It has become one of those seasons where you ask yourself, “Will Ernie Clement, a career .253/.288/.364 hitter, fall a triple short of the cycle against us for the third straight game?” And where the answer is, “Yeah, prolly.”
It has been the strangest of seasons in that while losing an appalling 16 of 17 and 18 of 21, the A’s have vacillated between two kinds of losses that could not be more contrasting: blowing late leads for crushing losses, often by one run, or getting blown out in lopsided affairs that bruise both the run differential and the ego.
This bi-polar existence, in which all the two types of games have in common is an A’s loss, makes it tricky to assess exactly where the problems lie. It is fair to point to the bullpen, singularly, as causing half a dozen of the losses in games where had everything else remained identical — shaky defense, poor RISP-y hitting and all — the A’s would have won. But then come the shellackings, in which the starting pitching, hitting and defense all look like a mismatch between a “real team” and a team far from being ready to compete.
The Blame Game
Assigning blame is not actually the most constructive exercise, even if it’s human nature to do so. The goal here is not to shame the right people, it’s to get the team to a place where it can actually outscore its opponents for a full 9 innings.
It’s easier to fire one manager than it is to jettison 26 players, so managers often take the brunt of a season gone south, just as pitching coaches are usually considered the main reason mediocre pitchers don’t pitch well. And if a team goes 1 for 12 with RISP, well that’s on the hitting coach. All of which would not have been a problem if the front office had just made the trades and signings you suggested in December without knowing what deals were actually possible and who wanted to sign to play in a AAA stadium.
So where should, and shouldn’t, blame lie for the A’s season of “higher expectations” taking a nose dive before the calendar even hit June?
As I see it, the manager and pitching coach bear some responsibility for the team’s struggles but not to the extent of giving a free pass to some talented athletes who just haven’t performed well enough at times. Here’s my analysis of where the issues are — and then aren’t — with the manager and coaches.
Where Blame Is Justified
Fundamentals
The A’s can’t just “pitch better” or “hit better with RISP”. But they can do all the fundamental things soundly, and their inability to thrive in the areas they can fully control reflects poorly on the manager/coaches.
Missing the cutoff man is perhaps the most glaring and easy to provide example. Hitting the cutoff man is surprisingly easy to do all the time, because the system is based on the cutoff man positioning himself such that if you fire it to his chest, if he lets it go it is also the right throw to bounce right to the base.
So the “art” of throwing the ball from the outfield is reduced to “always try to fire a strike to the cutoff man’s chest”. That’s it. Every time. Watching outfielders like Butler balloon throws on the fly over the cutoff man’s head only to allow other runners to advance is just a breakdown in basic fundamentals. Sure, 1 in 100 times it might get you an out you wouldn’t have gotten otherwise, but time and time again in between it costs bases and runs. No manager should allow this to happen over and over.
The A’s may not be a skilled defensive team, but that is not Kotsay’s fault. That they fail to play the right in a fundamentally sound manner? That’s on the manager.
Hustle
Kotsay is often praised for keeping the mood of the team up even during down times. This may be true, but one recurring moment sticks in my craw as reflecting very badly on the skipper.
That moment is watching Butler, he of the recent contract extension and a young leader on the team, jog up the 1B line putting zero pressure on the infielders on routine ground balls. It’s not even about how many errors you can force by hustling — and I remember Mark Canha beating out an ordinary 2 hopper to 2B just by surprising the 2Bman with his dash down the line. It’s just a bad look, and it’s not necessary unless you’re actively protecting yourself from an injury you’re playing through.
That lack of hustle may reflect poorly on Butler, and it does, but it also reflects poorly on the manager and coaches.
In Game Strategy
Tactical strategy impacts the game on a day to day basis, but is a bit overrated in general by fans when judging a manager. Leadership, keeping players focused and working hard, communication — these are all less visible aspects of managing that are very real.
But strategy is important and honestly Kotsay probably has the least acumen of any manager I have rooted for — something I never thought I would say after enduring Bob “what’s a double switch again?” Geren.
