The Oakland paradigm
While everyone watched Seattle start, trip, fall over and get replaced by the Angels who emulated their ineptitude, Oakland won 97 games. A group of players most fans couldn’t name scored 5.02 runs/game – #4 in the AL – and allowed 4.16 runs/game – #6 best in the AL.
Their bullpen saved 44 games of 63 opportunities (19 blown saves) and lost just 17, second best in the AL behind Boston. The offense hit 227 home runs second only to the Yankees. That’s no mean feat when you play half your games in the Grand Canyon . . . err Oakland Coliseum.
Atlanta Braves
If you want to hit a home run, the ‘O-CO’ is not the place to go. It’s the 5th hardest homer park in baseball; third hardest for LHH and tenth hardest for RHH.
Not surprisingly they want to win again so trading a budding star isn’t high on their list, especially when he’s inexpensive.
Atlanta Braves fans bemoan the size of payroll increases, the Athletics’ are always looking to save a dollar or ten in payroll costs, so there might still be a trade there.
Another option for the Atlanta Braves
The 2019 Oakland outfield as projected today consists of Nick Martini, Laureano, and Stephen Piscotty backed up by Mark Canha, Chad Pinder and Dustin Fowler.
All of those players are inexpensive for most teams. But this is Oakland, and they might like to free up a couple of million to reinforce another area. If so, then Piscotty might be available.
Perhaps Piscotty
If you aren’t aware of the back story, the Cardinals traded Piscotty to Oakland last December so he could be near his mother whose illness had become more serious. Sadly his mother – just 55 years-old – passed away due to ALS five months later.
Piscotty played well for Oakland as these numbers from Fangraphs show.
| PA | HR | R | RBI | BB% | K% | BABIP |
| 605 | 27 | 78 | 88 | 6.9% | 18.8% | .290 |
| AVG | OBP | SLG | wOBA | wRC+ | WAR | ISO |
| .267 | .331 | .491 | .351 | 125 | 3 | .223 |
At first glance, he appears to have a reverse split. However, a closer look at the numbers shows that Piscotty’s 2017 season – the year his mother’s illness became worse – skews the numbers. Removing that year and looking at 2015,16, and 18, or just 2016 and 2018 show a reverse split too small to consider.
| 2015, 2016, and 2018 splits | |||||||||
| PA | BB% | K% | BB/K | AVG | OBP | SLG | OPS | ISO | |
| Vs. RHP | 1086 | 6.3% | 20.7% | 0.3 | .276 | .331 | .428 | .759 | .176 |
| Vs. LHP | 424 | 10.6% | 18.4% | 0.6 | .276 | .366 | .434 | .800 | .193 |
Other considerations
Defensively, UZR doesn’t like Piscotty. It could be his lack of speed causing his bad ratings; he has just average speed. That meant the wide-open pasture of the O-CO did him no favors. When he played right field in St Louis, he posted +8 DRS in 2017 and +4 DRS in 2016.
Piscotty earns $7.3M each of the next two seasons and $7.6M in 2021 and 2022 with a $15M team option for 2023. His excess value is roughly the same as that of Laureano and Finnegan combined.