Well spring training is right around the corner and there seems to be more and more baseball news making the front pages, so I decided to quickly talk about the A's. I'm not happy with what the A's have done this off-season, but that is usual. I wasn't expecting them to resign Zito, and I understand not paying Thomas for two years, but I'm starting to get worried about the rotation and the lineup. Athletics Nation has another great interview with Beane and here is the item that bothers me the most.
Blez: Obviously two big reasons for the success in 2006 were the contributions of Barry Zito and Frank Thomas and now they're both gone. How does the 2007 team make up for the loss of those two key cogs?
Beane: If you are going to look at it in a linear fashion, losing both those guys is going to be tough. We were able to overcome a guy like Rich Harden's injury by having a guy like Barry there. The hope is that Rich is healthy and he takes Barry's production. In Frank's case, as we went into last season, Frank was sort of the cherry on top that if he was healthy we thought he'd be a protective component of this club and would fit in nicely. As it turned out, Frank carried us. Because of all the injuries we needed him. The way I look at replacing Frank's production is having a lot of the guys healthy. For example, having Bobby Crosby healthy, Chavy was banged up all season long. We signed Mike Piazza to come in. We don't expect Mike to come in and duplicate Frank's numbers, but we're hoping he won't have to. Milton (Bradley) was hurt a lot and just by the virtue of having some of these guys return to production and health, we hope that will make up for a lot of it. That being said, we won't have the depth that we had the previous year. If we didn't have Frank, we don't win it. But going into the season, we weren't counting on Frank hitting 39 homers and doing what he did. Health on the position players side and health on the pitching side, then Rich can take over for Barry and just slot right in there. Then Joe Kennedy will just slot right into that fifth spot.
The biggest thing in management is never to use the words "hope" or "try". I don't like it that our season depends on the health of several guys that have proven that they can't stay healthy. Harden, Ellis, Chavez, and Bradley are all injury prone, so to trust that they will stay healthy is sort of silly. And it is certainly clear that we really don't have any depth on the bench or the minors to handle any type of long-term injuries. If Harden goes down we have only one decent prospect in the minors. We have zero infield prospects and our top prospect, Travis Buck, is a year away from helping us in the outfield. Daric Barton, who is still trying to overcome injuries, is now stuck behind Piazza, Durazo, and Johnson at first base so what help will he be.
I do like our starting lineup and our rotation, but I don't feel comfortable with the fact that we can't have any injuries in order for us to win the West. Should be interesting!!!
3 comments:
I can't believe the A's didn't do more. You knew Zito was gone, but I'm sure they have been planning on that for awhile. Chavez and Crosby seem to be hurt EVERY year. They are the Prior and Wood of position players. OK, not that bad, but it does seem like every season starts with if Crosby can get 500+AB and Chavez can stay healthy the lineup will be fine.
I also worry that the bullpen was a big strength last year, but we all know how much bullpen performance can vary greatly from year to year. Counting on a repeat performance from them in also not wise.
The exception to bullpen performance variance is with the Red Sox. Their guys will suck no matter what.
Not willing to put Crosby in the Prior/Wood camp just yet, but if he misses extended time this season, then I think that's fair. As for Chavez, he seems like he's a guy who plays through a lot of injuries and his defense is fantastic. By the way speaking of Crosby, did you know that before last season, Peter Gammons predicted him to be the AL MVP? Early signs of the aneurysm perhaps?
I LOVE the Piazza signing - I think he will have an excellent year. DH'ing will make all the difference in the world for him.
Pitching-wise, losing Zito will hurt, but not as much as re-signing him would have. He's nowhere near worth what the Giants are paying him. The A's pitching should be fine, although the point about the bullpen is well taken. It's just a shame they didn't make a run at David Riske - or maybe they thought that Riske was too big a . . . gamble?
So I finally want to start a new post and I am not a contributor anymore. What happened?
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