Wednesday Potpourri: The Past, The Present, And The Future

Welcome to Rob Manfred’s A Christmas Carol, where Charles Dickens is on a strict timer and and every gift is subject to replay review.

“I am the ghost runner of Christmas past...”

Here are some things we have seen as the season prepares to turn to May:

Nick Kurtz

Kurtz’ debut has not been spectacular, at least not since his maiden at bat when he smoked an RBI single up the middle. Since then Kurtz is 4 for 19 with 9 Ks, and he has yet to draw a single walk. Speaking of singles, all 5 of Kurtz’ hits are one-baggers.

This should come as a shock, and not just because rookies most commonly experience initial struggles as they face pitchers for the first time and acclimate to baseball’s highest level. It’s also unsurprising because Kurtz was called up right after going through his first and only rough patch in the minors.

In his last 30 plate appearances at AAA, Kurtz was 5 for 27 with 3 BB and 12 K, showing less patience and more trouble spitting on off speed chase pitches while also getting jammed some on fastballs in.

It was a strange time to call him up when there was not even a clear vacancy to fill — Kurtz’ call up, in fact, has forced the A’s to mostly bench Miguel Andujar despite his .316/.353/.443 slash line, and move Tyler Soderstrom to a position he has never played in either the majors or the minors.

So a move that might have made sense had Kurtz been raking at the time, or had Soderstrom (or Andujar) gone down with an injury, just looks like “right move, wrong time” for a player who figures to be a big league mainstay for years to come but who absolutely had more to refine at AAA.

JJ Bleday

Perhaps the A’s were trying to improve their overall defense by calling up Kurtz. Certainly they improved their 1B defense, and getting Andujar out of LF can only help. But you can’t claim to be addressing the team’s defense in a meaningful way if you continue to trot Bleday out in CF day after day.

It’s almost as if Bleday has decided “If you can’t lick ‘em, join ‘em” and is now just trying to prove me right since he can’t become faster or more adept at reading fly balls off the bat.

Last night’s game was out of reach by the time Bleday was challenged by any fly balls, but that doesn’t change the fact that stunningly he cost the A’s not 1, not 2, not 3, not 4, not 5, but 6 runs by not being able to corral either of two drives that cleared the bases.

To be fair, at least in these cases neither would have been a totally routine catch, not the one Bleday dived for and missed by about 10 feet and not the one he ran and ran for only to come up short.

But the problem is that Bleday is slow and that’s a fatal flaw for a CFer. And in lumbering for balls that are in the alleys he makes it look like most CFers would not make a play — heck he didn’t even get that close! — when in fact your accomplished CFers cover that ground.

The A’s even have 2 CFers at AAA right now who make both plays: Drew Avans and Denzel Clarke. One should have been on the roster March 27th and the other is hopefully getting closer and closer to being ready.

But just to put a statistical exclamation point on how bad it is in CF right now, and how negligent the front office continues to be by trotting this roster out there every day, after 27 games worth of time in CF Bleday is now at -8 DRS.

Over 162 games that’s -48 DRS, which is staggering number, as is the -45 you get even if you allow for Bleday’s 2 days off so far this season — the A’s have played 29 games and Bleday has been flawless in CF for 2 of them.

“I am the ghost runner of Christmas present...”

The current A’s have settled into being a team that is a force in the close games and prone to being blown out now and again. Since April 19th they have played 10 games. They include four 1-run victories, a 2-run win and a 3-run win. Three of their four losses were by scores of 10-3, 14-1, and 15-2 (the other was a more ordinary 8-5 loss).

What that adds up to is a statistical anomaly: In their last 10 games the A’s run differential is a terrible -27 while their record is a solid 6-4. Calling up Gunnar Hoglund to stabilize the #5 spot in the rotation, and offering Noah Murdock back to the Royals, would be a start in the quest to at least stop losing games by double digits and ideally strengthening the bullpen depth.

Noah Murdock

Speaking of Murdock, he did come up big a couple times in key situations and for that we are all grateful. But it’s hard to overstate just how bad he has been.

Overall, Murdock has pitched 14 innings and somehow in that time he has managed to give up 22 hits while walking 19 batters and hitting 2 others. That adds up to a WHIP (actually in this case “base runners per 9 IP”) that reads like a misprint: 3.07. Oops.

“I am the ghost runner of Christmas future...”

Denzel Clarke

As painful and infuriating as it is to see poor JJ Bleday butcher CF on a daily basis, I am not a proponent of rushing Denzel Clarke just because we need him. He’s ready when he’s ready and we always knew he would be a prospect who needed some time.

The need to give Clarke whatever time is necessary is why I have so aggressively pleaded with the front office to let Avans be just a bridge to what we hope will be a long and prosperous “era of Clarkeness”.

If you think Kurtz is struggling or that Max Muncy was overmatched, it’s nothing compared to what Clarke could endure if he’s brought up too soon. That being said, I think it’s worth getting excited about what we’re seeing from Clarke since his return from a shoulder issue that briefly interrupted his season.

Here’s what Clarke has done in the 5 games since coming off of the IL:

6 for 17, 4 BB, 5 K, 2 doubles, 1 triple, 2 stolen bases in 2 attempts, 4 RBI. That’s a .353/.476/.588 slash line, but more importantly he is impacting the game in numerous ways with plate discipline, extra base hits, steals, driving in runs.

And this is a player whose calling card is his exceptional CF defense. It’s only 5 games, but it’s a glimpse of what we might be ready to put in CF soon. Tentative drool.

Don’t fold, because you have a pair of aces today: Luis Severino vs. Nathan Eovaldi, 5:05pm first pitch. Miller, Ferguson, and Sterner all available, good one to get if you can get it.