This is part of a series of posts wherein we belittle teams for their boneheaded winter bumbling, or else praise them their their prescient preseason ploys.

The Oakland A’s had a busy offseason. Despite trimming payroll by about $10 million from last season to this season, they found some spare change in the clubhouse couch to make a few moves in the free agent market, signing Coco Crisp to take over in center field (1 year, $4.5 million), inking Gabe Gross as a backup outfielder (1 year, $785,000), and gambling on oft-injured starter Ben Sheets (1 year, $10 million).

True outcome fans will be pleased that the good-natured Cust returns for another season of never putting the ball in play

In addition, they managed to resign three true outcomes champion Jack Cust to return as DH (1 year, $2.65 million) and starter Justin Duchscherer (1 year, $2 million), who missed all last season due to injury.

They also made a flurry of trades. First they traded some spare parts to the Chicago Cubs for positionless masher Jake Fox and futility infielder Aaron Miles. Then they flipped Miles to the Reds for outfielder Willy Taveras and infielder Adam Rosales, only to release Taveras to make room on the roster to sign Gross.

Next they managed to insert themselves into the blockbuster Roy Halladay-Cliff Lee deal between Philadelphia, Seattle, and Toronto as a minor fourth party, shipping 3B prospect Brett Wallace (whom they had acquired from the Cardinals last season in the Matt Holliday deal) to Toronto for outfield prospect Michael Taylor.

Lastly, they returned erstwhile Padre Scott Hairston to San Diego along with outfield prospect Aaron Cunningham for third baseman Kevin Kouzmanoff and a minor leaguer, siginaling that the A’s have finally given up once and for all on the idea that Eric Chavez will ever be healthy again.

Although the A’s will once again have one of the lowest payrolls in the game, at around $50 million on opening day, Billy Beane keeps doing what he always does, wheeling and dealing and creatively patching the leaky hulk that is the perennially undermanned A’s as best he can through sheer guile.

His approach this offseason appears to be the same as the one he has used for the past few years: an approach that Fangraphs has summarized as “Adam Dunns and Endy Chavezes”, i.e. scooping up players who are undervalued either because they are really good at defense or really bad at defense.

The problem is that it’s never really enough. You can have every player on your whole team returning you more theoretical value than they are actually getting paid, but if your team payroll is only $50 million it still might not add up to enough value overall to get your team into the playoffs.

All that said, you still have to like a lot of these moves if you are an A’s fan. Crisp and Cust are almost sure to return more value than they are getting paid, Fox is a good bat to have around, and Duchscherer is a good gamble at only $2 million because even though he’s coming off of injuries, when healthy he has been very, very good. The Kouzmanoff deal is also very exciting for the A’s because they’ll finally have a legitimate third baseman who is good with both the bat and the glove, and Kouzmanoff is still under team control for three years.

The one move I find questionable is signing Ben Sheets. Sheets has not cleared the 200 innings mark since 2004, so it’s hard to expect true ace-like dominance for a whole season from him. If he even clears 165 innings this year, you would have to call that a success, but given the downside risk, is that really worth $10 million? Are the A’s really just one healthy Ben Sheets away from contention that it’s worth spending one-fifth of their entire team payroll on a gamble that he can stay on the field?

I also wonder what is going to happen with this team in 2011. All these 1-year contracts are great in that there’s less risk for the team and more flexibility, but the A’s have basically no one at all under contract for 2011 (nope, not even Eric Chavez!!), so that is an awful lot of flexibility. There’s something to be said for having some certainty, but then again, maybe Billy Beane doesn’t really care much for certainty.

In the end, it was a very eventful offseason, and most of the moves were solid, but it doesn’t look like the A’s really did enough to get themselves over the hump and back into contention, especially with Seattle going for broke and the Angels reloading. The Athletics have still got an awful lot of talented young players coming up through the pipeline though, especially talented young pitchers, so maybe something exciting will happen with all that roster flexibility in 2011. 2010 though, could be another long year in Oak-town.

