Quote:
Originally Posted by darkhorse
It would seem the A's put the lie to the notion that pitching and D are all you need to win. They've got both in abundance.
Moneyball V.2, me no likey.
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Pitching and defense was the blueprint, but the A's have ended up being a bit shallow in both, partly due to injury. The cracks in the P and D coupled with their horrible offense has been very apparent in the current losing streak, now at 9 games.
The staff has 40% (2 out of 5) guys being pretty iffy (Kennedy, DiNardo) for most of the year with Harden's absence. Gaudin was good overall, if a bit lucky, before the AS break, but the control problems of last year has re-appeared since and he has started to slide. Haren and Blanton are still solid, but that won't get you through half your games.
On the defensive side, the A's have really only 3 plus defenders, all in the IF, in Chavez-Crosby-Ellis. Swisher is a plus 1B when he's there, but has been in RF for the most part with an average-ish Dan Johnson at the bag the greater part of the time. In CF, the A's regularly trotted out a below-average Swisher before Kotsay returned from back surgery in June. Kotsay himself has slipped according to advanced metrics (possibly traceable to age and back difficulties) over the last several years and Stewart and Buck are about average at one or the other of the OF corners. Kendall was lauded for his pitch-calling and staff-handling, but was throwing out only 20% of prospective basestealers before the deal. It's probably a bit better than average defense all told, but the low BABIP the A's staff was putting up had as much to do with luck and the Coliseum's tendency to suppress that figure than actual stellar defense, the infield notwithstanding.