t have the arms. Sure they’re pitching well right now, but they’re getting big contributions from Dana Eveland and Greg Smith. Eveland has the track record in the minors but has gotten beatings every time he’s come up, and Greg Smith doesn’t even have the track record. Once they come down to Earth who do the A’s turn to? Gio Gonzalez? Dallas Braden? Dan Meyer?
The A’s outfield defense and park will keep the cavalcade of 5th starters looking decent, but what happens when the A’s want to score more than two runs a game and start playing Cust again? The step down from Denorfia, a centerfielder, to Cust, possibly the worst defender in baseball is huge and probably cancels out any offensive gains.
Combine this with the traditional Moneyball offense where every position is filled by someone who’s not horrible, but with no one who’s good, and you just don’t have a team that can contend in any division, even an Angels team missing it’s two best starters.
May 1st, 2008 at 11:37 pm
Preface: I’m usually hard on the Angels and easy on the A’s. That being said, I think the A’s finish a few games under .500. Eveland is not as good as he’s been, and before long, some combination of Street, Duchscherer, Gaudin, Harden will be back on the DL. Some of the Angels’ bats will cool off, but some will pick up. Their pitching might not do as well (Saunders and Santana) but they’ll benefit by bumping Mosely for the rotation. They’re looking like a 90 win club.
May 5th, 2008 at 1:20 am
I think that the AL west will make PECOTA looks godly again.
the A’s depth (a very underrated aspect by the mainstream pundits) is very very good. the M’s arne’t bad actually, but they’re management choose not to best utilize their resource (Cairo AND Bloomquist? Clement DH? Morrow RP?)
still it seems unlikely for them to compete with the Angels just yet. but they will be surprisingly good for a “rebuilding” team and we could be on the verge of another early 2000s super A’s run down the line