Grade: B

Acquisitions: SP Ben Sheets, OF Coco Crisp, 3B Kevin Kouzmanoff, IF Jake Fox, OF Gabe Gross, IF Adam Rosales

Losses: SP Dana Eveland, SS Bobby Crosby, OF Scott Hairston, IF Nomar Garciaparra, IF Adam Kennedy, 3B Brett Wallace

Projected Lineup, Rotation, and Closer

C – Kurt Suzuki
1B – Daric Barton/Jake Fox
2B – Mark Ellis
3B – Kevin Kouzmanoff
SS – Cliff Pennington
LF – Rajai Davis
CF – Coco Crisp
RF – Ryan Sweeney
DH – Jack Cust

SP1 – Ben Sheets
SP2 – Justin Duchscherer
SP3 – Brett Anderson
SP4 – Dallas Braden
SP5 – Trevor Cahill

CL – Andrew Bailey

- Hot Offseason Action Index -

"I like it the twitter"

Im sure you guys are aware that, much to the dismay of his GM Kenny Williams, White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen is on Twitter.

Guillen says he won’t let his new micro-blogging habit interfere with baseball, and he doesn’t understand the hoopla surrounding his use of the service if so many other baseball people are on it.

In case you wondered whether or not this was the real Guillen behind the thumbs, it really is him tweeting from his phone… and as most predicted, it’s gold.

From his typos, to his use of Spanglish, to his attempts to remain politically neutral regarding his native Venezuela. So far however, the best ones are in Spanish…

To wit:

Estoy lleno un anisito no cae mal ustedes que viene prendan fosforos about 12 hours ago via txt

(I’m stuffed a little licorice drink wouldn’t hurt you guys headed over here light some matches)

Tengo 15 dias sin tomar pero provoca una polarcita about 14 hours ago via txt

(It’s been 15 days without a drink but im craving me some polar)

[Polar is like the Budweiser of Venezuela]

Esperando a joey oney y andrew jones para empezar la parrillada 4:57 PM Feb 24th via txt

(Waiting on joey oney and andrew jones to start the grill)

This is part of a series of posts wherein we fustigate teams for their foolhardy offseason fumbles, or else fervently fawn over their felicitous free-agent finesse.

The Tampa Bay Rays had a rather quiet offseason. The big move was acquiring closer Rafael Soriano in a trade with the salary-dumping Braves.

2B Zobrist emerged as a potential superstar last year, posting an MLB-best 8.6 WAR

Otherwise, the Rays just made two other, tiny moves, trading a minor leaguer to the Indians for backup catcher Kelly Shoppach to provide some competition and another option for incumbent Dioner Navarro, who slumped badly last season, and signing journeyman 1B Dan Johnson to play a role off the bench.

But sometimes less is more, and that is certainly the case with the Rays this offseason. Other than finding a closer, which they successfully did, there were really no other moves to make, as the Rays are completely stacked up and down the roster for 2010 with hot young stars.

There is nothing the Rays could have done this offseason which would have made them a lock for the playoffs, since they play in the same division as the Yankees and Red Sox, but by largely standing pat, they have insured that they will be in position to make a run should one of the big boys falter this year.

The fact is that the Rays still have a very good team, and blowing up this roster would not have made any sense. Their pythagorean record last year was 86-76, which is very, very good considering the division they play in, and all it would take for the Rays to get back up over 90 wins is for a few players to have break-out seasons, which is very conceivable given how much young talent the Rays will be running out there this year.

In other words, the Rays will have just as good a chance of making the playoffs in 2010 as they have ever had, so Rays fans should not worry too much about this year and just see how things turn out. If Rays fans really want to worry about something, they should worry about 2011, when much of the team will become free agents.

In fact the Rays only have four players signed to any kind of contract after this season, and they are likely to dramatically slash payroll in 2011, having gotten almost no attendence bump from their 2008 World Series run despite raising payroll by $20 million in 2009 and then by another $6 million this year. If I were a Rays fan, I’d be trying to figure out some way to rally my fellow fans to get out to the Trop this year in large numbers, because it would be hard to blame the team for cutting payroll in 2011 if the fans continue to be AWOL despite the genuinely exciting product on the field.

