The Oakland Athletics and the Case For Keeping Sonny Gray
By Jason Burke
Billy Beane and the Oakland Athletics like to wheel and deal, made all the more evident by trading away MVP candidate Josh Donaldson last offseason with the third baseman still not set to be a free agent until after the 2018 season. With Sonny Gray signed through 2019, everything is set up for another big trade, right? Well, not exactly.
Tossing Josh Donaldson into a lineup that already hosted two of the best power hitters in the American League in Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion provided Donaldson with something that he never experienced in Oakland: Protection. With that protection, and a little help from the hitter-friendly confines of the Rogers Center, Donaldson’s numbers have soared, reaching new career highs in home runs and RBI. Gray on the other hand is likely to be a perennial Cy Young candidate and may be in the best park to help him land the prestigious award later in his career.
Let’s start with the most obvious reason for why Oakland won’t trade their 25-year-old ace: His value has diminished in the final month of the season and he’s been shut down with hip soreness. Not exactly the best time to execute a trade. After posting an ERA of 2.14 heading into September, that number tripled in the final month as the right-hander allowed run totals of 6, 5, and 7 to the Angels, White Sox and Astros, elevating his ERA for the month to 6.84 and his ERA on the season to 2.73, effectively taking himself out of the Cy Young discussion for 2015.
With the trades that Oakland has made over the past year, the A’s have rebuilt their farm system a great deal with many of the team’s top prospects projected to reach the Majors by the time the 2017 season is over.
1B/RF Matt Olson and 1B/3B Renato Nunez are both just 21 and have mashed the ball in their Minor League careers. Third baseman Matt Chapman is known more for his glove work at the hot corner but stroked 23 long-balls in High-A Stockton this past season. The cream of the crop, 19-year-old shortstop Franklin Barreto (acquired in the Donaldson deal) was just beginning to show why the A’s went after him before an injury took him out of action from July 20 to September 5 when he re-joined his team for their playoff series. He went 4-for-9 with a home run and two RBI.
As far as the arms go, Sean Manaea (acquired in the Ben Zobrist deal with Kansas City) is the top prospect, and he proved it in the Texas League postseason. Manaea went 1-0 in two starts and gave up just two runs over 15 innings for a 1.20 ERA. With two plus pitches, Manaea could become a Gray’s southpaw counterpart at some point next season, filling the hole left by Scott Kazmir.
The main issue for the Oakland Athletics in 2015 has been their bullpen, defense (120 errors, most in the Majors) and performance in one-run games (18-34, worst in the Majors) all combining to help miss their expected win/loss record by ten games with a 65-93 record after Tuesday night’s loss. The Oakland ‘pen is ranked 28th in baseball with a 4.65 ERA after posting a 2.91 mark last season. Closer Sean Doolittle missed much of the season, while Ryan Cook and Dan Otero, once-reliable setup men, spent much of 2015 in Triple-A. Hope may be on the horizon for next season with a healthy Doolittle, and 32 round pick from the 2012 draft Ryan Dull providing some actual relief out of the bullpen up until last weekend against the visiting Giants. Over his previous 11 innings, his first in the big leagues, he’d allowed just three hits.
So what does all of this have to do with Sonny Gray? There is still hope for this team in the timeframe that he’ll be under contract, and keeping Gray could mean a great deal to the pitching staff’s development as some of the younger arms reach the Majors. The A’s signed Barry Zito to a Minor League contract before the season started, partly as a favor to their former lefty ace to showcase what he had left in the tank, but also to share his wisdom to the players coming through the farm system. The bonus with Gray is that he may just be entering his prime as the next wave of young players make their collective debuts, and Sonny Gray will be leading the charge towards a playoff push for Oakland in the next year or two.