How much longer can Oakland contend?
The team’s core has made three straight postseason runs
The A’s are heading to Arizona to start spring training with a bad taste in their mouths. Yes, they made the postseason in a truncated, strange 2020 season. And, again, they got bounced in an early round.
Despite some acquisitions and a lot of departures this offseason, most of the core that has made three consecutive postseason trips remains.
But the weight of this closing contention window is starting to cave in, making this season pivotal for a franchise that has not won a World Series in 32 years.
Here are issues to address: IS TiIS Tic LAST YcAR eOR TiIS aORc? >> Possibly. The contention window was always going to be slim — between the 2018 and 2023 seasons at best. That window looks even slimmer in light of the A’s budgetary restrictions.
How do we know there’s little-to-no budget?
Take the bizarre installment offer the team floated to Marcus Semien, for example.
Or that general manager David Forst classified the $13.5 million the Texas Rangers sent along with Elvis Andrus as an essential part of the deal.
“Our goal is always to put every available resource into this team,” Forst said after the trade. “This is still a team that has a chance to win the division again, defending
division champs. We’ve talked all offseason about trying to make some additions to the pitching staff in particular, both starting depth and bullpen, and I’m hopeful that we can move quickly to use some of that payroll flexibility that was achieved.”
The team used every bit of that money to add pitchers Sergio Romo, Yusmeiro Petit and Mike Fiers. He finalized his $3.5 million, one-year contract and reported to the club’s spring training facility and passed a physical.
The A’s baseball operations staff is a little too good at cobbling together a contending team from the rubble of resources ownership has afforded them — and this is true in any year.
With little appearing to change philosophically from the ownership side in terms of expending more resources to extend this run, history looks bound to repeat itself.
At this point it’s not hard to imagine a scenario in which higher ups decide it prudent to trade their most valuable assets and restock for another cycle. The new ballpark — an important future revenue stream — is delayed. National analysts rank the A’s farm system among MLB’s worst.
Depending on how this season goes for Oakland, the organization could be confronted with the option to blow things up and restart from scratch sooner than later.
The New York Mets were reported to have inquired about a trade for Matt Chapman. Teams talk, so even if it’s one of a flurry of conversations that caught publicity’s light, other teams may already be smelling blood. IS THIS A CONTENDING TEAM? >> Let’s talk the season ahead. We can forget to enjoy a good team’s life if we consume ourselves considering its mortality.
This is still a very strong team that may win the division again.
Win projection algorithms have the A’s finishing third in the American League West behind Houston Astros and Los Angeles Angels.
PECOTA projects they’ll win 79.6 games and Fangraphs has them with a 21% shot at a postseason spot. It should be noted both sites projected a third-place finish for the A’s over the past three seasons in which the team secured wild-card spots (2018, 2019) and a division title (2020).
The A’s brand is always likely to shock, and they have the talent to do it again. Consider the young players who didn’t have the time to get their legs under them in 2020. Jesús Luzardo, Sean Murphy, A.J. Puk could add wins.
Mark Canha, Ramón Laureano and Matt Olson are some of the games’ better hitters and will benefit from a consistent, somewhat normal season. Matt Chapman will need to overcome the trials of hip surgery recovery, but has standout power and even better defensive agility.
This is all to say the foundation is solid, and even has room for some stars to emerge. But the A’s excel at winning within the margins; the age-old method of un-polishing undervalued talent and advantages.
Take the bullpen construction after losing Reliever of the Year Liam Hendriks. In 2020, the Tampa Bay Rays’ bullpen thrived by throwing together on a limited budget pitchers who brought a variety of velocities and arm angles. It looks as if the A’s are doing something similar this year.
Adding left-handed sidearmer Adam Kolarek and right-handed side-armer Sergio Romo completes a broad spectrum of looks out of the ‘pen. J.B. Wendelken, Burch Smith and, possibly, Dany Jimenez add strikeout stuff from the right side. Puk and Diekman add strikeout stuff from the left side. LHR Nik Turley and RHR Yusmeiro Petit generate weak contact, or at least the potential. Bullpens are in. Don’t be surprised if the A’s shatter those projections and make their fourth straight postseason in 2021.