Oakland Athletics: The Good and the Bad In 2016
The Bad
The Oakland Athletics’ injury woes were undoubtedly the worst part of their season. Beginning with Jarrod Parker, who reinjured his elbow in Spring Training and missed his third consecutive season, the A’s players were consistently battling injuries.
For some of those injured Athletics, this was likely their last season in an A’s uniform. Outfielder Sam Fuld missed the year after undergoing rotator cuff surgery in April. Off-season acquisition Henderson Alvarez never pitched a game due to continuing shoulder problems, although he did pitch 33 innings of rehab work in the minors. It’s unlikely that either will return next season, as Alvarez has already been outrighted to Triple-A.
Both Chris Bassitt and Felix Doubront underwent Tommy John surgery to start the season, although Bassitt made five starts before his injury. Bassitt will be back next year, but Doubront is likely to elect free agency.
Former Rule 5 pick Mark Canha played 27 games before the A’s lost him to season-ending hip surgery, and Eric Sogard also missed the 2016 campaign after he underwent knee surgery in April. Sogard was outrighted this week as well, so he too may also elect free agency over returning to the A’s next season.
Aside from the disabled list, there were quite a few other disappointments:
Sonny Gray:
Gray nearly took home the Cy Young in 2015, but his performance this season was far from award-worthy. In 22 starts, Gray went 5-11 with a 5.69 ERA. He walked 42 batters and struck out just 94, over 117 innings.
In addition to posting abysmal numbers for an ace, Gray had a pair of disabled list stints. It simply wasn’t a good season for the young right-hander. At 26 years old, it’s important to remember that there are still plenty of seasons left in Gray’s future. If he was going to have a poor year, this was certainly the best time for it, given the rest of the team’s performance.
The A’s are hoping he’ll bounce back in 2017, and there’s no reason to think he won’t. A pitcher who has been as consistently good as Gray has been in his career doesn’t just fall off the radar like this. Hopefully, he can put all of his struggles this year in the rearview mirror prior to Spring Traing.
The Whole Pitching Staff:
Overall, it was a disappointing year for most of the A’s hurlers. The team had the second-worst ERA in the AL, behind only the Minnesota Twins. Opposing hitters batted .263 against them, which ranked 13th among AL clubs.
While Sean Manaea held his own in the majors, the A’s would be lying if they tried to say he was ready for a big league job at the time he debuted. However, the alternatives to Manaea included pitchers like Ross Detwiler, Eric Surkamp, and Daniel Coulombe – players who are perhaps better suited to a long-relief role than a starting job. Oakland felt that they had no choice but to call Manaea up, rushing his development.
Unfortunately for the A’s, the injuries to their starters continued to pile up, and they ended up needing those less-than-top-tier arms as well. Kendall Graveman underperformed at times, as well. The combination of these factors made the Athletics pitching staff one of the weakest points of their roster, despite some interesting debuts by top pitching prospects like Daniel Mengden and Jharel Cotton.
The Use of Andrew Triggs
Let’s say you manage to acquire a career reliever with the talent to be a top-notch bullpen arm. Then, due to a lack of options, you have him throw 76 pitches in a relief outing before forcing him into a new role as a spot-starter.
That’s a pretty irresponsible way to manage a young and potentially-useful reliever. Despite the fact that Triggs pitched pretty well, for what he was asked to do – a 4.31 ERA in 56 innings – this was a disappointing decision. Triggs ended his season early, after being pulled from a start with a back injury.
As a closer for Baltimore’s Double-A club last season, Triggs posted a 1.03 ERA and struck out 70 batters in 61 innings. Since being drafted in 2012, Triggs had never earned an ERA over 2.90 – but that was as a reliever.
Beane seems to think that this experiment with Triggs was successful, and that he might be a potential starter next season – but in the future, the A’s should refrain from using quality relievers in potentially-damaging situations.
The Entire Offense (Except Healy and Davis)
The A’s did not meet expectations at the plate in 2016, struggling with everything from power to contact. Among AL teams, the A’s ranked 14th in batting average (.246), 14th in stolen bases (50) and last in OPS (just .699). They also only ranked 12th in home runs.
Those numbers are atrocious, especially considering that the A’s had Khris Davis and his 42 homers on their side. There were two MLB players who had more individual stolen bases than the A’s did as a team.
The A’s have to hope that Stephen Vogt, who was an All-Star in the first half but fell off after the break, will get things turned around heading into next season. Young players like Ryon Healy and even Joey Wendle could help the club to turn things around offensively if given a full season in the big leagues.
The A’s have a lot of room for improvement offensively, so Billy Beane and David Forst will need to be on the lookout for some reliable bats over the winter.