Grade: B+

Acquisitions: CL Rafael Soriano, C Kelly Shoppach, 1B Dan Johnson

Losses: 2B Akinori Iwamura, OF Gabe Gross, RP Jason Isringhausen, RP Troy Percival, RP Russ Springer, RP Joe Nelson, RP Brian Shouse, RP Chad Bradford

Projected Lineup, Rotation, and Closer

C – Dioner Navarro
1B – Carlos Pena
2B – Ben Zobrist
3B – Evan Longoria
SS – Jason Bartlett
LF – Carl Crawford
CF – BJ Upton
RF – Gabe Kapler/Matt Joyce
DH – Pat Burrell

SP1 – James Shields
SP2 – Matt Garza
SP3 – Jeff Neimann
SP4 – David Price
SP5 – Wade Davis

CL – Rafael Soriano

-Hot Offseason Action Index-

This is part of a series of posts wherein we maul teams for their malodorous offseason miscues, and deify them for their deftly discerning deals.

Simply put, the Nationals under GM Mike Rizzo had an outstanding offseason.

Last summer I wrote that with the Phillies starting to age, the Mets in disarray, and some big contracts coming off the books for Washington this offseason, the Nats have a possible window for contention in 2010.

Ryan Zimmerman busted out last season to the tune of 33 HR and a world-beating 20.1 UZR on defense

After assessing the Nationals strengths and needs, I wrote that in order to have hopes of taking advantage of this window, this offseason the Nats needed to find a front-of-the-rotation starter, a second baseman, and a closer. Estimating that the team might be able to find about $16 million or so to spend on free agents, I offered a scenario in which the Nats might sign John Lackey, Adam Kennedy, and Kevin Gregg.

The Nats basically went out and did everything I wanted, but even better and more sensibly than my suggestion. They actually scrounged up $17 million for free agents, and did go out and get a front-line starter, a second baseman and a closer. They actually did sign Adam Kennedy, just as I suggested (for a very reasonable 1 year, $1.25 million), but instead of getting Lackey (which was probably entirely unrealistic of me to even propose), they took very reasonable gambles on Jason Marquis (2 years, $15M) and Chien-Ming Wang (1 year, $2M), both of whom have shown front-line starter ability in the past, Marquis as recently as last year. Instead of Gregg for closer, they signed Matt Capps, who is coming off a down year but also was cheap, at only 1 year, $3.5 million, and thus a reasonable gamble.

The Nationals were also incredibly busy this offseason signing experienced veterans to minor league deals. If you are going to bring in some experienced vets for depth, this is the way to do it, as minor league deals involve no risk for the team. These are the kind of deals that don’t get much attention from the columnists at ESPN or wherever, and are often not made by lesser GMs, but which can make or break a team’s chances at the playoffs by providing essential depth when regulars inevitably wear down mid-season or succumb to freak injuries.

Minor league signings by the Nats this offseason include SP/RP Miguel Batista, UT Eric Bruntlett, OF Chris Duncan, SP Shawn Estes, RP Eddie Guardado, SP Livan Hernandez, SP Chuck James, OF Keven Mench, OF Jerry Owens, CF Willy Taveras, and RP Tyler Walker. Some of these guys are over the hill and others were never all that good to begin with (there’s a reason why they’re taking minor league deals), but all have significant major league experience and can probably be relied upon to step in and provide replacement level play for short periods, plus there is always the chance that one or two of them will discover some of the old magic at some point and become a significant contributor.

The one move by the Nats that I did not like was signing Ivan Rodriguez to a 2-year, $6 million deal. It’s not that much money, but even so, this deal struck me as overly long at two years, overly expensive, and not at all necessary, since Jesus Flores is quite good both offensively and defensively, and Pudge is no longer very good at all.

But overall it was a great offseason for the Nats. Mike Rizzo successfully recognized that the Nats have a window this season, correctly identified his his team’s needs, somehow cajoled ownership into giving him the necessary funds, and then made prudent, reasonable signings, all short-term deals that will not hurt the team going forward, and which, if gambles pay off, could put the team on the verge of contention this year.

A lot will still have to go right for the Nationals to reach the playoffs, obviously, but Rizzo did almost everything right this offseason, and is now officially my new favorite general manager.

