The A’s Young Core Is Doing What They Do Best
Look, most of the players worth getting excited about on this team are on the position player side. Super-reliever Mason Miller is the best young pitcher on the squad, with crafty veterans like Luis Severino and Jeffrey Springs leading the starting rotation. Otherwise, it’s bats, bats, and more bats.
Through their first 14 games, the lineup has looked … just fine! They’re currently in the top 10 in all of baseball in home runs (20, 5th), K% (19.0, 4th), wRC+ (114, 8th), and ISO (.166, 9th). For a team projected by PECOTA to only win 72 games this year, things are going pretty smoothly.
Of course, this is not likely to continue, but don’t forget that many people were saying the exact same thing about the Kansas City Royals and Detroit Tigers around this time last year. They both wound up making the postseason.
Lawrence Butler
Butler burst onto the scene in a big way last year, posting 3.0 bWAR through 125 games while hitting 22 home runs and driving in 57. He went 18-for-18 in stolen base attempts, posted an .807 OPS and promptly earned a long-term extension in the process.
Now that he’s locked up through 2031 (with a team option for 2032), the 24-year-old is penciled in as one of the A’s cornerstones for many years to come. It was a bold move for them to lock him up so quickly into his career, but so far he’s proven to them that this is going to be money well spent.
Through 15 games, Butler’s got four extra-base hits with three RBI, a pair of stolen bases and a .724 OPS. His OPS+ is coming in at 116 – putting him at 16% above league-average – and he’s also shown a surprisingly strong sense of patience at the plate. So far, he’s struck out 10 times in 53 at-bats, but he’s also drawn just as many walks.