Has Billy Beane lost his touch?

[Lex Luthor]

One year ago the Oakland A's had the best record in baseball at 59-36. Then on July 31st the A's traded Yoenis Cespedes for John Lester. The A's record before the trade 66-41. The A's record after the trade was 22-33.

In the offseason Billy Beane traded Josh Donaldson to the Toronto Blue Jays for third baseman Brett Lawrie, right-hander Kendall Graveman, left-hander Sean Nolin and minor league shortstop Franklin Barreto. Donaldson and Cespedes were the two best players on the A's roster. Now they're both gone and the team went from first to worst. Josh Donaldson is having an MVP season. Cespedes barely missed making the All Star team and is having a solid season. The A's have the worst record in the American League at 41-50.

It looks to me like Billy Beane has destroyed this team. Has Billy Beane totally ****ed up, or do Lawrie, Graveman, Nolin and Barreto have so much potential that the Donaldson trade could eventually work out in favor of the A's?

[DaneMcCloud]

If the A's win their court case and move to San Jose, look out, baseball fans.

They'll have a great stadium, tons of money and excellent fan support. They'll no longer need to scrape the bottom of the barrel and do all kinds of crazy things in order to even stay competitive each season.

IMO, they'll dominate the West for years, maybe a decade, if they win.

[Hootie]

I am very interested in how Marcus Semien, a dude with 28 ****ing errors, is a 0.7 WAR player at SS

I realize errors really aren't the holy grail ... but 28 errors and a positive WAR player? What? His fielding percentage is god awful.

[Tombstone RJ]

Just wait until Trevor Siemian esssplodes all over the AFCW:

http://espn.go.com/nfl/player/stats/...trevor-siemian

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by Hootie 2.0

I am very interested in how Marcus Semien, a dude with 28 ****ing errors, is a 0.7 WAR player at SS

I realize errors really aren't the holy grail ... but 28 errors and a positive WAR player? What? His fielding percentage is god awful.

Shortstops get a huge positional adjustment to their defense due to the difficulty of the position. Combine that him being 7th in baseball in wRC for shortstops and he's a positive WAR player.

[Hootie]

I don't see how a guy who can't throw to 1st base is a positive WAR player ... but hey, I don't know everything

[Rasputin]

Originally Posted by Snapplez

He had a movie made about him so obviously he da bestest

So did this Mr. Bean

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by Hootie 2.0

I don't see how a guy who can't throw to 1st base is a positive WAR player ... but hey, I don't know everything

Then perhaps you should a) come up with your own metric or b) learn to read, because it was just explained to you.

[Hootie]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

Then perhaps you should a) come up with your own metric or b) learn to read, because it was just explained to you.

Well PECOTA projected 72 wins for the Royals so I'm going to go ahead and say anything that allows you to have 28 errors while still grading you out as a plus defender is ****ing flawed

[Hootie]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

Shortstops get a huge positional adjustment to their defense due to the difficulty of the position. Combine that him being 7th in baseball in wRC for shortstops and he's a positive WAR player.

And secondly, dipshit **** head, I wasn't talking about his offense at all. At all. He's 0.7 WAR in fielding not counting anything offensively. I'm trying to figure out how a guy has a .925 fielding percentage, a severe case of the yips, and 28 ****ing errors and he's 0.7 WAR in the field. What the ****

[cmh6476]

By George you're right

[Hootie]

For reference, I think Alcides Escobar graded out as a -0.1 WAR defender last year or the year before (can't look it up easily on my phone)

Yet, a dude who's on pace for 50+ errors is on pace to be 1.5 WAR in fielding? Uhm, yeah. No.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by Hootie 2.0

And secondly, dipshit **** head, I wasn't talking about his offense at all. At all. He's 0.7 WAR in fielding not counting anything offensively. I'm trying to figure out how a guy has a .925 fielding percentage, a severe case of the yips, and 28 ****ing errors and he's 0.7 WAR in the field. What the ****

He's 0.7 overall in fWAR. Look it up.

Regardless, as I explained to your dumb **** ass before, positional adjustments. A bad shortstop is considered a better defender in almost all cases than a great 1B. Hence the adjustments.

Also, Escobar rated 9.0 in Fangraphs' defensive ratings, which put him 7th in the league for SS's last year.

He has never had a negative WAR defensive season per Bref, either. You don't know what you're talking about.

[cmh6476]

I'd like to see hamas and hootie in a chicken fight

[Hootie]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

He's 0.7 overall in fWAR. Look it up.

Regardless, as I explained to your dumb **** ass before, positional adjustments. A bad shortstop is considered a better defender in almost all cases than a great 1B. Hence the adjustments.

I looked on espn and filtered it to fielding and saw 0.7 earlier. I can only assume he's a negative WAR defender. I'm sure if you moved him to 2nd or left he'd be fine, but he's a terrible defensive SS. For as brilliant as you paint yourself, you're not very ****ing good at reading comprehension as I never questioned his value with a bat.

[C3HIEF3S]

I love the civil debates on CP