Comments on: The A’s sign Brian Fuentes http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/01/17/the-as-sign-brian-fuentes/ Baseball. Baseball. And then a bit more baseball. Thu, 23 May 2013 01:22:14 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: apbaguy http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/01/17/the-as-sign-brian-fuentes/comment-page-1/#comment-104868 Mon, 17 Jan 2011 17:24:59 +0000 http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/?p=35502#comment-104868 The A’s are setting up to win a lot of 1-run games this year, or at least try to. The expectation is that their offense is good enough to average 4.4 runs a game (don’t laugh, last year they averaged 4.09. The rangers averaged 4.89). The A’s gave up 3.86 runs per game, while cross-bay rivals and WS champs los Gigantes gave up around 3.55.

This is great in theory. The problem is that the strategy rests upon two shaky pillars:
- the young starters will further progress. History suggests young starters progress not linearly, but in an overall upward pattern that includes some backsliding. Cahill and Gio are good candidates for regression this year.
- everyone stays healthy. Except for the bullpen, the A’s have no depth. If a starter goes down, the replacement player is a big drop from the starter, and often the replacement player is also prone to injury.

The A’s probably won’t win 90 games, even with everyone relatively healthy. Even with the addition of DeJesus (career year), and Willingham (moving to pitchers park), there isn’t enough to the offense to overcome a bad day by the starters, whereas Texas can do that.

Still, it’s a step forward for the team. And they still have a few bucks to spend. Hopefully they can find this year’s version of Aubrey Huff, a .910 OPS guy in a pitcher’s park who only cost $ 3m. Good luck with that.

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