Jack Cust spent four seasons with the Oakland Athletics. You remember him, right? Of course you do. He’s one of the most divisive A’s players to ever average 24 homeruns per season. I’ll tell you right now, I was never a fan of Jack Cust and nothing short of 100 homers a season was going to change my mind.
Cust is a perfect example of the old adage, “there are lies, damned lies and statistics” because it is incredibly easy to present Cust as one of the best players Oakland ever saw. Here, I’ll prove it.
Jack Cust was a first round draft pick right out of high school. In his first full major league season, Cust was good for 26 homeruns and a .408 OBP. In the following year he hit a career high 33 homeruns, earned an .851 OPS, led the league in walks and had a 2.7 WAR. Over all four seasons, Jack Cust knocked 97 out of the park, drove 281 runs, hit just shy of .250, got on base nearly 40% of the time and posted a cumulative 11.2 WAR. With numbers like this, how did Jack Cust become the player most often cited when discussing the Bob Geren “Dark” years of green collar baseball?
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I can give you that answer with some more statistics because, frankly, I feel it’s my duty to remind you how bad we had it at one time.
In 2007, 2008, and 2009 Jack Cust led the league in strike outs. In fact, he broke the American League record for single season strike outs. He’s now ranked 11th for all time out of both leagues. 2008 was also the year that he led the league in walks which means that 33% of his plate appearances resulted in a K, 18% resulted in BB and 18% resulted in Hits. In case you aren’t reading these numbers right, his strikeout rate was almost equal to his on base percentage.
Then there’s the matter of defensive ability. In his four years with the Oakland A’s, Jack Cust never once ever ever had a dWar on the plus side of zero and in 2009 his RAA (runs better than average) was a whopping -13. Did you see that negative sign in front of a 13? Cust spent a fair amount of time as a designated hitter but, over four years, not the majority of his time with around 57 of his games including field play.
Ok, so depending on which stats you decide to live by, Jack Cust may be the power hitter that the A’s need right now and could be a great compliment to the Lawrie, Butler lineup. At 35 years old, he’s a bit past Billy Beane’s typical target age and he does carry some baggage with him having been named in the Mitchcell Report, although he denies all of those allegations. After leaving the A’s, Jack Cust spent some time in Seattle and then floated around through short stints with minor league teams. He is currently a free agent but hasn’t played an inning of major league baseball since 2011.
Of course, if you look at the other stats, I’m a monster for even suggesting such a thing and this whole article is bringing up terrible memories for you. Believe me, it hasn’t been easy for me to write but I think it’s good for us to remember how easy it is to take baseball statistics and make them say whatever we want them to say. I hope you’ve enjoyed this little look down memory lane. Me thinks that Billy Beane will not be calling Cust’s agent anytime soon.