I’ve been slacking.
I’ve wanted to talk about the A’s roster as they head into the offseason for a couple weeks now and I haven’t done shit about it. The 40 man roster has 45 names on it, Ellis and Crisp are going to have their options picked up and there are about a dozen guys in the minors that could draw interest in the upcoming Rule 5 draft if they aren’t protected. It makes no sense to talk about the things the A’s might do or need to do to improve in 2011 if you don’t know where they’re starting from.
I start with the steaming pile of suck.
Over the last two years Conor Jackson, Gabe Gross, Travis Buck, Jeff Larish and Matt Carson have combined to produce -1.7 WAR and their 2010 salaries totaled over $4 million. Â (Include Jeremy Hermida to that mix, what with his $3.345 million price tag and replacement level production, and you might taste a little vomit in your mouth.) The aforementioned 5 need to join Hermida on the unemployed list come November; I realize folks have their favorites but odds are good most if not all those guys will still be looking for big league jobs come the new year.
Of course that leaves the A’s with 4 outfielders… maybe 5 if you’re feeling particularly giddy about Jack Cust.
Boof Bonser and Joey Devine are eligible for arbitration. At least Bonser has been healthy enough to pitch in recent memory… Devine has been on the DL since 2008! Devine has managed to pitch just 67 big league innings (including the play-offs) in a day shy of 4 years  service time. I really don’t see any pressing reason either of these guys need to be on the 40 man roster anymore. Non-tender them and try to sign them to minor league deals with ST invites if you like but don’t let them take a protected spot away from a younger player.
While I’m thinking about arbitration eligible players… Craig Breslow, Dallas Braden and Ryan Sweeney are all eligible for the first time this winter. Kouz, Cust and Rajai are all looking at raises as well.
Justin Souza is almost 25 (his birthday is on the 22nd) and has put up ho-hum numbers in AA. Pedro Figueroa turns 25 in a month, struggled in AA and blew out his arm so he’s going to miss the bulk of next season. Jon Meloan missed the past year due to TJ surgery but maybe if he bounces all the way back he could be a cheap bullpen arm to bounce back and forth between Oakland and Sacramento. Fautino De Los Santos turns 25 next February but at least he’s healthy and showing some serious K potential in AA (14.49 K/9).
So here’s the opening salvo of my plan: Non-tender Bonser, Jackson, Gross, Buck and Devine. Â Designate/waive/release (I forget which is applicable to the specific cases) Larish, Carson and Souza. Chavez, Sheets and Duchscherer are already free agents. That opens up 11 slots on the currently over-filled 45 man roster; Oakland likes to keep one slot available so they can participate in the Rule V draft, giving us space to add 5 players (be they free agent additions or minor league prospects) to the 40 man roster for 2011.
Sounds like a lot of room, doesn’t it?
It isn’t.
Michael Taylor, Adrian Cardenas, Corey Brown, Sean Doolittle, Travis Banwart and Corey Wimberly could all attract interest in the upcoming Rule V. Â Jonathan Joseph is a long shot to get selected since he hasn’t pitched above A-ball… however a fastball that touches 96 does attract notice. I realize Doolittle has missed the bilk of the last two seasons but prior to his knee injury there was talk within the organization that he’d be ready for a big league shot by mid-2009. If there are other teams who thought that way do we really want the A’s to risk losing his potential 20+ HR bat? The A’s have been saying very positive things about Banwart and assigning him to the AFL is a definite showcase move. Maybe they’re just trying to boost his trade value… but that means placing him on the 40 man to protect him as a possible trade chip. Brown, Taylor and Cardenas seem like locks.
And that leaves no room for free agent goodness.
At some point the A’s are going to need to trade some of their pitching depth (Cramer, Mortensen, Mazzaro and Ross) to either bring in young players who don’t need to be on the 40 man roster in 2011 or as part of a package to trade for line-up improvement. I’ve got some ideas to address that but that’ll have to wait for the next time.
One  more thing…
I’m over at Lookout Landing asking about a Chone Figgins trade. I think Figgins can give the A’s better offense and equal defense to Kouzmanoff, albeit at a more expensive price. Anyone want to chime in on this one?
Are you counting Carter as one of the A’s 4 outfielders? Because I’d actually feel giddier about Cust in the OF than I would about Carter (if “giddy” is something near “good,” that is).
Carter, Sweeney, Crisp and Davis.
But count Cust instead if it makes you giddy. Anything for you Poppy!
