Oakland Athletics: FanGraphs Predicts 11 Win Improvement For 2016

Outfielders

We are beginning with outfielders and catchers because the 2016 outlook on these positions remains remarkably similar to the 2015 personnel. You will see a steady dose of Billy Burns, while Josh Reddick and Jake Smolinski platoon in right field. Left field will be manned by Coco Crisp whenever he’s healthy, and Mark Canha and Sam Fuld when not.

The only significant shakeup that could be made is if Andrew Lambo is thoroughly impressive in Spring Training and makes the cut over either Fuld or Smolinski. However, the Pirates waited three whole seasons for Lambo to shine, but he was unable to leave a mark in the 20 or so games a year that he played for the Buccos.

This leaves the issue of whether or not Crisp will be able to return to his 2013 self that cemented him as a club leader and fan favorite. Through 44 games in 2015, Crisp suffered the first negative WAR campaign of his entire career at -0.7. The key to not repeating this performance in 2016 is obviously his health.

The club has taken precautions to try to preserve Crisp’s effectiveness, particularly by moving him to left field which should be less stressful on his body.

Crisp may be aging, but he is also a career 28.7 WAR player. Every year he has logged over a hundred games, he has been a tremendously valuable asset to his team. If he isn’t nagged by his injury troubles this year, he will fill the outfield production void that existed in 2015.

Conclusion: A Crisp rebound could be the difference between losing one game and winning up to four games.

Next: The Catchers

Catchers

The 2016 catchers will remain unchanged. Stephen Vogt and Josh Phegley were both very impressive in 2016. Now the A’s just have to hope that they weren’t overperforming.

Vogt is the more likely of the two to have a repeat performance. His 2015 offensive metrics were really not that much higher than the previous two years. For example, his OPS was .695 in 2013, and modestly climbed to .752 and .783 the following seasons. The difference is that he was plugged into the starting role in 2015 and played over 100 games for the first time in his career, so his offensive contributions were more pronounced than in years past.

Phegley is at much more of a risk to revert to the mean in 2016. He was a career .206/.223/.299 hitter before coming to Oakland, and the offensive spark that he provided the A’s in 2015 surprised nearly everybody. When he was sent to Oakland before the 2015 season, it seemed like he was included to round out the Jeff Samardzija trade. However, it became clear that he was destined for significant Major League time when Derek Norris was traded two weeks later.

He will definitely get opportunities to sustain his momentum in 2016, and that will be a welcome surprise for the A’s if he is successful.

Conclusion: The 2016 catching corps is solid and will contribute to wins in 2016, but it is at risk of being less effective than it was in 2015.

Next: The Infielders

Infielders

The Athletics did build a new-look infield over the offseason by acquiring first baseman Yonder Alonso and former Athletic Jed Lowrie. Additionally, Brett Lawrie’s departure opened up third base to belong to Danny Valencia for the foreseeable future. Marcus Semien will remain the only infield staple from 2015, as Eric Sogard will likely return to the support role that he played in previous seasons.

The most significant move is the acquisition of Alonso. With a career .273 average and .340 OBP, he is a tremendous contact hitter who has an occasional home run pop. He will also slide into the upper-tier of A’s batters who are difficult to strike out, striking out only once every eight plate appearances in 2015.

So not only did the A’s acquire a solid first baseman, but they also upgraded from a position of incredible weakness from last season. Ike Davis’ injury-riddled 2015 campaign made him the only A’s infielder that had a net negative impact on the team with a WAR of -0.4. Compare this to Alonso’s 1.8 WAR from 2015, and the A’s may have just gotten two to three wins better with this acquisition.

The A’s are rolling the dice by giving the every-day second base job to Lowrie. They are hoping to see the 2013 Jed Lowrie, who maintained a .791 OPS, hit 45 doubles and jacked 15 home runs. They are also hoping to not see the Jed Lowrie whose career second base fielding percentage of .975 comes in nine points under the league average, because Sogard has been such a spectacular defensive second baseman in recent years.

Oakland is counting on Lowrie’s bat by giving him the nod, and with good reason. His 2015 season was cut short by injuries, but he is usually worth close to two games over a replacement level player when he plays most of the season. He even achieved a positive 1.0 WAR last season having played only 69 games. If he gets back to form, Lowrie’s presence over Sogard could make the team a whole game better.