Grade: A

Acquisitions: SP Jason Marquis, SP Chien-Ming Wang, C Ivan Rodriguez, RP Matt Capps

Losses: 1B Dmitri Young, OF Austin Kearns, C Josh Bard, RP Mike MacDougal, RP Saul Rivera

Projected Lineup, Rotation, and Closer

C – Jesus Flores
1B – Adam Dunn
2B – Adam Kennedy
3B – Ryan Zimmerman
SS – Cristian Guzman
LF – Josh Willingham
CF – Nyjer Morgan
RF – Elijah Dukes

SP1 – Jason Marquis
SP2 – John Lannan
SP3 – Chien-Ming Wang
SP4 – Scott Olson/Steven Strasberg
SP5 – Livan Hernandez/Garrett Mock/Craig Stammen/Ross Detweiler

CL – Matt Capps

- Hot Offseason Action Index -

This is part of a series of posts wherein we deride teams for their dazed and demented offseason dithering, or else deify them for their deftly discerning deals.

The good news this offseason is that the Giants were able to re-sign their second best hitter from last season, despite stiff competition from the New York Mets. The bad news is that said second best hitter was 36-year-old catcher Bengie Molina, he of the .285 OBP, and that Molina will spend another year blocking the Giant’s best prospect, Buster Posey, who is ready to catch in the majors now and would almost certainly outhit Molina.

The Giants are counting on another legendary season from Lincecum in order to be anywhere near contention.

Good ol’ Brian Sabean. Despite having the best pitching staff in the game fall into his lap in the form of top hurlers like Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, Jon Sanchez, and Brian Wilson, Sabean’s ongoing incompetence when it comes to assembling even a vague semblance of an offense ensured that the Giants were last in the majors in most offensive categories last season and fell just short of the playoffs with 88 wins.

But still, the Giants were just a few wins shy of the postseason last year, which is nothing to shake a stick at, so Sabean’s mission this offseason was clear: just do what ever it took to add a bit of offense. Sadly for Giants fans, in this mission he has largely failed.

The big moves on the offensive front, in addition to re-signing Molina, were signing Mark DeRosa to play left field, and letting incumbent first baseman Ryan Garko walk as a free agent, in order to sign Aubrey Huff. The problem with these moves is that they do nothing whatsoever to improve the team.

Mark DeRosa is the definition of a “league average” hitter. His career OPS+ is 97, and last year it was 99 – about as close as you can get to average. This is great news if DeRosa is going to play second base or something, but if he is going to play left field, which is a premier offensive position, than league average hitting is going to equal far below average hitting among left-fielders. In fact, The difference between playing Mark DeRosa in left field vs. playing Fred Lewis, who the Giants already had, is a net of exactly 0 wins of difference.

Huff, meanwhile, has fallen off a cliff and into an abyss, as far as offensive performance goes, and his defense is pretty horrible too. Last year he was worth negative $4.5 million for the Orioles and Tigers, according to FanGraphs. I’m not sure what Sabean was thinking here, as the now-departed Garko will almost certainly outhit Huff this season. Actually I do know what Sabean was thinking – the same thing he’s always thinking: how can I sign as many experienced big-name veterans as possible, regardless of their age or actually ability?

On the pitching front there was a bit of good news as the Giants avoided arbitration with Lincecum and managed to sign him to a two year deal. But it’s not like they got a bargain or anything, signing him at just about exactly what he would get in arbitration should he continue to pitch as if he’s in a higher league than every one else, so while the Giants save themselves some headache for next year, they will also be on the hook for $14 million in 2011, even if Lincecum blows out his arm.

Otherwise, not much happened. The Giants did bring in swingman Todd Wellemeyer to compete with Madison Bumgardner for the final spot in the rotation now that Randy Johnson has retired, and the guess here is that Wellemeyer wins out, because Sabean and manager Bruce Bochy have never shown even the slightest interest in giving young players a hand before unless their hand is completely forced. They also brought in Guillermo Mota to replace Bob Howry in a setup role in the pen – this should be a small downgrade.

Overall, I can’t see anything the Giants did to improve themselves this offseason, and their defense probably got a bit worse with the loss of outfielder Randy Winn to the Yankees and reduced playing time at first base for Travis Ishikawa. Meanwhile, they’re counting on their pitching staff to maintain its performance from last year, which was the best by a Giants staff in nearly 50 years.

The Giants still have a good team, on balance, and you can never count out a team with a stellar pitching staff, especially one headed by a guy like Lincecum, because the offense would only have to improve a tiny bit to put up a bunch of extra wins, which could always happen due to random fluctuations in BABIP or something, but the Giants really didn’t do anything this offseason to bring them much closer to their goals or give their fans hope that they’ll be anything bridesmaids again this year.