How about I count Carter as a DH and Cust just goes away?
Cust only goes away if the A’s figure out a way to get a better option.
I know, unpopular gut opinion is unpopular.
You know me — I don’t think there’s a bigger Cust fan. But if they can find a way to significantly upgrade the entire OF-DH rotation without him, I’d be happy to see it.
Given the quality of even 2010 Chone Cust and the current roster, it would take some great expenditure (money and/or talent) to bring that scenario to life.
Since Cust was part-timed this season, I don’t think they’ll need to play the non-tender/DFA/re-sign game with Cust again — but I wouldn’t put it past them.
I think Cust is likely to be a better value than anything else we could get. If he isn’t, though, that’s fine. He isn’t a 5 WAR player or anything.
but who is? /nm bait
I forget the approved acronym (which means the approved acronym sucks)
TINSTAAAA?
I don’t see the point of Figgins — I feel like his marginal cost above Kz (Seattle won’t eat all of his contract, and he’ll cost outgoing talent — the more contract they eat, the more talent they’ll demand) won’t be commensurate with his marginal improvement (again, going with truthiness here, but figure slight-to-appreciable decline on D, slight-to-appreciable incline on O … heck, it could even be a wash if this year was the Beginning of the Decline for Panties).
Heck, if you’re going to non-tender Kz anyway, why not sign Beltre?
Because Beltre can’t play COF
I’m not arguing for signing Beltre over Acronym — that’s a separate issue.
Would you be in favor of signing Acronym and trading for Panties?
If we could afford it, maybe.
I’m still not sold that Panties is an upgrade but grover seems convinced that the marginal cost of Panties v. Kz isn’t much.
grover is wrong.
I could be. But if the M’s fans at LL have a better feel for their team than I do then I think the price could be surprisingly low.
Figgins’ UZR at 3B are as good as Kouzmanoff’s.
Figgins (Career): wRC+ 105; wOBA 333; OBP .359
Kouz (Career): wRC+ 98; wOBA 315; OBP .302
Beltre (Career): wRC+ 110; wOBA 339; OBP .328
Kouz is looking at salaries of $5 million and $7 million in 2011 and 2012.
Figgins goes $9.5/$9.5/$8.5 with a $9 million vesting option for 2014.
Beltre is probably looking at 4 years/$12.5 million annual.
All the numbers say that Beltre is the best of the 3 but because of the peaks and valleys in his game his career wOBA is only 6 points higher than Figgins’ career number.
Flipping Rosales for Figgins and shipping Kouz to St. Louis (for example) for a couple prospects only costs the A’s an additional $4 million in 2011 salary. Rosales hits arbitration after next year, so the 2012 difference in salary is probably less then $2 million.
Hunh.
Thanks for spelling that out.
I’m really starting to lean towards this idea. Especially for $2M/year.
Figgins does turn 33 prior to the start of next season so there is risk involved. But he’s such a good athlete and he controls the strike zone well… I think he’ll hold up over the next 3 years.
You ignored age: Kouzmanoff 29, Beltre 31, Figgins 32.
The issue isn’t Chone’s 2011 salary. Sure, he could bounce back and end up being a good value this year. The issue is being on the hook for his age 35 year (and possibly his age 36 year as well), when he’s an almost sure bet to be lousy.
You also ignored defense. UZR says they are all above-average at 3B. But Chone didn’t play there this year, which is something of a red flag.
Why is that a red flag?
I’m aware of nothing that suggests he was moved out of concern.
He was moved because the geniuses in Seattle thought Lopez 3b/Chone 2b was a better defensive alignment than vice-versa. Why they thought that, I have no idea.
But it also means he hasn’t played the position in a year.
This is breast cancer awareness month… so I’m OK with a pink flag of concern.
Seattle got it into their head that Jose Lopez should be their starting 3B a couple days into ST. They seemed to think that Figgins would be the better of the two defensively at 2B. The move had nothing to do with poor 3B play on the part of Figgins; rather it was an experiment on the part of management.
… and thanks for the comprehensive grounding of the conversation, g. This is a really great step before considering any rosterbation scenarios.
Ditto this.
I was going to go live with a beg for things like this after the WS, so you’ve jumped the gun on me.
I’d like to pin this to the top of the front page (which won’t affect the order in the unread comments widget) unless anyone objects. My idea (which would have come in the form of a beg) is to solicit longer substantive posts on a weekly or bi-weekly basis and pin the current one to the top of the page until the next one comes along.
