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Oakland Athletics Last Season Performance

The 2022 Oakland Athletics season saw the wheels fall off before the team got up to speed. It was the apparent outcome after the team failed to re-sign any core players, lost their longtime manager Bob Melvin, and did nothing to bring in outside talent.

As a result, the A’s set records for low attendance as the fans’ resentment for this franchise, and owner John Fisher, grew to new heights. At their worst, the A’s were an absurd 47 games behind the Astros for the division lead and barely looked competitive. When all was said and done, the A’s finished the season 46 games behind the Astros at 60-102 (.370) and were the only team in the AL with a winning percentage below .401.

Off-Season Changes

Key Additions

The Athletics made a few moves during the offseason, but nothing that could be considered a critical addition. They signed Jace Peterson, Aledmys Diaz, Drew Rucinski, Trevor May, and Jesus Aguilar to short-term contracts, and that’s about it.

The most intriguing addition was Shintaro Fujinami, a pitching prospect from Japan. He won’t be enough to turn the A’s woeful pitching staff around, but he might be a valuable tool in the bullpen.

Key Losses

The A’s didn’t have much talent to lose but managed to dump Sean Murphy and Cole Irvin. The worst team in the AL had probably the worst offseason in the group as Oakland continues to alienate its fanbase.

Manager: Mark Kotsay

Predicting what an organization like the A’s may or may not do is hard. Kotsay is entering the second year of a three-year contract with a 60-102 record in his rookie season. On the one hand, he’s the manager of potentially the worst team in the MLB, which does not bode well for job security. On the flip side, the A’s don’t seem to care much about winning and may just let him do his time in Oakland and move on to the next poor soul they choose to hire. Either way, he’s little more than a scapegoat in an A’s cap heading into 2023.

Strengths:

Few and far between. The A’s don’t have an area they are particularly strong in, but a few players could perform above average.

Seth Brown is one such name that pops off the page. Brown led the A’s in home runs last season with 25. His average is low, and he’s slow as hell on the basepaths, but he’s about as good as it gets for Oakland.

Other breakout candidates include utilityman Shea Langeliers and OF Ramon Laureano.

Weaknesses:

Throw a dart and take your pick. One prominent weak spot is a need for more quality prospects. They are a team stuck in a perpetual rebuild and only have two top-100 prospects in their system; Tyler Soderstrom (39th) and Ken Waldichuk (76). For reference, fellow bottomfeeders, the Arizona Diamondbacks, have five top 100 prospects.

Oakland finished dead last in bases per game, batting average, hits, on-base + slugging percentage in 2022. They only excelled in ranking first in runners left in scoring position. Though, it’s hard to leave runners on base when there aren’t any to strand.

Predictions for the 2023 Season

There is no light at the end of the tunnel or miracle on the horizon for Oakland. The Athletics will probably be the worst team in the American League for the second straight season and might end up with the worst record in the majors if things go south.

The only groundbreaking prediction I have for the A’s is that this could well be their last season in Oakland.

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