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Despite having the worst record in MLB, there are A's everywhere in the playoffs

Jon Hoefling   Paste BN

The Oakland A's were the worst team in baseball this year. But when you consider the talent that has come through their clubhouse recently, they didn't have to be.

This season, they posted an MLB-worst 50-112 record. The A's also owned an MLB-worst -339 run differential (next closest was over 100 runs better by the way). They also posted league-lows in batting average (.223), slugging percentage (.371), OPS (.669), and runs scored (585).

Yes, they were historically bad, which was expected but not necessary. The Oakland A's have a long history, a reputation even, of trading away their best players and/or refusing to re-sign their most coveted talent. Well, now all of those players are in the playoffs; in fact, every single team in the 2023 MLB postseason has at least one former Athletic on their roster.

They might be the most well-represented team in the playoffs. So, while those players compete for the greatest achievement in baseball, the A's ownership can sit at home wondering what could have been and where it all went wrong.

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Former Athletics in the 2023 postseason:

  • Atlanta Braves: Matt Olson, Sean Murphy, Jesse Chavez
  • Los Angeles Dodgers: Max Muncy, Blake Treinen (has not played this year)
  • Milwaukee Brewers: Andrew Chafin, Josh Donaldson, Mark Canha, Joel Payamps
  • Philadelphia Phillies: Cristian Pache
  • Miami Marlins: Jesus Luzardo, A.J. Puk, Joey Wendle
  • Arizona Diamondbacks: Jace Peterson
  • Baltimore Orioles: Danny Coulombe, Shintaro Fujinami, Cole Irvin
  • Houston Astros: Kendall Graveman
  • Minnesota Twins: Sonny Gray, Emilio Pagan
  • Tampa Bay Rays: Jake Diekman, Christian Bethancourt
  • Texas Rangers: Jonah Heim, Marcus Semien, Robbie Grossman
  • Toronto Blue Jays: Chris Bassitt, Matt Chapman, Ernie Clement

All of these players suited up at one time or another for the Oakland A's. That's 28 players, enough to field an entire MLB team. Not all of these players are superstars or even starting-caliber players but there are definitely some high-end players mixed in there. So, that got me thinking.

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Would these A's have been able to reach the playoffs?

The obvious next step was to take a look at each of these players' WAR and determine how many more wins the A's could have had if they kept all of these players. Obviously, there's no universe where the A's could've kept everyone on this list, even if they wanted to. However, they definitely could have kept a few of them.

Starting lineup:

  • Catcher: Jonah Heim
  • First Base: Matt Olson
  • Second Base: Max Muncy
  • Third Base: Matt Chapman
  • Shortstop: Marcus Semien
  • Left Field: Mark Canha
  • Center Field: Cristian Pache
  • Right Field: Robbie Grossman
  • Designated Hitter: Sean Murphy

Bench:

  • 2B Jace Peterson
  • 3B Josh Donaldson
  • C/1B Christian Bethancourt
  • UTIL Ernie Clement

Starting Rotation:

  • RHP Sonny Gray
  • LHP Jesus Luzardo
  • LHP Cole Irvin
  • RHP Chris Bassitt

Bullpen:

  • RHP Jesse Chavez
  • RHP Blake Treinen
  • RHP Joel Payamps
  • LHP A.J. Puk
  • LHP Danny Coulombe
  • RHP Kendall Graveman
  • RHP Emilio Pagan
  • LHP Jake Diekman

I had to leave Shintaro Fujinami and Andrew Chafin off the team, since MLB only allows 26 players on an MLB roster, but this is a decent looking team. Four-man rotation, sure, but you could throw Kendall Graveman or Jesse Chavez out there for a start if your guys need a break. After all, both of those guys were starters for the A's when they played there.

The bench is certainly thin with no one on the bench being a natural outfielder, which is especially tough considering the outfield is the weakest part of the team's starting lineup. That infield is absolutely ferocious. They might struggle on defense given that both Semien and Muncy are not in their best positions. That said, Olson, Chapman, Heim, and Murphy (depending on who you want to put behind the plate on any given day) are some of the game's elite defenders.

How many wins would this team have though? Well, it's tough to determine because a lot of these players didn't play the entire season, but the real-life A's won 52 games and their players had a collective rWAR of 4.9. The players on this imaginary team had a combined WAR of 49.1 this year. By that measure, the A's could have won 96 games, good enough for the No. 2 seed and a first-round bye in the postseason.

Of course, that one measure doesn't mean anything. We don't know how these players would have meshed together, how well the current A's coaching staff would work with most of these guys, or how these guys would have done offensively without the protection they had in their real-life lineups. I even had to swap players around to abnormal positions just to make the lineup work. That would definitely lose the team a few games. That said, there's almost no universe where this team loses 90 or more games, let alone 112.

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