{starts drafting paean to front-pagers in lieu of payment}
good idea
Done
If someone wants to volunteer to be next in, say, a week or two I’m open to it. If we want to be totally unplanned that’s cool too.
I just think it would be a shame if we didn’t do a bit more to encourage substantive stuff this offseason.
Sounds great, looking forward to reading them
Anyone volunteer yet?
No.
I’ve got an idea or two, but I won’t have time to really do it right until November.
I might have something by Thursday.
I would love that.
TWgS
I would absolutely trade Rosales for Figgins straight up.
Can Figgins play COF?
Probably…
He can outrun a baseball!
He’s athletic enough to get by but I think he’d be a better improvement over the current situation at 3B.
Which sounds weird considering the black hole that was LF but I think a move to the outfield diminishes Figgins impact on the roster. We can talk all we want about advanced metrics and the like but Baseball 101… a .283 OBP is a killer to carry every day in the line-up. And in the two years prior to coming to Oakland Kouzmanoff had a tough time keeping his OBP above .300, so his poor performance in Oakland doesn’t exactly scream fluke.
You want to improve the offense? Make fewer outs.
I was mostly kidding/jerking nm’s chain.
Here’s a (slightly) more serious suggestion/question: punting on the 3B question, what if we were to let Ellis walk, and acquire Panties to play 2B? IIRC Figgins isn’t great there … but how not-great?
Also: what’s your opinion on Figgins’ offensive talent going fwd? He’s clearly not 2009 Panties — and it strikes me that he’s had nearly as volatile a y-y performance record as Beltre (smaller range, but similar swings, including the massive FA-year bump)
I think he’s a ton better at 3B, and not paying Kz is the way his salary makes sense.
I think a large part of Figgins’ 2010 woes can be traced to discontent with the way Waks was handling him. He lost his lead-off role to Ichiro. OK, Figgins probably figured there was a chance of that happening. But to lose his 3B job and play at 2B, when he was signed after proving himself a more than competent 3B in Anaheim? I think that bothered him. Maybe add in some internal pressure to “justify” his contract and it all added up to an early season slump that tanked his overall numbers.
As for going forward… he controls the strike zone well. He isn’t going to hit for a lot of power but I believe that getting away from Safeco will help his Slugging tick up. He’s a switch hitter with speed. And the fact is he’s got a track record of getting on base, of not making outs. I’ll save the projections for CHONE but I feel good about his bat going forward.
And I’ll leave the psychobabble explanations for organizations like the Royals.
What can I say… been my experience that happy people are more productive. Moral matters.
I’d add Steve Tolleson and Justin James to the list of players who could be removed from the 40-man roster without any great loss. Maybe Blevins too. And maybe Rajai, though again only if we can find some outfielders elsewhere.
I doubt anyone would take Doolittle in the rule 5: he was never more than a B prospect, he’s only had half a season worth of games above high-A Stockton, and his knee seems to be a mess.
Wimberly seems like the type of player that someone might take, but wouldn’t be a big loss. c.f. Freddy Bynum and Esteban German.
I still think Rajai could be the 4th OF on a playoff team. He’s a solid pinch runner / defensive sub who can give you good defense from anywhere.
That sounds about right. But he’s also getting more expensive.
And Leon’s getting larger!
(No connotative content there. Just sprang to mind from the phrasing.)
Rajai probably gets ~$2 million via arby.
Given the base-running blunders he’s committed, I’m not sure about his being a “solid” pinch runner.
Also, burning him as a PR pretty much eliminates him as a defensive sub. It’d be like saying we’ve got Powell as a PH
RHSH bat.Not if Cust is the OF getting PR for. Which, of course, shouldn’t happen. But still.
I’m not saying we NEED to keep him or anything, but we do need a 4th OF who can be healthy / play CF assuming we do the smart thing and keep Coco around. Rajai is those things.
If Carter and Cust (or Manny!) are both on the team, then one of them will be in the OF, and you’re right, that makes Rajai or someone like him more useful.
Or Gomes!
Tangentially … Werth has apparently made some excellent plays in RF this series.
Cincy is thinking hard about keeping Gomes. They hold a team option to do so.
Hunh.
Awesome outfit, though:
The play on Posey’s single (sliding to keep the ball in front of him, flipping up, and making the throw to 2nd) was really impressive.
Yeah. It really was.
