Pressing Questions: The Oakland A's

After eight consecutive winning seasons from 1999-2006, not once finishing lower than second in the AL West in that span, Oakland has gone four years without finishing on the positive side of the Win-Loss ledger. And while GM Billy Beane continues to turn over the roster (signing Hideki Matsui(notes), trading for David DeJesus(notes) and Josh Willingham(notes) this offseason) and explore every sabermetric angle, the Moneyball honeymoon appears to be over – and after committing nearly $20 million to set-up men Brian Fuentes(notes) and Grant Balfour(notes) over the next two years, perhaps the Show Me the Money-ball era has begun.

As it currently stands, Oakland does not have one player going, on average, higher than No. 120 overall in early '11 fantasy live drafts. By comparison, the two worst teams in the league in '10, Seattle (3) and Pittsburgh (2), both have at least a couple representatives among that crowd. The A's do have five players going inside the top 200 and, of those, four are pitchers. That's where we'll start this edition of Pressing Questions:

What are we to make of Trevor Cahill's(notes) breakout 2010 season?

Cahill turned in a fabulous '10 roto line (18 W, 2.97 ERA, 1.11 WHIP, 118 K). He has been a lightning rod topic in the aftermath of his impressive sophomore campaign thanks to a league-low .236 BABIP. Based on the obvious assumption that Cahill was extremely lucky, many are expecting a mighty regression from Cahill in '11. And I'm not saying those people are wrong. But let's make sure that we understand that there's more to Cahill's BABIP than meets the eye.

Cahill pitches to contact – 92.5% of the time that a hitter swung at a Cahill offering, he put the bat on the ball in '10. Yet, despite all that contact, not much of it was good contact – he had the seventh-lowest Line Drive% (15.0) among starters. This represented a 3.1% decline in LD% from his rookie season (18.1%), but that can, to a large degree, be explained by a sharp increase (8.2%) in his Ground Ball% as he became much more reliant on his sinkerball in '10, throwing it 10.4% more often than his rookie year. So, while a healthy dose of luck certainly factored into Cahill's meteoric improvement last season, I think that it's a fair case to make that Cahill certainly was also aided by his ability to induce weak contact – he's enjoyed low BABIPs in each of his two seasons in Oakland and his final season in the minors in '08 – and by a solid defense behind him.

Cahill's biggest issue is that he doesn't strike hitters out, at least not nearly often enough. Of all qualified starters last season, only 17 had a lower K/9 rate than Cahill's 5.40 mark. If we are to assume that his '10 BABIP was a best-case scenario and that a correction is on the way, then you are suddenly looking at a mid- to upper-3 ERA starter with low K potential. In that case, Cahill suddenly lands on the level with what Fausto Carmona(notes) or even teammate Dallas Braden(notes) were able to do in '10. Cahill has a better arm than both and I'd still easily rather take my chances with him as opposed to those two. But without the Ks, I’m not going to consider him in the top 175 picks of a standard mixed league. Give me fellow staff members Brett Anderson(notes) and Gio Gonzalez(notes) first.

What is the health status of closer Andrew Bailey(notes)?

Bailey had minor elbow surgery in September to clean up some loose particles. By all accounts, things are progressing fine in rehab and he should be ready for the start of spring training. That said, elbow injuries that involve Dr. James Andrews should always be alarming. For that reason, I think it's fair if you find the signing of reliever Brian Fuentes more than a bit curious. Oakland doesn't typically hand out $10 million to a closer, let alone a set-up man. And Oakland wasn't even rumored to be in the Fuentes sweepstakes until very late in the game. Said Fuentes about Beane and manager Bob Geren driving to his hometown (Merced) to pitch him on signing with the team:

"It was kind of awkward. I had never done much like that (in-person recruiting) before. I hadn't heard much from Oakland all offseason, and they came on strong."

Was that a sign of a lack of confidence in Bailey's health? If not, Fuentes is an expensive insurance policy. If you look at the two reliever signings, Fuentes held lefties to a .122 BAA last season, while Grant Balfour held righties to a .174 BAA. There's no doubt that they could make for a pretty wicked set-up program leading into Bailey. And perhaps that is Beane's greatest motivation. But I'd be sure I didn't overpay for Bailey on draft day, and I'd make sure I also had ample closer insurance as well.

Are we going to see much from prospects Chris Carter and Michael Taylor(notes) in '11?

It seems that just about every move Beane made this offseason was directly related to keeping Carter and Taylor down. By adding Josh Willingham, David DeJesus and Hideki Matsui, he's applied roadblocks at all the possible spots that Carter and Taylor could make an impact.

You might say that first base is an option for Carter, who has hit 25-plus home runs in four consecutive professional seasons, but it's really not. Daric Barton(notes) may not be everybody's All-American in fantasy circles, and his power clearly pales in comparison to Carter (and most everyone in the league at a corner position), but his 4.9 WAR number in '10 ranked as the 30th-best total by a position player last season. He's an OBP and fielding machine, and that won't escape Beane's notice. Carter's best shot is at DH or left field, and those spots are blocked by the veterans (Matsui, Willingham) brought in for the very purpose of holding down those spots in '11. Sometimes the best laid plans can go awry, but Oakland is going to give a long leash to its acquisitions first and foremost.

As for Taylor, DeJesus really crimps his ability to make the team, but Taylor's star diminished considerably while at Triple-A Sacramento last season, and he'd be best served spending much of the year repeating the level while he tries to rediscover his confidence (and power).

Where's the beef?

Assuming Chris Carter does not force his way into the lineup, this will be one of the leanest power-producing squads in the league – and even with Carter, it would probably still suffer in that department. Bill James projects the A's starting lineup for 118 home runs combined, an average of 13 per man. Newcomers Josh Willingham (22) and Hideki Matsui (21) are the only two players with an expected return of 20 or more. And those projections come with the assumption that each will see well above 500 ABs, which is an iffy proposition given the age and injury history of those two. Even if they do manage to stay physically fit all season, we're still talking about late-round roster filler. Frankly, if you were in a league that demanded that no Oakland offensive player could be drafted, you'd have a hard time noticing that you were dealing with a limited deck.

Among players who might be missed, Kurt Suzuki(notes) probably tops the list. He's coming off a disappointing season in which he hit just .242. But bad luck was a factor (.245 BABIP), as was health (19 DNPs because of an April oblique injury). He's very capable of rebounding to a .270/15/70/70 level. Consider him a borderline top 10 backstop.

David DeJesus could be interesting if he sticks the whole season in the No. 3 spot. He's a career .314 hitter from there, and he'll have a player hitting in front of him, Daric Barton, who got on base at a near-.400 clip last season. With Willingham and Matsui picking him up, and Coco Crisp(notes) and Barton setting his table, you can imagine a .290/10/80/80 line. That's pretty nice production, but it's not going to really move the needle from the outfield position in fantasy leagues.

No matter how rosy your A's glasses are, you're going to have a hard time spinning this offense as being a top two-thirds of the league offense. Obviously, this is not the place to go panhandling for fantasy gold.

Note: When I saw that Mike Davis card, I immediately began to wonder if he was Eddie Murphy's inspiration for Bowfinger (right). You have to admit, the resemblance is uncanny.

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Image courtesy of Getty