Captain 97 wrote: ↑Mon Oct 04, 2021 5:47 pm
SeattleSportsRUs wrote: ↑Mon Oct 04, 2021 5:35 pm
Captain 97 wrote: ↑Mon Oct 04, 2021 5:13 pm
The A's went for it this year. They picked up players at the deadline because they knew this was going to be their best shot.
They are losing Marte, Canha, Gomes, Petit, Romo, Lowrie, Moreland, Harrison, Fiers and Davis to Free agency. They have no ability to replace those guys in free agency because the guys that they have left are getting expensive. Olson, Chapman, Manaea, Bassitt, Laureano, Montas, Trivino, Pinder, Kemp, and Guerra are all in arbitration and they are predicted to get around 60 Million combined for the coming season. Add that to the 25 Million that they owe to Andrus, Piscotty and Diekman and the payroll will be about the same as it was this year before they even look at replacing those free agent losses. I don't think there is any way they compete in the next couple of years and they know it. I think they will blow it all up and do another of their rebuilds.
The A's were arguably just as good a team if not better before they traded for Marte, Harrison and Gomes. They had a lot of injuries that hamstringed them going into their playoff run. Moreland had a .701 OPS, Gomes .631, Lowrie .717 and Davis was a late addition after the Rangers dropped him. Sergio Romo is 400 years old, Petit throws 90 MPH. Fiers pitched 2 games for them in 2021 with an ERA above 7 and he was a dumpster dive addition when they grabbed him.
Olson, Chapman, Manaea, Bassitt, Laureano, Montas, Trivino, Pinder, Kemp, and Guerra is still a great, young core and the A's will dumpster dive yet again to compete. There's no reason to think they wont - they always land guys nobody want who then turn around and overperform.
So you think they are just going to replace 10 guys by bringing up players from AAA or giving out minimum salary deals and be able to have a better record than they did this year?
They have the 26th rated farm system in baseball. They have no one to call up.
Unless they wan't to increase their payroll to the 100 milion range (which they have never done) they have no money to spend even on 3-4 million dollar type guys. I just don't see how its possible.
I think they will do what they have done consistently for this entire century and restock their farm system through trades.
Yes I do. Even with the arb money increase (which of course they've budgeted for), they're still going to shed around $12 million in payroll getting rid of the dead weight in a few guys. They can use that money to go out and sign guys to replace them for just as cheap - they have to hope the players they sign are hits, but more times than not they have been. The big sell-off should happen before the 2023 when the guys they have are going to get REALLY expensive. That said, that might even be the case if by then they're the Las Vegas A's.
Lineup - they need to replace 3.2 WAR in 4 position players, easily done lol.
DH - Mitch Moreland - 0.0 WAR
1B - Matt Olson - 5.8 WAR
2B - Jed Lowrie - 0.1 WAR
SS - Elvis Andrus - 0.6 WAR (I'd bring up Nick Allen and get rid of Andrus ASAP)
3B - Matt Chapman - 3.5 WAR
LF - Mark Canha - 2.5 WAR
CF - Ramon Laureano - 2.5 WAR
RF - Seth Brown - 1.4 WAR
C - Sean Murphy - 2.7 WAR
They don't need to do a thing to their starting pitching staff - maybe sign a 6th starter, but you can do way worse than what they've got.
1. Frankie Mantas - 3.6 WAR
2. Chris Bassit - 3.9 WAR
3. Sean Manea - 3.4 WAR
4. Cole Irvin - 1.5 WAR
5. James Kaprielan - 1.4 WAR
Bullpen - they need to replace 0.6 WAR here, easily done.
Lou Trevino - 1.2 WAR
Yusmeirio Petit - 0.8 WAR
Deolis Guerra - 0.2 WAR
Sergio Romo - 0.1 WAR
Jake Diekman - 0.4 WAR
Burch Smith - -0.2 WAR
Andrew Chafin - 2.9 WAR
JB Wendelken - 0.2 WAR
