Oakland A’s In Middle Of Complete Overhaul

A brief recap of the A’s offseason in two acts:

The first act was the dismantling. The rebuilding. The stereotype of the low-budget, small-market team. The A’s traded their young pitchers for younger pitchers, who they’d trade in three years for younger pitchers. If the rate of exchange held up, we were all going to look up in 2018 and see Billy Beane trading infants on the black market for Ziploc baggies filled with sperm. We’re talking five-tool sperm, of course.

There are paragraphs that make sense in February. There are paragraphs that don’t. Here is one that doesn’t, from Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle:

The A’s and Manny Ramirez. More ridiculous than the A’s and Magglio Ordonez, or more sensible? I go back and forth. The A’s signing Manny is crazy like emptying a bottle of ketchup down your pants and dancing on a table during a first date. There’s a one-percent chance that the date has a weird sense of humor, I guess. Might work out. The A’s signing Magglio is more like eating unwrapped packets of Splenda when the date’s head is turned. It’s a deeper, darker kind of crazy.

The Oakland A’s are in full rebuilding mode. They traded two young, cheap, and cost-controlled pitchers for baskets of prospects. The calendar they are planning to give away at the ballpark is filled with players who are gone.

The Oakland A’s are signing and trading for veterans. They’re acquiring worthwhile players to fill out their lineup and rotation.

The Oakland A’s are rebuilding. They’ll explain their reasons to you personally if you go to a game. They might even let you on the field if you buy a season-ticket package. And if you bring a glove and a fake moustache, well, you could be playing first base at some point.

Billy Beane used to fight the good fight, acknowledging that his team was at a constant disadvantage, but still attempting to build the best team he can within his means. But recently, his message became more dire:

There are words in our language that have lost their luster. The word “epic” suffered from overuse and inflation, and it’s now something that can be applied to especially delicious pistachios just as easily as The Iliad. Thanks, Internet.

But “travesty” is still a good one. People don’t throw it around lightly. So when you read a headline like “The Oakland A’s are a travesty”, you have a pretty good idea that the author isn’t going to serve a plate of waffles with maybe syrup. And Monte Poole doesn’t disappoint. A selection of phrases used in the article:

Last season, the A’s were a sleeper team. It was a bit of a deep sleep, but it wasn’t ludicrous to suggest that they would contend. Most of the moves they made a year ago seemed to indicate that they were planning to contend:

Short-term lineup improvements for a team that already had a plus pitching staff. The top three pitchers were young, talented, and under control for years and years and years. Even if the one-year gambit didn’t work out, the A’s were going to have those pitchers around for a while.

John Sickels presents scouting reports on all four of the prospects the Washington Nationals are dispatching to Oakland in the Gio Gonzalez trade.

The graphic’s the thing, so you just gotta hit this link.

For the A’s, it’s just another trade for prospects, but this looks like a great haul. Cole’s a 19-year-old righty starter who was outstanding last year in his first full season. Peacock’s a 23-year-old righty starter who sipped a little coffee last season after excelling in double-A and triple-A. Norris is a 22-year-old catcher with power, walks and an arm. And Milone is a 24-year-old lefty starter who posted impossible numbers last year in triple-A. By which I mean 155 strikeouts and 16 walks. You won’t be surprised to learn that he’s something of a soft-tosser, but those numbers are those numbers.

It’s a big trade. Obviously. And the A’s are still free to move Bailey somewhere else for more prospects. It’s their cycle, and it’s a bittersweet cycle, with emphasis on the bitter, and emphasis on the sweet.

Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit baseball rumors. From Ken Rosenthal:

Sources: #RedSox trying to get G. Gonzalez, Bailey in “monster” deal. #Rangers, #Rays also on Bailey. #Nationals team to beat on Gio. #MLBWhen I read the world “monster”, it triggers something in my brain that reads the whole tweet in John Malkovich’s voice from Rounders, which makes Ken Rosenthal that much more interesting.

word is, trade talk “progressing” with gio. lhp, 26, popular beyond belief. nats r definitely still in, not sure who elsePopular beyond belief. The kind of pitcher who wins homecoming king, but still treats the guys in the math club with more respect than the rest of the football team. Head of the class, mom says he’s a catch, quarterback, never picked last. That’s Gio Gonzalez.

That’s a pretty substantial selection of prospects, which gives you an idea of why the A’s might be interested. In addition to Norris, Cole is a 19-year-old right-hander with an impressive strikeout rate, Peacock is another right-hander with great strikeout numbers, and Hood is a 21-year-old outfielder who has already shown solid on-base skills and emerging power.

Now’s about the time in Hot Stove season when you’re in an alley, slumped against a brick wall, and licking your computer screen to extract any lingering Rosenthal residue that might be there. You’ve O.D.‘d, man. Look at yourself. Too many unsubstantiated rumors will kill you. Or even worse, make you watch the NBA. Take it easy.

Garcia’s back. Hughes should be better. But counting on the same turn of good fortune seems crazy for a team that has billions and billions invested everywhere else in the lineup.

Much of that talk has been in an analytical vein, and much of that analysis has focused on Gonzalez’s control problems. It’s no secret that Gio Gonzalez has had some control problems. Last season, he led the league in walks. The season before, his walk total was one walk higher. Among starters, Gonzalez has baseball’s fourth-highest walk rate since 2009, and third-lowest strike rate. These are concerns. How much can you trust a pitcher who throws that many balls?

It’s also worth noting that Gonzalez has surpassed 200 innings in each of his two full seasons. Barely surpassed, but surpassed, so Gonzalez looks good from a pass/fail perspective. Put it all together and you have a starting pitcher who’s been both effective and durable.