Grade: D

Acquisitions: UT Mark DeRosa, 1B Aubrey Huff, SP Todd Wellemeyer, RP Guillermo Mota

Losses: SP Randy Johnson, SP Brad Penny, OF Randy Winn, 1B Ryan Garko, RP Bob Howry

Projected Lineup, Rotation, and Closer

C – Bengie Molina
1B – Aubrey Huff
2B – Freddy Sanchez
3B – Pablo Sandoval
SS – Edgar Renteria
LF – Mark DeRosa
CF – Aaron Rowand
RF – Nate Scheirholtz

SP1 – Tim Lincecum
SP2 – Matt Cain
SP3 – Jonathan Sanchez
SP4 – Barry Zito
SP5 – Todd Wellemeyer

CL – Brian Wilson

- Hot Offseason Action Index -

This is part of a series of posts wherein we fustigate teams for their foolhardy offseason fumbles, or else fervently fawn over their felicitous free-agent finesse.

In a lot of ways the Baltimore Orioles seem to be moving in the right direction (finally!), but they have made some truly baffling moves this offseason, and I simply cannot understand what they are thinking.

Matt Wieters and co. still need a few more years of seasoning.

As I mentioned, I understand that things are finally looking up. But the Orioles posted a record of 64-98 last season, and their Pythagorean record wasn’t much better. Last time I checked they still play in the same division as the Yankees and Red Sox (and the Rays for that matter), and at best are three seasons away from contention, so in what possible universe does it make sense for the Orioles to spend tens of millions of dollars on aging veterans in 2010?

And yet that is exactly what the Orioles have done, signing 3B Miguel Tejada (1 year, $6M), 1B Garrett Atkins (1 year, $4M), Mike Gonzalez (2 years $12 million),  and trading reliever Chris Ray and minor league reliever Ben Snyder to the Rangers for SP Kevin Millwood (who will cost the Orioles $15 million in 2010 before becoming a free agent).

First of all, these guys just aren’t all that good, and none of them is likely to be even worth the money they will be getting (Atkins, for example was worth negative $1.5 million last year, according to FanGraphs), but even if they were, these are the kind of guys you go out and add when your team is on the verge of contention, not when you just came off of a 64-win season.

I recognize that in some sense it’s nice that these are all short term commitments that won’t bog down the team for years, but if you think about it, that means these moves make even less sense, because none of these guys will be around the next time the Orioles are anywhere near contention.

Altogether the Orioles will be spending almost one-third of their payroll on just these four players next season, but those tens of millions of dollars would achieve the exact same effect if they were flushed down the toilet. The Orioles would be much better served, or even served at all, if they had saved that money to sign young players or invest in scouting or almost anything else, while letting young prospects or 4-A types man the positions in question for the major league minimum, saving their bullets for about 3 years from now when they might be somewhere near striking range of something.

In the final analysis the Orioles didn’t do anything too terrible this offseason, other than waste about $20 million of Peter Angelos’s money, but then again it’s only Peter Angelos’s money. The bright side is they didn’t really hurt themselves going forward, but the also did basically nothing at all to improve themselves, and in baseaball these days, if you are standing still you are actually going backwards.

In school if you don’t improve in any way they make you repeat a grade, which is why the Orioles have to get a failing grade this offseason.

Grade: F

Acquisitions: SP Kevin Millwood, 3B Miguel Tejada, 1B Garrett Atkins, RP Mike Gonzalez

Losses: 3B Melvin Mora, RP Chris Ray, RP Danys Baez, SP Rich Hill, SP Radhames Liz, RB Brian Bass, RP Sean Henn

Projected Lineup, Rotation, and Closer

C – Matt Wieters
1B – Garrett Atkins
2B – Brian Roberts
3B – Miguel Tejada
SS – Cezar Izturis
LF – Nolan Riemold
CF – Adam Jones
RF – Nick Markakis
DH – Luke Scott

SP1 – Kevin Millwood
SP2 – Jeremy Guthrie
SP3 – Brian Matusz
SP4 – Brad Bergesen
SP5 – Chris Tillman

CL – Mike Gonzalez

- Hot Offseason Action Index -

Spring training is upon us, and that means it’s time for Umpbump’s annual Hot Offseason Action series, where we evaluate each team’s winter maneuvers. Ed Wade and Omar Minaya, consider yourselves on notice.

