The As look like they are going for it this year. Previous offseason and 2008 mid-season trades of Nick Swisher,  Rich Harden, and Joe Blanton (among others) helped restock the farm system. After the 2008 season, they traded for Matt Holliday (stud outfielder in a contract year and represented by Scott Boras -- in other words, he ain't gonna be in Oakland in 2010, whatever else happens) and signed Jason Giambi. They clearly needed the offensive boost these players should provide in and around Jack Cust. They also added Orlando Cabrera at shortstop, having clearly given up on Bobby Crosby ever reaching what used to appear to be his potential. These are not the moves of a rebuilding team.

Whether or not that is "enough" on offense is one question (along with how Cust and Giambi can both play without killing the As on defense). But the real question out there is if their pitching is enough, specifically their starting rotation. They certainly didn't add any "big names" to the rotation, and it isn't exactly clear who is gong to be in it. How bad (or good) will their starting pitching be? Drawing on different projection systems as well as the using some of the methods mentioned in my earlier Thoughts on Pitcher Value (with an "improved" update), let's see.

Methodology

[This next section goes over some points of methodology in figuring pitcher value, adding on to my earlier post. If that bores you or is old hat to yuou, please feel free to skip down the section on "The 2009 Oakland Rotation.")

In my earlier post, (which you might want to read if the idea if "replacement level" or "FIP" or the like are new ideas), I gave a very simple way of determining a pitcher's value above replacement level. In brief: for any player, value is rate over replacement times playing time.

For a starting pitcher, replacement level was defined as 128% of the lgERA (whether one uses ERA or FIP). So to get a pitcher's runs (saved) above replacement, we used the following formula (here using FIP as our rate stat; FIP is always scaled to that the lgFIP = lgERA):

((lgFIP*1.28)-playerFIP)*(IP/9.0)

There is nothing wrong with that formula, really. To get wins above replacement level (WAR), simply divide by the runs-to-wins ratio for that season. It's usually around 10 although if you want to figure it out for each season (like I did for every league and season through 2008 with MySQL) the formula is

(lgRA*2)+1.5

This is a fine way of doing a pitcher value analysis. But if you look around some sabermetric sites, you may notice another way of valuing pitchers using "win percentage," i.e., talking about certain pitchers as ".520" pitcher or .420 pitchers or whatever. You many think, "Hey, I thought we all agreed that pitcher wins are one of the worst stats out there." You'd be right. What is being talked about is what the pitcher's winning percentage would be given league average run support.

How does one figure this? It's funny... I asked and asked and asked... and while people were always eager to answer all my other questions, I guess I just asked at the wrong time, or it seemed to obvious. But it is a simple answer, to here it is, and I hope others can find this easily, as I could not.

It is done simply adapting of the Pythagorean Win Expectation discovered by Bill James. James found that one could roughly estimate what percentage of games a team would win by using

Runs Scored^2/(Runs Scored^2+Runs Allowed^2)

More recent analysts have found that 1.83 is a more precise exponent, and there are more sophisticated versions like PythagPat, but we'll keep it simple for now.

It's easy enough, then, to apply this to pitchers. Assuming the 1.83 exponent and that the pitcher has average support, the formula is

League Average ERA (or RA or FIP or whatever)) ^1.83/(League Average ERA^1.83 + Pitcher ERA^1.83)

Let's run through a calculation for last season.

Let's take former Athletics (and current Brave) pitcher Tim Hudson's 2008. When he was healthy, he posted a 3.83 FIP. The NL league average ERA was 4.30. So

4.3^1.83/(4.3^1.83+3.83^1.83) = .533 win percentage (rounded)

Originally, this post went on and on about methodology, but but it was getting too long and non-As focused, which is s probably what you really want to read. The source of most of this can be found in various places on the 'Net. Much of it can be found in a great series at FanGraphs by Dave Cameron, who is himself distilling a number of ideas, many of them from Tom Tango. You can find links  the series on Pitcher Win Values at Fangraphs -- you can find the links in a post I wrote at Royals Review.

Here's a distillation of how it goes (and do check out the links for more detailed explanations):

Replacement level for starters is a .380 win%, for relievers, it is .470. See Tom Tango's helpful blog post for more on this. FanGraphs doesn't adjust for the relative superiority of talent in the AL, to do so, one make the replacement levels .370 and .460 in the AL, .390 and .480 in the NL.

