Oakland Athletics Season Predictions: A Guide To 2016

2016 Predictions: The Pitching

Most Wins:

Andrew: Sonny Gray
Mark: Chris Bassitt
Melson: Henderson Alvarez
Katrina: Sonny Gray
Rich: Sonny Gray
Rylan: Sonny Gray
Samantha: Henderson Alvarez

The majority of the staff went with Gray to lead the team in wins. He was, after all, the only pitcher to hit double-digits in the win column last season – and the only player to have a winning percentage above .500. He also made 22 quality starts, good for 71 percent of his games, while the next highest quality start rate was Jesse Chavez, at 46 percent.

The outliers here were Bassitt and Alvarez. Alvarez didn’t win a game with the Miami Marlins in 2015, although he only made four starts. In 2014, he was an All-Star who went 12-7, but it will be interesting to see if he can improve on that now that he has a better offense to support him.

Andrew explained his vote this way: “Gray is in the least danger of ping-ponging back and forth from Triple-A and the majors, and his closest competition for this, Alvarez, is going to miss a month.”

Mark made a bold prediction with his pick: rookie reliever Ryan Dull would manage to have the most wins at the All-Star break, but Bassitt will beat out his fellow pitchers for the lead by the end of the season. In 18 games last season, including 13 starts, Bassitt went 1-8 despite posting eight quality starts. Wins are very hard to predict, given the team component, so there’s a reason this category has some outlier picks.

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Most Strikeouts:

Andrew: Chris Bassitt
Mark: Sonny Gray
Melson: Sonny Gray
Katrina: Chris Bassitt
Rich: Sonny Gray
Rylan: Sonny Gray
Samantha: Sonny Gray

There were only two choices here: Gray or Bassitt. The logic behind picking Gray is pretty simple: his 20.3 percent strikeout rate and 169 total strikeouts were two of the components that made him a Cy Young runner-up last season. Gray might not notch 200 punch outs each season, but he is capable of striking out more batters than nearly any other pitcher on the team.

There were two votes for Bassitt though, due largely in part to the fact that he’s the only starter who might catch Gray. Gray earned 7.3 strikeouts per nine innings last season, while Bassitt earned 6.7. He’ll be building on his rookie season, and it’s fair to expect him to ratchet things up a bit in 2016. The question is whether or not he’ll be able to catch Gray.

Next: 2016 Predictions: Pitching, Continued