For previous editions, see here and here and here. This post will serve as an index of all 30 HOA posts, as they are completed, so feel free to bookmark it. Alternatively, you can sign up for our RSS feed (over there on the right).

March 13 — Boston Red Sox: A
March 10 — San Diego Padres: C-
March 9 — Pittsburgh Pirates: B
March 9 — Florida Marlins: D
March 8 — Colorado Rockies: B
March 7 — Seattle Mariners: B
March 3 — Houston Astros: D
March 1 — Atlanta Braves: C-
February 28 — Oakland A’s: B
February 27 — Tampa Bay Rays: B+
February 26 — Washington Nationals: A
February 25 — San Francisco Giants: D
February 24 — Baltimore Orioles: F
February 23 — Arizona Diamondbacks: B-
February 22 — Philadelphia Phillies: B+

This is one of a series of posts where we crucify teams for their crappy acquisitions and praise them for their prudent pickups.

The Arizona Diamondbacks are counting on the resurgence of a couple of their veterans to bounce back from a dreadful year. Ace Brandon Webb will return to anchor the rotation after missing the entire 2009 season, getting pulled on opening day and after only tossing four innings.

One of the Dbacks’ biggest moves in the offseason was getting Edwin Jackson, and he’ll likely pitch from the number three position in the rotation. Dan Haren returns as a formidable front-line starter, but the Dbacks have to count on a return-to-form year from Webb to make their rotation as good on the field as it looks on paper. Ian Kennedy (also part of the Jackson deal) will take up the departed Max Scherzer’s place, and Billy Buckner is one candidate to round out the starters (even though the fifth slot is wide open).

Late last year, Coley wrote about the need to improve the outfield, and how the Dbacks couldn’t count on both Eric Byrnes and Chris Young. And although they didn’t directly sign or trade for a new outfielder, adding Adam Laroche means Connor Jackson can move to left field. In fact, the move also allowed them to part ways with Eric Byrnes, who signed a one-year deal with the Mariners. So, mission accomplished. This leaves the Dbacks with Chris Young in center field and Justin Upton in right field. Gerardo Parra, who mostly covered left while Jackson was out, will come off the bench.

As far as the bullpen goes, the mostly young arms posted a 4.61 ERA, prompting general manager Josh Byrnes to add veteran hurlers Bob Howry and Aaron Heilman to at the very least add experience.

Defense was the biggest problem for the Snakes in 2009, as they committed a whopping 124 errors, the second most in the NL, so it’s no surprise manager A.J. Hinch will stress defense during Spring Training. The addition of Kelly Johnson to cover second base could provide some spark to the offense (he’s shown the ability to hit for high OBP in the past), but his mediocre glovework doesn’t address their defensive gaps. While it’s great that they’ll be “emphasizing fielding” in spring training, that and $1.50 will get them a cup of coffee.

The Dbacks were considerably better on offense (although not quite stellar), partly due to a solid seasons by young third baseman Mark Reynolds and catcher Miguel Montero. With Connor Jackson back for a full season, as well as the addition of LaRoche, the lineup should put up better numbers.

It’s worth noting that 2009’s awful campaign was partly due to abnormally bad luck with injuries. Webb was shelved almost from the get-go and Jackson suffered from valley fever (!), so the Dbacks ought to improve significantly from last year’s 70-92 record, especially considering their Pythagorean record (the number of games the team “should have won” based on how many runs they scored and allowed) in 2009 was 74 wins.

Offseason grade: B-

Key Additions:

SP Edwin Jackson
1B Adam LaRoche
SP Ian Kennedy
2B Kelly Johnson

Key Losses:

OF Eric Byrnes
SP Max Scherzer
SP Doug Davis
1B/3B Chad Tracy

Projected Lineup, Rotation and Closer

C – Miguel Montero
1B – Adam LaRoche
2B - Kelly Johnson
SS – Stephen Drew
3B – Mark Reynolds
LF - Connor Jackson
CF – Chris Young
RF – Justin Upton

Brandon Webb
Dan Haren
Edwin Jackson
Ian Kennedy
Billy Buckner

CL - Chad Qualls

- Hot Offseason Action Index -