To get runs saved one takes the player's win percentage - replacement level times innings pitched. For Hudson in 2008, that would be .(533-.390)*142= 23.1 runs above replacement (RAR).

Further, one needs to adjust for the pitchers effect on his run environment by averaging his FIP-ERA with the lgRA in the equation above, and scale it to RA to make sure that it accurately reflects the league and pitcher run environment and also gives pitchers their proper value in relation to hitters. Given that we're dealing with projections here, I will simply add .4 to the FIP and lgERA, although that is imprecise. For the As projections, though, it will have to suffice.

(Note that for simplicity's sake, I've left out park adjustments for now. I will get to that in the future.)

For Hudson, the result is a 2.4 WAR for 2008 -- given that the average player is around 2, and given that he only pitched 142 innings.

The 2009 Oakland Rotation

For the projections, I once again averaged the FIP generated from CHONE, ZiPS, and PECOTA. Using a weighted average, I've set the lgERA at 4.45.

Playing time is a difficult issue (and this is all from before Duchscherer's arm problems...) It's always tough to project, but with the As young players both in the majors and the minors... So I went with Baseball Prospectus' projections, as it tries to account for spot starts. If As fans want to jump in with suggestions in the comments, feel free. After all that bluster above, the chart is relatively short and straightforward. Remember -- the projected FIP is not me, it's the average of the three most respected and publicly available systems.

The first thing that might grab your attention is that that's a lot of starters. But keep in mind trying to account for injury risks, from longer stays on the DL to simply skipping a turn when a guy rests. Also keep in mind that guys might get into a rut and get sent into the 'pen for a bit, or young guys getting sent down or called up.

But just look at the winnings percentages for a minute, since they give us an idea of each pitchers relationship to league average (.500) and replacement level (.370 in the AL). The only starters on that list clearly above average are Duchsherer and Eveland. No, neither of them look to be dominating aces, but both are projected as clearly above average. Good #2 pitcher, one might say. Leave aside what you think about the As trade of Harden -- Gallagher projects as perfectly average.

As for the rest, well, only Braden and perhaps Edgar Gonzalez project close to average, but they are high-end #4s. What really is striking, though, is that none of these guys, except maybe Gio Gonzalez and the wonderfully-named-for-a-pitcher Outman, statisticaly profile as #5s, and even those guys are a ways from replacement level.

In other words, while none of the players are projected to dominate, none are projected to be horrible. And if there is an injury, there is plenty of non-replacement-level depth available to step into the breach. Is that enough to win the AL West? I suppose I have to disappoint here and say that I really don't know. It depends on the Angels, of course, who have a very good rotation, but didn't really replace Mark Teixeira, either, and keep getting older. And, of course, much depends on if the As hitting can improve. yes, that's a waffle, but I'll say this: it's not Hudson, Mulder, and Zito in 2001, but it's not the 2003 Royals, either. It's reasonable to think the As can contend with these guys.

A final thought: It's sometimes said that pitching is the currency of baseball. That may be true due to some perceptions about how trade value works. But the truth is, it is more accurate to say that runs are the currency of baseball. Even more accurately, wins are the currency of baseball, since they are what gets one into the playoffs, and when one signs free agents or makes trades, one is trying to purchase (through money or talent) marginal wins. But that gets to the crux of the issue. Here's the same players, their projected WAR, and some... other important data based on 2009 projections.

[NB: All dollar values are millions. I've taken the dollar value of each WAR in 2009 to be $4.62 million on the basis of Colin Wyers' finding that the cost was $4.2 million in 2008 and assuming the general 10% annual inflation of that salary + $0.4 M replacement player salary.  It seems too early to say for sure how to adjust for the new economic climate, and it's better to adjust too little than too much...]

Every team (yes, even the Yankees) run on a budget. And the As, even though they want to win, have a budget, and a pretty small one at that. Yes, they want to win. But it's not pitching that's the currency of baseball. It isn't even runs. Yes, wins are wins, but ultimately, you have to pay for wins. And the As, now matter how they are do, are hedging their bets. If this rotaiton doesn't work out, it's not like they're stuck with a bunch of contracts they can't move, or have mortgaged the future.

The real currency of baseball is well, currency (ok, money, but let me have my moment). The As are "on the hook" for a bit over $7 million for those player next year, players who are projected to return over $50 milllion in value. And that, not walks, or defense, or Jeremy Brown's Blue Plate Special, is what the concept of "Moneyball" is really about.