The wildcard is Valencia, who will be replacing Lawrie at third base. He played brilliantly in his 47 games with Oakland in 2015, and it was made even more impressive by the fact that he was playing arguably the best stretch of his career on a losing team.

In those 47 games, Valencia achieved a 1.6 WAR compared to the 149 games it took Lawrie to earn a 1.9 WAR. On top of that, Valencia is a whole tier higher than Lawrie defensively, having earned a .976 fielding percentage at a hot corner versus Lawrie’s .937.

Despite this incredible stretch, it’s difficult to not consider Valencia to still be a wildcard. He has certainly had brilliant stretches of play in the past, but he is yet to show that he can sustain that kind of performance.

Having Valencia in place of Lawrie won’t cost the A’s any games, and it may even make the A’s more likely to win one or two more.

Conclusion: Having Alonso, Lowrie, and Valencia play in place of Davis, Sogard, and Lawrie should make the A’s anywhere from four to seven wins better.

Next: The Starting Pitchers

Starting Pitchers

We all know the starting pitcher corps is solid when healthy. The A’s will obviously continue to enjoy the excellence of Sonny Gray on the mound. Jesse Hahn was on pace to have a monster season before lingering injuries and a plummeting season kept him out of action. And Chris Bassitt truly started having electrifying starts in the second half of the season. Kendall Graveman is also reportedly going to be healthy entering Spring Training, and he saw major progress in his game in the second half of last season. These four combined for a 9.2 WAR last season, and that will certainly be higher next season when Hahn, Bassitt, and Graveman get to pitch full seasons.

Now, who is gone? Scott Kazmir’s chapter in Oakland is finally over. He pitched so well in Oakland that there were murmurs of him being a Cy Young Award candidate before he was traded. Jesse Chavez had an up-and-down year in Oakland, repeating the trend that he is a much stronger first-half starter than second-half. He will be pitching for the Toronto Blue Jays next season. These two combined for a WAR of 4.9, and it’s difficult to pretend that that isn’t a significant blow to a rotation.

But the A’s acquired a couple of key pieces over the offseason that they hope can fill these shoes. Most notably, they acquired Henderson Alvarez, who was an All-Star in 2014 when he brilliantly threw for a 2.65 ERA through 30 starts. Shoulder problems halted his dominance in the 2015 season, and shoulder surgery is going to keep him out of the rotation until May.

The A’s want Alvarez to be their next Scott Kazmir story. It is entirely possible that after all of the appropriate rehab, Alvarez can return and be that 4.6 WAR guy that he was in Miami.

A more puzzling offseason move was the signing of Rich Hill to a one-year, $6 million contract. Hill is 35 years old, has a career ERA of 4.54, and a proven tendency to not have great command of the strike zone. The A’s front office was wooed by his four starts in Boston last year, where he pitched 29 innings of 1.55 ERA baseball.

This will be the rotation spot to watch. Although Hill did have a great four games last season, that is still an incredibly small sample size. Also keep in mind that his two shutout starts came against teams who were watching their playoff hopes slip away, and he fared less well against the two teams that were solidly in the playoff hunt.

He was worth a 1.6 WAR through those four starts last year. If he maintains that performance, he will be a knock-out punch in this rotation. If not, it’s equally likely you’ll see his -1.2 WAR from 2013, where he gave up 27 earned runs through 38.2 innings for Cleveland, posting a swollen 6.28 ERA as a reliever.

The wildcard is Jarrod Parker. The A’s will obviously give him all of the time that he needs to recover and won’t pressure him to pitch until he’s absolutely ready, but he would certainly be a welcome addition to the rotation.

He hasn’t pitched in two seasons, so it’s easy to forget how important he was to the pitching staff in 2012 and 2013. But his numbers over those two seasons are nothing short of remarkable. He’s maintained a career 3.68 ERA, and that kind of pitching was sorely missed last season. Over those two seasons, he was worth a WAR of 5.7. He represents a tremendous upgrade over the pitching staff that finished 2015.

Conclusion: Scott Kazmir’s shoes will be difficult to fill, but if Henderson Alvarez comes back strong and Rich Hill has even an average year, the rotation could be two to three wins better than last year’s group.

