How Billy Beane, Oakland Athletics Should Prepare for the Second Half

It’s not about how you start, it’s how you finish.

If the maxim remains true, then the Oakland A’s really have nothing to worry about regarding their 2011 season.

During the first half of this year’s campaign, the A’s have already had a lion’s share of ups and downs, the nadir being a 10-game losing streak that enveloped a managerial firing. Pile on an emergency room of injured starting pitchers, clubhouse miscommunications and an APB search for a missing offense, and the A’s have had nearly every worst-case scenario in the books before the All-Star Game.

Should the Athletics realistically take advantage of the old adage, then they must finish 2011 on the highest of high notes. With all that they’ve gone through in the season’s first half, Oakland really has nowhere else to go but up.

During the last offseason, one of the major transactions made by the front office was the dismissal of their athletic trainer. A seemingly negligible staffing move was done to reverse the trend of player visits to the disabled list. From the start of 2007, Oakland had used the disabled list 87 different times.

Unfortunately, there must be a lingering infestation of injury bugs in the locker room. The A’s have had five different starting pitchers, their starting left fielder and second baseman, All-Star closer and super-utility player on the disabled list for various stretches during this calendar year. It’s certainly far more difficult to win ballgames while using crutches and in slings.

With the team’s pitching as their bread and butter, having starters Brett Anderson, Dallas Braden, Brandon McCarthy, Tyson Ross and Rich Harden sidelined has prevented the A’s from rising. Though minor league call-ups have been bandages to a wounded staff, it’s not realistic for a team to win with three-fifths of the Opening Day rotation on the mend.

This type of inexperience in the rotation has needed to rely on some offense to support the growing pains on the mound. Unfortunately, the A’s have not been able to pick up the slack during the first half of the season. The one constant aspect of the Athletics’ season is their malodorous offense. Oakland currently ranks 13th in the AL in runs scored and batting average, and last in home runs and slugging percentage. Having been shut out a league-leading 12 times so far, somehow this season’s Athletics have been worse than last year’s squad.

Offseason additions David DeJesus, Hideki Matsui and Josh Willingham have overall been underwhelming, prompting yet again the idea that general manager Billy Beane has lost the magic touch when acquiring talent.

DeJesus, pegged as the starting right fielder, and regular designated hitter Matsui have each been benched or removed from games due to lack of performance at the plate. Willingham, however, has been Oakland’s only true power hitter, but was third in the AL in strikeouts at the time of his placement on the disabled list in June, and hitting just .231.

Meanwhile, veteran starting infielders Kevin Kouzmanoff and Daric Barton were sent down to Triple-A Sacramento for their lackluster hitting. Third baseman Kouzmanoff was sporting a .262 on-base percentage at his departure, while first baseman Barton had no home runs in 236 at-bats with Oakland.

The injuries and grotesque lack of hitting has prompted a daily shell game of player positioning, both on the field and in the batting order. The continuous shuffling has made for a catalog of lineup cards, as well as inconsistent categorizing of players’ roles.

Confusion abound, the constant relabeling eventually led to the dismissal of the manager Bob Geren at the end of May. Geren’s loose communication with players culminated with the handling of fill-in closer Brian Fuentes who was puzzled with his summons from the bullpen in irregular game circumstances. Warranted or not, this molehill grew into a mountain, resulting in Oakland’s first midseason managerial change in 25 years.

While Geren may not have possessed the right know-how to lead this team to a division title or the playoffs, he was obviously hindered by his lack of healthy bodies. Even if he were a magician, he still needed to have a full deck of cards to be able to pull off some tricks. Unfortunately, the team's overall performance did him in.

If they could actually score runs or field cleanly, all miscommunications would have been overlooked during winning streaks—not losing ones.

With the infusion of Bob Melvin as the interim manager, it appeared that the Oakland front office was still in hopes of a turnaround and a Hail Mary attempt at the division crown. In the weak AL West, it was possible, albeit remotely so. Still, with four months remaining in the season, and no team pulling away from the pack, the A’s had to believe in the unbelievable.

Melvin quickly imposed some stability using a smaller carousel of players, clear to each of his players what role he envisioned them to have moving forward. And to his credit, that consistency in the lineup, helped the A’s rattle off six-straight wins in early June.

But it soon became obvious that no matter which Bob manned the helm, the Athletics’ roster would continue to bob further down the win column. An emaciated offense coupled with a surprisingly indefensible defense that has committed the most errors in the AL has led to a 5-13 record since that six-game win streak. The only Bob that could help them would be Hope: They have to hope that they'll win.

With the All-Star Game past, it appears that the sand is running out on the Athletics’ season. Yes, in Oakland, three-and-a-half months a season make. July is when the A’s hold their annual fire sale. They will decide whether to lose players midseason, or lose players at season’s end.

Being the frugal small-market A’s, it’s likely Beane will start moving players sooner rather than later. They already traded popular longtime second baseman Mark Ellis.

After the All-Star break, what’s next?

Instead of looking pessimistically at the half-empty moribundity of their last place position, the A’s must make nice with fans and attempt to get back into the race. With such off-field turmoil and lack of direction, it can’t get any worse really. All the stadium issues, territorial rights, low attendance and bureaucratic hoopla, the Athletics’ brass look toward saving a season rather than letting it drown.

Staring directly at a fifth consecutive non-winning season—a feat unprecedented in team history—Beane and Co. need to look at the second half of 2011 as the half that is full. This optimism would be a breath of fresh air for A’s fans, and seemingly, an important quality for Beane’s job security.

Yes, the Athletics are poor. Yes, the Coliseum is antique. Yes, Oakland is a small market. But at this point in everyone’s careers, it behooves the A’s brass to instill some fire into the organization. To at least try to win for the entire 162-game season.

With a franchise so downtrodden with misfortune and no fortune, there really is no reason not to go for broke.

To do this, Oakland needs to trade key pieces to the roster for more offense. And anyone and everyone should be on the table. Shortstop Cliff Pennington—the last man standing from the Opening Day infield—may never click offensively. His batting average and OBP this season are not compensated by his defense at short. Furthermore, he doesn’t tally many extra-base hits and hasn’t stolen as many bases as one would expect from a speedy middle infielder. No matter how strong his cannon arm is, there are no accolades to separate his offensive performance from that of Barton’s or Kouzmanoff’s. 

While on the subject of weak-hitting Athletics, another on the list of disappointing bats is the sweet-swinging outfielder Ryan Sweeney. With only six extra-base hits and no home runs, Sweeney has more singles than a dating website. For a corner outfielder—a bench player at that—it’s time to find some pop. Packaging Pennington and Sweeney with one of Oakland’s plethora of fifth starters could return the likes of, say, shortstop J.J. Hardy, first baseman James Loney or outfielder Michael Cuddyer. Maybe even a long-shot possibility of repossessing Andre Ethier, a player in the last year of his contract.

With Oakland’s AL-leading pitching staff stabilizing and remaining consistent, the infusion of one or two bats into the lineup could turn several one-run losses into one-run wins. With the third-worst record in the league, the A’s should approach the second half of the season with nothing left to lose.

At this point, all A’s fans crave is the fielding of a team that has a chance to score more than three runs.