The 2022 series on team offense continues with the Oakland Athletics. The Athletics finished eleventh in the majors and sixth in the American League in 2021 with 4.59 runs scored per game.
This season I am using FanGraphs Roster Resource Depth Charts* as the source of default lineups. That Mark Kotsay batting order is plugged into the Lineup Analysis Tool (LAT) using Musings Marcels as the batter projections. That information produces the following results (Runs per game):
- Best lineup: 4.23
- Probable lineup: 4.17
- Worst lineup: 3.99
- Regressed lineup: 4.06
It is jarring to see so many low projected OBPs on this team. Moneyball taught the world the value of getting on base, and now the Athletics only slot in one player good at the skill, Tony Kemp. If the team possessed power at the cost of getting on base, that might be fine, but six of the nine players in the lineup project to slugging percentages below .400.
Oakland is going through a rebuild. Maybe this is a one or two year downswing before they bring along their next crop of good young players. I suspect A’s games are going to be short this season, as Oakland won’t be generating much offense.
You can follow the data for the series in this Google spreadsheet.
Previous posts in this series:
- Introduction
- Houston Astros
- Tampa Bay Rays
- Toronto Blue Jays
- Los Angeles Dodgers
- Boston Red Sox
- San Francisco Giants
- Chicago White Sox
- Atlanta Braves
- Colorado Rockies
*This is the best version of this information I’ve seen, with everything you might want to know on one page.