Oakland Athletics (-11)
Sustaining success is always going to be tough for the Athletics because of their financial situation. However, they surged toward their first postseason berth since 2014 last summer despite watching the starting rotation basically fall apart. They’ve brought back Mike Fiers and Brett Anderson while adding Marco Estrada, but Oakland’s current injured list shows what they’re missing out on.
Jharel Cotton and Andrew Triggs are likely missing Opening Day, while Sean Manaea and Daniel Gossett may not pitch at all in 2019.
Fiers is expected to be the leader from a production standpoint, but is also expected to rack up just 1.2 fWAR in 152 innings. He pitched to a 3.74 ERA in 53 innings for the A’s after getting acquired by them last summer, but managed to post just 0.1 fWAR in the process. His strikeout rate (24.5%) and walk rate (5.2%) were solid, but opposing hitters posted just a .246 BABIP despite a 9.6% soft-hit rate, 45.2% hard-hit rate, and 40.0% fly-ball rate.
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