Next: The Relief Pitchers

Relief Pitchers

The 2015 Oakland bullpen was bad. Really bad. You just won’t believe how unfathomably bad it was.

The bullpen finished 2015 with an American League worst 4.63 ERA, and the club’s 19-35 record in one-run games is often attributed to the bullpen’s inability to hold on to a lead in close games. As a squad, the bullpen was the only section of the 2015 A’s that had a net negative WAR, with a combined -0.5 (and if you’re thinking it seems like it should be lower, I’m with you).

But the front office cleaned house with the bullpen.

Relievers who will not be returning to the A’s in 2016 include Fernando Abad, Ryan Cook, Arnold Leon, Edward Mujica, Eric O’Flaherty, Dan Otero, Drew Pomeranz, Evan Scribner, and Pat Venditte. The combined WAR of all of these relievers is -1.4.

The club did hang on to closer Sean Doolittle, and relievers Fernando Rodriguez, Ryan Dull, Daniel Coulombe, Angel Castro, and R.J. Alvarez. With the exception of Alvarez (who could benefit from playing in some low-leverage situations), these are all positive-WAR players, and in most cases were either struggling with injuries last year or were pitching in the majors for their first or second season. They all stand to have improved seasons in 2016. It seems like the office hung on to the right people.

And the reinforcements look several tiers better than the people they’re replacing.

The bullpen’s prize acquisition this offseason is Ryan Madson. Fans are justifiably skeptical of his signing because Tommy John surgery sidelined him for several seasons, but his return season in Kansas City last year was a gem. The 63.1 innings he pitched in 68 appearances was his highest innings-pitched total since 2009, and it proved that he had the endurance to be a reliable relief pitcher in the league’s best bullpen. His command of the strike zone garnered an 8.2 SO/9 and an exemplary 2.0 BB/9 in 2015, and he finished the season with a dominant 2.13 ERA.

This all resulted in a 1.7 WAR for 2015, which is an accomplishment for a relief pitcher. Remember when Sean Doolittle became the league’s premier all-star closer in 2014? Doolittle’s WAR that All-Star season was only 1.2. Madson and Doolittle represent the Athletics’ new late-inning bulwark.

The A’s also picked up two relievers that tallied another combined 1.7 WAR last season by acquiring Liam Hendriks and John Axford.

The Blue Jays discovered that Hendriks’ stuff is a lot better in a relief role than in the starting role. 2015 was Hendriks’ breakout year, even if it wasn’t in the starter role that he had held since 2011. He mystified opposing batters while earning a 2.92 ERA, and his 2.14 FIP suggests that the Blue Jays defense could have done him a few more favors last year.

Axford had a tale of two seasons. Opposing teams couldn’t bump his ERA over 2.00 until his 23rd relief appearance last season. He finished the season with a 4.20 ERA, which is a bit higher than you want in a reliever, but most of that can be accredited to a rough patch of appearances in July. The key to Axford’s success will be whether or not he can command the strike zone. He has kept his BB/9 below 4.0 in his successful years, and it has hovered around 6.0 in his less successful years. We will see what his feel for the strike zone looks like in Spring Training.

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Marc Rzepczynski is an enigmatic reliever. He is a proven left-handed reliever that has an impeccable ability to get the important lefty out. He stifled lefties with a 2.70 ERA against them last season. The problem is that managers haven’t been able to resist the temptation to keep him in games against right-handed batters, even if it looks like he’s cruising through an inning. Last year, his ERA against righties was five whole points higher than his ERA against lefties.

Rzepczynski could be one of the league’s premier relievers against lefties, but astonishingly, managers have made him pitch to 233 more right-handed batters than left-handed batters throughout his career. Bob Melvin has the opportunity to use him the way he is supposed to be used, and he could be worth an extra win above replacement that way.

Conclusion: The front office parted ways with the relievers that couldn’t perform last year, and replaced them with four solid relievers. This, along with the healthy return of Sean Doolittle, should shift the pendulum in the A’s favor to the tune of five to seven wins.

If you assume that all of the A’s acquisitions will perform similarly to their recent seasons, the math follows that 11 wins better than last season is the conservative estimate of how the A’s will do in 2016.

It makes me optimistic, but still, I’ll only believe it when I see it.