Will there really be a 60-game baseball season in 2020? If so, how will teams that were expected to be competitors in 2020 fare with a wide open field given how unexpected a shortened 60 game season is. The Oakland Athletics are one team who has their championship sites set in a competitive field of American League powerhouses.
Amidst all the uncertainty around if the MLB is taking enough safety protocols and the ongoing news of star players Buster Posey and David Price among others opting out of the season, the Oakland Athletics look poised to be competitors if a shortened 60 game season gets underway.
These past two seasons the A’s have seen regular season success winning 97 games only to suffer the agony of defeat in the one game wild card playoff in back-to-back years. Having two new exciting young arms to add to their starting pitching depth, familiar faces 1-9 in a power hitting order, and being one of the MLB’s most productive defensive teams should suit the A’s well in an unconventional 60-game season.
Pitching
Despite one of their hopefuls in hard throwing rookie craze Jesus Luzardo testing positive for COVID19 the team has looked relatively unscathed by the pandemic. The A’s have strong depth in their young, hard-throwing pitching rotation that has potential to be one of MLB’s most dangerous rotations down the road. They have options to replace Luzardo, including veterans Chris Bassitt and Daniel Mengden, who have a chance to also emerge as quiet names that could have a big impact, especially as potential long relievers. Teams will need to rest their starters more in a shortened season. This help will have to come from the bullpen. Despite holding the third-lowest bullpen ERA in 2018, last year the bullpen really struggled. Only two of their bullpen pitchers managed to finish with respectable Earned Run Averages. The good news? Those two relievers were two of baseball’s most effective relievers last season: Yusmeiro Petit and closer Liam Henriks (who had the highest WAR among relievers last season. With a few adjustments to the lefties in the bullpen anything can happen in the shortened season and the bullpen will need to produce shutout innings if the team wants to rely on pitching depth.
Batting
What do the A’s have that other teams don’t? An everyday power hitting shortstop and team leader in Marcus Semien. Semien had a career year in 2019 as the centerpiece of the A’s success, slugging 33 Home Runs as the team’s leadoff hitter and finishing third in AL MVP voting while appearing in all 162 regular season games.
Apart from being the closest possibility to becoming the next “Iron Man” someone who goes out there and plays everyday, Semien has shown true stoic qualities of a team captain knowing his responsibilities during a pandemic. Outfielder Mark Canha commented that Semien has taken a leadership role with “staying on top of guys and harping on, ‘Hey, we need to take this seriously, we need to wear masks off the field and not do things where we can be exposed.”
Semien’s calm, cool, collected leadership has the support of a power-hitting cast of characters behind him as five other A’s players hit 20+ home runs in a year that saw a record 6,776 Home Runs. They managed to produce so much offensive production despite an off year from Khris Davis, who had been the rock of the A’s lineup from 2016-2018 hitting at least 40 home runs each year. Just imagine a lineup where Khris Davis is at his best with a team that combined for 257 home runs last year. They did all this while finishing in the bottom half in strikeouts.
Fielding
Once again Semien has a plethora of talent joining him as he locks down the shortstop position on the infield. Back-to-back Gold Glove winner Matt Chapman at the hot corner is perhaps the most clutch fielder in the game along with his counterpart across the diamond in back-to-back Gold Glove winning first basemen Matt Olson. Having an infield with capabilities like no other to make game saving plays, like pitching depth will be especially crucial where every game counts. Not to mention the team has four different dependable outfielders in Mark Canha, Ramon Laureano, Stephen Piscotty, and Robbie Grossman who proved they were capable of covering a wide range of ground throughout the outfield. It also helps that the team has one of the strongest outfield arms in the game in Ramon Laureano. All outfielders have also proven that they can be successful on both sides of the ball.
Overall Team Outlook
The A’s have a young roster put together by one of the games’ great analytic minds in Billy Beane and managed by one of the most respected men in the game Bob Melvin. Management, along with having strengths in every aspect of the game could make them one of the toughest competitors in the AL despite not holding as many of the biggest money household names, something the A’s have proven year after year they can do. If the A’s are going to be competitive however, they will not be able to get off to the same slow starts of 31-29 and 30-30 in their first 60 games of the season. They have 102 less games then a normal season to figure themselves out. If they play like they did in the second half of the last two seasons they could prove to be one of the all-around best teams in baseball.
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