A's Power Ranking, Four Twenty

By Jason Wojciechowski on April 20, 2013 at 12:12 PM

Here is the Power Ranking for every player currently on the 25-man roster:

  1. Jed Lowrie -- he's batting .413, he's walking, he's got a .270 isolated power (SLG less AVG), he's playing shortstop every day at a mostly adequate level (catching everything hit at him but without stellar range to my eyes), and he's just generally awesome. Jed Lowrie: The Legend Continues.
  2. Coco Crisp -- dude still has stellar range in center, he's four-for-five on the year stealing bases, and he's slugging .759. He's also got 10 walks and just four whiffs. Crisp is absurdly, fantastically hot right now.
  3. Derek Norris -- seven walks in 35 plate appearances is right up my alley. It's also a lot easier to appreciate how solid he is behind the plate now that we have John Jaso hanging around as an easy comparison.
  4. Seth Smith -- yet another of the absurdly hot hitters: .405/.479/.619. He's a born designated hitter, as we learned by watching him play left field this week, but hey, that's his actual position on the team, so we can't complain so much.
  5. Brandon Moss -- I'm not a believer at all, but it's been a great 56 PAs to start the year: .306/.393/.490 despite a near-constant worry about an impending baby. Young Master Moss has arrived now, though. Moss could work on his understanding of which balls to chase and which balls to let through for the second baseman.
  6. Eric Sogard -- A .367 OBP and solid defense at second is nice for someone who was supposed to be the backup utility infielder.
  7. Tom Milone -- good solid Milone-like work to start the year. It puts my mind at ease to have one starter where I feel like I know what he's going to give you. (And walks aren't part of it.)
  8. A.J. Griffin -- I put Milone above Griffin despite Griffin winning the ERA battle by over a run and a half because I have no idea how I'm supposed to feel about Griffin's peripherals and his stuff resulting in a 2.25 ERA. He's not striking anyone out and his walk rate is pedestrian. Maybe he's a BABIP-suppressor, but it's very early to say.
  9. Jerry Blevins -- the lanky lefty never gets any respect, but he's given up one earned run in 9 2/3 innings while striking out 12 and walking one. Great work from a guy who only A's fans know.
  10. Josh Donaldson -- as with Moss, I'm not a believer, and his OBP is just .310, so I feel sort of vindicated, but if Donaldson has a .251 TAv and plays good defense at third, he's an asset for the price the A's are paying.
  11. Brett Anderson -- he hasn't pitched as badly as it seems, though if his ankle sprain doesn't heal up fast, he'll fall quickly
  12. Ryan Cook -- the inability to command his pitches will never not bug me, but his sheer stuff lets him pile up strikeouts enough to offset the walks and apparently has helped prevent hard contact as well. I'm always on edge with him, but maybe he really is a good setup man.
  13. Sean Doolittle -- he's been pumping the strikes in this year, resulting in a Milone-like number of walks, but the whiffs aren't back yet. It hasn't hurt the bottom line yet, but keep an eye out.
  14. Bartolo Colon -- he's a start behind, in a sense, but he has walked zero batters in three games (19 innings), so I feel I should have him higher, but the whiff and hit rates are exactly what you expect, so I can't justify it
  15. John Jaso -- he's not really hitting yet, though by the standards of the catcher position, his .252 TAv is perfectly nice. His defense legitimately upsets me, though. Last night's throw to first on a simple dropped third strike that caused Brandon Moss to have to jump off the bag to make the catch (and thus not record the out) was, I fear, what we're going to see a lot of from Jaso.
  16. Grant Balfour -- he's given up a couple of home runs already is the only thing keeping him down. They were both solo shots and they're the only runs he's allowed, but I've got to order this list somehow, and the A's bullpen is deep.
  17. Chris Resop -- perfectly reasonably unremarkable middle reliever thus far. I might just copy and paste this comment every time I do this list.
  18. Pat Neshek -- he hasn't really found his stride or his release point or something yet. Pitches are going all over the place, resulting in no strikeouts, lots of walks, and lots of hits. His position in the bullpen means it hasn't really hurt the A's that much, though, so I have a hard time getting worked up. If he is the sixth guy in reserve, well, every team needs a sixth guy.
  19. Chris Young -- whiffing a ton. He's popped a couple of homers, but it seems like every time you look up, he's swinging through a hittable fastball. At least he's a versatile defender.
  20. Josh Reddick -- similar to Young, though it's more been about weak contact keeping his performance down than strikeouts.
  21. Andy Parrino -- he hasn't played much, and he hasn't hit in his 16 trips, but I like watching him throw the baseball. He's got a fine arm.
  22. Nate Freiman -- also hasn't played much, but hey at least he hit his first big-league homer.
  23. Michael Taylor -- five plate appearances and Bob Melvin doesn't seem especially eager to get him more.
  24. Jarrod Parker -- he's just been unmitigatedly terrible in his three starts. Put command aside because Parker doesn't even have control at the moment. He'll toss a good changeup every once in a while but he'll follow that with two fastballs way out of the zone and two fat, Thanksgiving turkey fastballs. The A's of a few years ago could afford to let him figure things out, but if this team wants to contend, we could see him optioned out to try to work through whatever his issues are sooner rather than later. This is the luxury of Dan Straily after all.
  25. Jesse Chavez -- welcome to Oakland! Chavez got called up today.