Six Positives About An Early End to the Oakland Athletics’ Season
The Oakland Athletics’ season may have finally bottomed out on their most recent road trip, culminating in a team meeting that failed to make a difference, and an ejection from Monday night’s game that Bob Melvin probably hoped would spark his struggling lineup. The series against the Dodgers went much better, culminating in a pair of victories that the A’s certainly needed for morale reasons.
It’s important to stay positive, even though the A’s are having one of the most disappointing seasons on record. With that in mind, here are six reasons the Oakland Athletics are secretly lucky to have whiffed on the playoff race so early:
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Sonny Gray doesn’t have to worry about that embarrassing “playoff beard” trend.
Let’s face it: Gray’s attempt at a playoff beard would have been a disgrace. Dallas Keuchel is much better suited to the challenge, and with the A’s out of the playoffs, Gray can quietly head home for the winter without anyone noticing that his facial hair just isn’t comparable to Keuchel’s. Then again, can anyone compare to Keuchel when it comes to beards? It’s not likely. Better that Gray doesn’t even try.
There won’t be a first round of the playoffs to lose.
The last three seasons have ended pretty painfully: Two first-round losses to the Tigers, followed by the crushing comeback loss to the Kansas City Royals in last year’s Wild Card Game. But never fear, A’s fans! The Athletics will save you the pain of an early post-season defeat at the hands of the AL Central this year… because they’re considerate like that.
Billy Beane can get a head start on plotting how to acquire players more useful than Billy Butler.
More specifically, Beane will have time to look up stats, rather than simply picking players whose names can be confused with his. Butler has no desirable baseball skills, including a lack of power, speed, on-base ability, and defensive capabilities. Clearly, this signing was based solely on Beane’s desire to be able to forward all unwanted calls to Butler’s phone, under the guise of “Ohhh, I thought you meant the OTHER Billy B.”
There’s an entire month less for Josh Reddick to say something regrettable on Twitter.
Reddick isn’t even able to make it through the regular season without hopping onto social media to voice his displeasure with every A’s decision. Asking him to play through October without causing another media frenzy over not-so-subtle tweets would have been all but impossible. This is especially true, given that the current teams headed to the playoffs have several strong left-handers, and Reddick would have found himself benched against pitchers whom he has no business facing. The A’s left-fielder would have been shocked and appalled – something that he almost certainly would have conveyed to the fans via Twitter. And how could Beane quietly trade Reddick this winter, if everyone was all riled up over his comments again?
The A’s have saved a lot of money on walk-off win celebration supplies. Also, playoff gear.
It’s expensive to be a successful team. The Oakland Athletics know how stingy the front office can be with money, so they’ve thoughtfully conserved their whipped-cream-pie-and-Gatorade budget to help out. The offense has been especially helpful, making sure to avoid scoring runs after the bullpen blows the lead late in the game. It’s been especially difficult since Edward Mujica took over as closer, but so far, they’re doing a great job of not scoring too often. Similarly, postseason t-shirts and jackets aren’t cheap, and now the A’s won’t have to blow cash on clothes that would have only been good for one round, anyway.
All of those midseason trades gave the minor league teams a terrific shot at the playoffs.
Sure, only the Double-A Midland Rockhounds are playoff-bound, and the only prospect they got out of the A’s midseason trades was Sean Manaea. But if they hadn’t played so poorly early on in the season, the Stockton Ports had a chance to make a run at High-A history, thanks to the A’s dealing three of their best players away for several young prospects. While minor league championships mean nothing to anyone outside of the players and coaches who win them, at least someone will get to celebrate this year.