I like sweeney as 4th OF better than Davis
If his knees recover, he’s a starter in an Acronym/Coco/Sweeney OF.
If they don’t, he’s not a 4th OF.
If we sign your choice and andeux’s, we would have an AcroCocoCromag OF.
(And a hell of an [expensive] OF that would be.)
My fear is that he’ll be just healthy enough for us to get another year or two of 2010-quality Swee’knee as a full-time starter (cf. Kotsay, Chavez). Bleh.
Nah, they’ve hired Chavvy to hit him over the head with a bat every 7 days.
Except after three weeks Chavvy’s back will be hurting too much, and, not having prepared for that contingency, the front office will have to scramble to find someone else who can do the job.
Barton!
According to the baserunning metrics at billjamesonline Davis was a +10 while running the basepaths. Elvis Andrus led MLB at +44 but the rest of the leader board sat in the mid-to-low 20’s.
Those numbers don’t include SB. When you include SB into the mix Davis scores a +39, 9th best in baseball.
Fair enough. Do the metrics weight by situation? I suspect that (my) memory over-weights, but IIRC there were a number of daft errors coming at key times.
I think it’s a simple counting stat. It doesn’t seem to factor the number of outs, merely count the opportunities to go from 1st to 3rd, 2nd to Home, 1st to Home, the number of GIDP vs. opportunities, total bases taken and base running outs. Per the metric, Davis ran into 7 outs, which was 6 more than he ran into in 2009. So your memory is at least partially supported by the numbers.
Baseball-reference has him running into 8 outs in 2010, but he was also Oakland’s most aggressive baserunner, taking most chances. Barton made 10 outs on bases, leading the team, but Cust comes off as the worst decision maker, getting thrown out 6 times while being significantly more passive runner.
Using percentages rather than the counting stats, Coco Crisp should probably be the A’s best baserunner.
Elvis Andrus is really interesting as a baserunner, though. Very poor base stealer, but excellent on the bases otherwise. The dude got thrown out only two times the whole year, with all the running he did.
given the small number of chances involved, i wouldn’t be surprised if there is a lot of random error and luck involved, too.
Very probably. Although in case of Cust, getting thrown out 6 times while going 1st-3rd only 4 times on 24 occasions still seems pretty bad. (For comparison, Andrus did it 20/44).
But I agree, baserunning in general seems to be even harder to evaluate than fielding. There are very few samples to start with, and in some cases additional info would be helpful, as if that single was to the left or to the right field, when taking or not taking third. I can actually parse that data and maybe will come around to doing that.
It’s another thing that’ll really use hit f/x
Do you know anything on the progress of the efforts to implement it?
Nope.
The thing I like about James is he’s till got options remaining and can bounce between Oakland and Sac with no fuss. Every team needs a few guys like that on the 40 man. Right now the A’s have 6 pitchers who can make that shuttle run and that’s probably too many, but James and Meloan are the only two relief arms in that bunch and I’d rather see Mazzaro (for example) get traded to improve the team than to see James get cut and Mazzaro converted into a swing man.
Tolleson could move on if the A’s still have Rosales on the roster.
So I know I normally stay out of this type of discussion, but from an LB PoV, the Slegna stank is mostly off Chone now. I approve.
He still looks like the pinhead from Tod Browning’s Freaks.
You say that like it’s a bad thing.
On an only slightly related topic… I’ve got fanposts running at True Blue LA, DRay’s Bay and Lookout Landing. I’m trying to get non-A’s biased perspective on the various trade ideas being thrown around on **.
Is it wrong of me to ask why other people don’t do this?
no it is not
I was going to do the LL one, but it takes a day to comment.
I was prepared. I opened accounts at Brew Crew (Fielder) True Blue (Kemp) and Viva El Birdos(Rasmus) a few weeks ago. I already had LL and DRays Bay from way back when.
Now that I’m active, the conversation is dead.
Sigh.
I’ve always found LL’s rosterbation O’Donnellism to be really weird.
I appreciate the attempt.
Yeah, I like LL’s general approach, but the 24 hours thing killed.
was huff playing in when he made that error?
no. even with the bag
Who woulda thought Young would be the first body on the floor?
Yeah. It’s gotta be a bad thing.
Just keep in mind… there was a lot of similar angst when Peterson left. His replacement seemed to work out fine.
Oh I know, and part of it is the home stadium, but I think pitching coaches actually have been proven to have an impact on performance and we had a good one.
I agree.