Brett Lawrie was added to the Oakland Athletics roster to replace Josh Donaldson, an offensive juggernaut, defensive showman and fan favorite. Fans have looked at the numbers and raised concerns over Lawrie’s ability to replace Donaldson and rightfully so, Brett Lawrie only played in 70 games in 2014.
Attributing many of his injury woes to playing on artificial turf, Brett Lawrie feels that he can stay healthy on the soft, supple grass that Oakland provides. If this is true and the A’s manage to get 145+ games out of the righty, expect him to be representing the Athletics in the 2015 All Star game and quickly becoming a fan favorite.
The first concern people raised was the drop off in power that the lineup will endure due to Donaldson’s departure. This particular stat should not worry anybody. For their career, Donaldson and Lawrie have a 3.7 and 3.0 home run percentage respectively. This number is based on at bats which means that Donaldson hits a home run 3.7% of the time he steps up to the plate. In 2014, Brett Lawrie hit a career high 12 homers in a career low 70 games for a 4.2 HR% compared to Donaldson’s 4.1 HR% the argument can be made that Brett Lawrie and Josh Donaldson are even trades in terms of home runs.
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If home runs don’t impress you, take a look at the strike out rate for both players. In 2014, Lawrie struck out on 17.3% of his at bats and has a career SO rate of 16.3%. Donaldson, in 2014, had a 18.7% strike out rate and sits on 18.5% for his career. In terms of plate discipline, Brett Lawrie is an upgrade.
Along with strike outs are walks. Lawrie walked 5.6% of the time in 2014 versus Donaldson walking to first 10.9% of the time which may have more to do with established reputation and placement in the lineup than anything so we can expect that with more at bats, Lawrie’s numbers may go up a bit. In fact, their career walk rate is a little bit closer to each others with Donaldson walking about 3.3% more often. In terms of walks, Lawrie is a downgrade but, like I said, a change of lineups and more regular playing time may skew these numbers.
Once these guys get on base, Brett Lawrie may have the advantage having stolen 12 more bases in 260 fewer plate appearances over both careers. Bob Melvin may keep Lawrie from stealing as an injury prevention measure but if he gets the green light to steal he’s an upgrade over Donaldson. If you take the total number of runs and divide it by total hits and total walks and minus homeruns (R/H+BB-HR) you’ll get a rough idea of how often a player scores once they’ve reached base. Brett Lawrie, by this calculation, scores 42% of the time he reaches base. In comparison, Josh Donaldson scores 42.9% of the time. Are you starting to notice something? At least in terms of offense, Lawrie and Donaldson are incredibly similar.
Defensively, Brett Lawrie has played third base in 44 fewer games in his career. Lawrie’s fielding percentage is .962 compared to Donaldson’s .954. In fact, Lawrie has never had a fielding percentage as low as Donaldson’s all star year (.952) while playing third base. The difference between the two comes in their range factor but any third baseman worth his salt should have a higher range factor when you factor in the homefield foul zone in Oakland. It is very possible that Lawrie’s range factor takes a major jump in 2015 just by virtue of being able to get to a higher percentage of foul balls. In this category, I’d say Lawrie and Donaldson are fairly comparable.
If you’re nervous about the huge downgrade from Donaldson to Lawrie in the A’s lineup, I hope these numbers put your mind at ease. As I’ve said in other articles, Lawrie is a lateral move designed to save payroll at worst and an upgrade at best. Couple that with the fact that he seems genuinely excited to play in Oakland where he knows he’ll get a fair shot to shine and I think Brett Lawrie is going to be a fantastic addition to the team and may have certain fans eating crow in 2015 (which I believe they sell at the Poppers stands).
If only Brett would come onto the podcast so we could chat about his upcoming year. Hint hint.