I have written about it enough in the past that I won’t belabor the point too much here, but on a daily basis I am shocked by the lack of just basic understanding of percentages and common sense. For example:
Infield In: Kotsay is way too eager to bring the infield in when it’s not a smart percentage move. He doesn’t seem to realize that with the sharper angles on ground balls and the increased space for pop flies to fall in the outfield, bringing the infield in makes opposing hitters closer to .400 hitters than the .250 hitters they were when they arrived to the ballpark.
It’s also true that you are not “conceding a run” by playing the infield back. You still prevent a run with a strikeout, a pop up, a grounder to 3B or a comebacker. What you should be guarding against, most of the time, is opening up a big inning with a hit.
As a result one of the worst times to bring the in is with runners at 2B and 3B, where a hit can score 2 straightaway. You certainly don’t bring the infield in with the score 1-1 in the 2nd inning and runners at 2nd and 3rd with 0 outs, yet that’s exactly what Kotsay did just last night. And sure enough a ground ball was hit that would have been a routine out with the infield back, and was going to instead be a 2-run single but for a sparkling diving play by Jacob Wilson.
Bad At “Small Ball”
Kotsay seems a bit obsessed with sacrificing runners from 1B with 0 outs even though it has been statistically shown to suppress crooked number innings and only very marginally increase odds of scoring 1.
Where the A’s so have opportunity this season is to use the hit-and-run to stay out of DPs and create “1B to 3B” success. They have the perfect combination of several good contact hitters and relatively little natural speed on the bases.
Jacob Wilson and Miguel Andujar in particular, along with Luis Urias and Max Schuemann, should have their strong contact/low K skills tapped into regularly when there is a runner at 1B and less than 2 outs. It is, frankly, an indictment of the manager that Wilson has grounded into 9 DPs already this season.
From letting bad relievers blow games while better relievers stand warmed up in the pen, to issuing intentional walks to load the bases and create easily seen worse statistical probabilities of success, Kotsay is in over his head when it comes to strategy.
Not Resourceful
Baseball is, at its best, a “take what they give you” extravaganza. When you see a 3Bman 25 feet off the line and 2 steps behind the bag, that’s when a bunt is a good idea — a bunt for a hit.
Speaking of bunts, I seethe when I see a runner at the corners, less than 2 outs, and the 2Bman shaded strongly near the bag cheating for the DP, and a guy like Wilson, Urias, or Schuemann, now Clarke, up, and they bounce into a DP or K.
If you push a bunt by the mound it is very, very likely to be a hit because really there’s no one in position to field it quickly. Guaranteed is to score a run even if you’re thrown out. And it’s an easy bunt to get down because there is so much margin for error — clear the pitcher and place it anywhere to the right of the 1Bman and you have at least gotten the run home.
The point being there are ways the A’s could massage their RISP-y problems to squeeze a few more runs out of these situations while hitters are scuffling, if they were more observant and oriented towards “noticing and seizing opportunities”.
Defensively, take a page out of the Astros’ playbook from a few years ago and bring your COFer in several steps to the off field against non power hitters, especially with 2 strikes. You can take away a lot of hits in front of you (as Butler did last night), and hitters without a lot of power just don’t hit many warning track fly balls the other way.
Sure you will occasionally regret it with a double just over your OFer’s head, just as with the shift sometimes you watched a “routine bouncer to SS” roll into left field. You are playing the odds, and you can take away a ton of hits with smart positioning rather than let slappy hitters slap hits to the one spot they have the skill set to access.
So from breakdowns in fundamentals to allowing bad optics to poor strategy and inability to be properly resourceful, the skipper does have a hand in what has happened to the A’s season going from a promising April to a devastating May.
HOWEVER…Kotsay also does some things well, as do his coaches, and there are plenty of reasons for the A’s troubles that are out of his control, and out of the control of his coaches or General Manager.
And these observations will be the basis for my next article, so friends and family of A’s coaches please hold off on your hate mail. Hopefully by then this funk will be behind the A’s and we will be talking from the lens of a winning streak rather than daily floggings and heartbreaks.