Oakland Athletics: An analysis of the season so far

The Oakland Athletics have put up mixed results in March/April thus far. They’ve had their moments but must string together more consistency in order to stay in play for the postseason.

We are now approaching the end of the first full month of baseball. For the Oakland Athletics and the Seattle Mariners, however, it’s been a bit longer since both clubs’ regular seasons started on March 20th in Tokyo, Japan.

A month in and teams’ forecasts have began to reveal themselves more clearly. Now, while a month is nowhere near enough time to thoroughly evaluate a team, it can still give a sneak peek into a squads’ strengths and weaknesses.

To date, the Athletics have been streaky with wins and losses coming in bunches. Overall, the club is floating around .500 with an 11-13 record at the time of writing. It’s clearly not how the A’s would have liked to start the season following 97 wins last year, but there is plenty of time to turn the ship around.

Let us begin with what Oakland has done unquestionably well.

The A’s have had no trouble putting the ball in the seats having hit 37 home runs so far — Khris Davis has 10 himself — which is tied for second in the American League. Subsequently, the A’s have scored the third most runs of any AL club. And it’s worth noting that they have done this without the help of Matt Olson, who has been on the mend due to a hand injury.

There is, however, room for improvement offensively. Although not terrible, the A’s are eighth and tenth in the league respectively in batting average and on-base-percentage, respectively. But if Bob Melvin‘s lineup could reach base more often, the gross product could become truly elite. Again though, while the A’s could be better at the plate, their bats have not been an issue.

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The Athletics Achilles heel to this point has been their pitching. There was no question that the A’s starting staff was somewhat “iffy” heading into the year. The rotation possesses no true ace — it’s made up of rebound candidates, unproven commodities, and/or pitchers with spotty injury histories.

Statistically, Oakland’s rotation ranks tenth in the American League with a 5.22 ERA. At first glance, that might not sound all that bad, but the teams behind are either rebuilding or enduring abnormal struggles.

The problem is, if a team has a shaky rotation, the bullpen must be that much better. A lot of the A’s success in 2018 can be credited to their bullpen, but 2019 has been a slightly different story.

The A’s have had a lopsided bullpen so far this year, with a few excellent performers led by Blake Treinen, and a few well-below average performers. Oakland relievers have posted a respectable 4.02 ERA (seventh in the A.L.) in the first month of play, but have had issues stranding runners on base.

The A’s bullpen has allowed more than 45 percent of inherited runners score, which is tied for last in all of baseball. To stress once more, the bullpen has not been awful, but with a less than stellar rotation it has to perform better.

To recap, we have seen the A’s have both good and not-so-good stretches of baseball so far in March/April, and it’s relatively clear as to why — a solid offense, an at least adequate defense, but shaky pitching. The Athletics have shown they have the talent to compete, it’s just a matter of working out the kinks from here on out.