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A's need to make changes during All-Star break
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Oakland A's slugger Jason Giambi should be dangled to a playoff-caliber team./AP file
Maybe Oakland A's GM Billy Beane will just flip a coin.
Heads: His terrible offensive team is only going to get worse as the long season takes its toll on his fragile roster.
Tails: Despite the American League's worst offense, the team is just eight games back of first place. As the summer heats up, his hitters have to more closely resemble their career stats, right? As good as his young pitchers have been, any kind of offense should push them into contention in the weak American League West, where fans can have something to cheer again and perhaps even a few more would come to catch a game in the league worst baseball stadium.
Call it in the air.
Either scenario is realistic. Either can be a credible game-plan as the team reaches the halfway point on a most frustrating an unexpected campaign. With 11 games to go until the halfway point, the A's are assured of being no better than .500 (and it would take winning ten out of 11 just to get to there). It would take a '27 Yankees offensive explosion just to climb above the likes of the Chicago White Sox, the team with the American League's second worst batting average at .251. The A's, hitting just .236 as a team, aren't even close.
But eight games is eight games. And the lead is held by the Rangers, notoriously known for their late-season slides as the summer heat in Texas saps any hope of playoff contention. The Angels, easily the best team in the league on paper, have had a season like a bad country music hit, losing nearly the entire rotation to injury and having Vlad Guerrero turn into a slow, singles hitter before their very eyes.
The A's could still make a run.
Yes, the could.
But they won't.
Anyone who calls tails and think they will make a run is probably peering through green and gold-colored glasses. The numbers don't lie. The A's are a bad baseball team. As I detailed in a story for Bleacher Report, statistically the A's offense is consistently so awful it would take the stars to align in a Hollywood written script to overcome their deficiencies.
Despite the league worst batting average, the team is also an on base flop. Beane started the obsession with on base percentage so it must be particularly galling that his team again ranks dead last in this gold-standard statistic. The patient, workmanlike offenses of the late 1990s and early 2000s are a feint memory.
At the start of the season, the A’s had four potential 30 home-run hitters in their lineup. Eric Chavez had just 30 at bats before back surgery again ending his season. Jack Cust, Matt Holliday and Jason Giambi are all on pace to hit fewer than 30 home runs this season. The team is 25th overall in home runs, last in the American League.
Worse yet, the team has failed to adapt. Though the A’s eschewed traditional baseball strategy like sacrifice bunts and stolen bases, times change. In this post-steroid era, small ball is coming back into favor, particularly for teams that lack the power to bash their way to victory. The A’s lack that firepower, but still fail in the little things can keep a team competitive, ranking in the lower third of major league baseball in stolen bases, sacrifice flies and sacrifice bunts.
Individually there is plenty of blame to go around. Up and down the A’s lineup with amazing consistency are hitters performing below their career numbers. Orlando Cabrera .243, Holliday .269, Cust .227, Giambi .205, Bobby Crosby .190, Nomar Garciaparra .254. Only catcher Kurt Suzuki, hitting .278 with four home runs is approaching a normal season offensively. Youngsters like Ryan Sweeney (.254, 2 Hrs), Landon Powell (.182, 2 HRs) and Jack Hannahan (.191, 1 HR) have failed to break out offensively.
In short, the entire team is having a terrible offensive year. If this were a virus it would be deemed a plague.
Heading into the All-Star break, the A's should start cleaning house. Begin with the hitting coach whose tenure at the Milwaukee Brewers is only topped by this year with Oakland for taking a team backward offensively. Manager Bob Geren, who has burned out his bullpen, overused young closer Andrew Bailey, robbed Brad Ziegler of his confidence and failed to develop an in-game strategy that could boost his team's woeful offense, should be on the chopping block as well.
Beyond that key roster moves have to be made. Matt Holliday's stock continues to drop. Beane doesn't like to sell low, but he runs the risk of losing much more should this play out to season's end. Rockie fans tuning in to this weekend's series may long for the guy who had MVP talent, but for the A's he's been pedestrian, as Colorado Examiner Travis Lay pointed out. It's time to have him move on.
Jack Cust and Jason Giambi are black holes in the lineup with, at this point in their respective careers, virtually identical one-dimensional skills. Both are left-handed pull hitters, unable to hit through defensive shifts, with high strikeout totals and very little to offer defensively. One such guy is bad enough, but two, playing every night, sucks the momentum out of an offense. One, or both, has to go.
The A's paid $10 million for two shortstops, who lead the league in errors and have hit .236 and .190 respectively. Both Orlando Cabrera and Bobby Crosby will be gone next year, so get what you can now if only to save the salary.
And that's just for starters. It's time to blow this whole thing up and try again next year. Even a legend like Billy Beane can have a bad year, and this is clearly it.
More A's news:
- Bay Area's Tulo back in home town.
- Outman out, Gonzalez called up.
- Championship renuion fails to honor team's success.
- Cahill the stopper.
- "Moneyball' on ice over script issues.
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