January 31, 2008
Team Offense, Oakland Athletics
We continue to look at team offenses for 2008 with the Oakland Athletics.
Daric Barton
Photo: Icon SMI
In 2007, the Athletics scored 4.57 runs per game.
I plugged in a likely lineup to the Lineup Analysis Tool, using the Marcel the Monkey predictions from Tom Tango. Tango did not project Carlos Gonzalez, and I couldn't find another projection, so I just took about 20 points off his career minor league numbers. The lineups rate as follows:
- Best: 5.32 runs per game
- Given: 5.14 runs per game
- Worst: 5.04 runs per game
I wasn't expecting the lineup to look that good. Maybe Lew Wolff wasn't being overly optimistic. Putting Cust, Buck and Barton together in the middle of the lineup appears to have the possibility to generate a lot of offense.
Looking at these projections, it's also clear how much letting Tejada go hurt this team. At the time Beane made the right move, as it looked like Chavez would be the better player. Injuries, however, sapped Eric of his offense, and Bobby Crosby turned out to be a dud as a hitter at shortstop. If those two could put up decent numbers, this would be a very good offense.
Previous teams covered in the series:
Maybe Beanes scare the shit out of everyone again this year....
My gut feeling is that the Ranger fans that think their long nightmare of finishing in the bottom of the divison might not be as seemingly over as they would presume.
David,
These comparisons are fun to look at. Thanks for posting them.
It looks like most teams are set to improve this year. So far 13 of the 19 teams you've shown are improving. I would guess there is some bias in comparing last year's actual runs to projected runs from the starting lineup.
Last year's run numbers will include bench players and injury fill-ins, but the projected lineup only includes the starting 9. Is there an easy way to either add in some bench time to the projected lineup for 2008 or use the lineup tool to get a comparable number for 2007?