The Oakland Athletics: The Worst Offense in the American League

(Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)

The Oakland Athletics are off to a dreadful start offensively, and their last place American League West record reflects it. Along with being last in their division, they also rank last in the American League in nearly every single offensive team statistic.

They rank last in the AL in on-base percentage, batting average, home runs, runs, runs batted in, slugging percentage, hits, stolen bases, stolen base percentage, and total bases. Though, it's not for a lack of trying by the cost-efficient General Manager Billy Beane.

In the off season the Athletics acquired three-time All-Star left fielder Matt Holliday from the Colorado Rockies in exchange for closer Huston Street and two others.

In an effort to live up tot he high hopes set forth by the A's faithful, Holliday sought hitting instruction from former Athletics and St. Louis Cardinals super-slugger Mark McGwire before his Athletics' debut, according to an interview by the New York Times with McGwire in March.

Still after the A's dismal season a year ago, Holliday doesn't appear to be the answer.

So far Big Mac's instruction hasn't paid off as Holliday is off to a sloth-like start hitting only .226 through 28 games, with nearly as many strikeouts (23) as hits (26), and an on-base percentage of only .282. He's also slugging a puny .383, more than 200 points lower than his .607 slugging percentage last season with Colorado.

Although Holliday leads the team in RBI with 20 (24 less than Evan Longoria, the AL leader), his dismal start seems to have set the pace for the rest of the team.

There are two bright spots in the lineup. The brightest being the performance of catcher Kurt Suzuki. His .318 batting average is leading the team and remains the only batting average on the team over the .300 benchmark. He sets the bar for the Athletics in batting average, slugging, total bases, and hits.

The other bright spot is potential saturated slugger Jack Cust. Besides having a classic baseball name, he holds down the RBI producing fifth spot in the batting order with a decent, not great, .284 batting average and team leading .402 on-base percentage, which is aided by his team leading 19 bases on balls.

That's it for good news. The rest is pretty ugly.

After 29 games, the A's offensive earns an F. It's the worst offense in the American League.

Individual player production and statistics were coupled with wins and losses to achieve this grade. The individual player grades can be found on the following page.

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