The Oakland Athletics Overcoming Early Challenges

It’s 2022 and the Oakland Athletics are still finding ways to blow up their roster while simultaneously finding ways to win along the margins.

The A’s head into today’s game with an 8-6 record following a series victory over the visiting Baltimore Orioles. They’re only a half game out of first place in the AL West, and although it’s a long season, the A’s have already exceeded expectations in many ways.

To many people’s surprise, the A’s offense has been carrying them early in the season, even following the offseason trades of Matt Olson and Matt Chapman.

As per usual, the A’s offense has been carried by a relative unknown, Sheldon Neuse, who is in his second stint with the A’s. Neuse is interesting, because he seems to be a part of this emerging Oakland, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Tampa Bay, Houston, and San Francisco pipeline.

For the past 7-10 years (the San Francisco Giants have entered the fold more recently), there has been a number of players who have played for at least two, sometimes three, of these teams. All of which are the more analytically driven teams in MLB.

Neuse was acquired by the A’s in 2017 in the deal that sent Sean Doolittle and Ryan Madsen to the Washington Nationals. Then in 2021, Neuse was traded by the A’s to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the Adam Kolarek trade.

This past offseason the Dodgers DFA’d Neuse and the Oakland Athletics were more than happy to snatch him back up, as they are prone to do.

The A’s also re-signed Stephen Vogt, Billy McKinney, and Jed Lowrie this offseason, making it four players making their return to the green and gold in 2022.

Surprisingly, Neuse has been the A’s offensive leader to start the season, but he is also outperforming Matt Chapman offensively. Chapman is having a great start for the Toronto Blue Jays where he is slashing .273/.347/.455 with a 138 wRC+. Neuse is slashing .368/.429/.474 and posting a whopping 180 wRC+, which would be good for a spot in the top 20, but he is just outside the qualifying amount of plate appearances.

Additionally, a majority of the A’s regulars boast an over 100 wRC+.

The A’s also started their season with a tough and long road trip that took them through Philadelphia, Tampa Bay, and Toronto. Despite that tough road schedule the A’s managed to go .500.

Yes, a series win over the Baltimore Orioles should not be considered a high water mark. Nor should it be an indicator that the A’s may be contenders this season. However they won this series with three of their best offensive starters (Jed Lowrie, Stephen Piscotty, and Chad Pinder) on the COVID-19 IL.

The A’s pitching has also been solid this year, sporting the 11th best team ERA and 15th best FIP. They are also outscoring opponents 66-50 thus far, good for a pythagorean record of 9-5.

In the book Moneyball, Michael Lewis lays out Paul DePodesta’s equation that is foundation for building a contender. He writes, “He judged how many wins it would take to make the play-offs: 95. He then calculated how many more runs the Oakland A’s would need to score than they allowed to win 95 games: 135.”

Exactly 20 seasons later, and this is still the foundation of the Oakland A’s success. Although it’s early in the season, average pitching, above average offense, and this time outstanding defense (or run prevention) has led to a surprise start for a team that was written off by all before a spring training pitch was even thrown.

With the Houston Astros, Texas Rangers, and Seattle Mariners all off to disappointing starts, the A’s look to shock the baseball world much like they did in 2002. The A’s are in an interesting position to start the season. There’s a long way to go, but the Oakland Athletics are off to a solid start and they could, as they usually do, overachieve again in 2022.