Oakland Athletics Top 5

With their high-end talents bringing their skill sets to the big league club this past season, the Oakland A’s chain was in need of a new "Moneyball Era." Courtesy of its 2007 draft showing, the A’s got just that, overhauling a suddenly weak minor league system with a great breadth of new talent. Daric Barton shouldn’t find his name on a prospect list too far into next season, meaning that the name of Oakland’s system will be youth and promise for some time to come.

Our Top 5 Oakland A's Prospects at the end of the 2007 Season
No.		Player		Pos		Notes		Age		Level
1		Daric Barton		1B		Excellent line-drive hitter with a great plate approach; put up solid AAA line		22		MLB
2		James Simmons		RHP		Polished college arm was decent after going straight to AA from '07 Draft		21		AA
3		Trevor Cahill		RHP		Good GB, K rates in full-season debut; could be a big riser if he excels in A+		19		A
4		Corey Brown		OF		One of the best NCAA athletes in the '07 Draft; powerful hitter, decent BB/K		21		SS
5		Sean Doolittle		1B		Another '07 draft pick; solid line-drive hitter with good approach; power = ?		21		A
* Ages are as of 11/2/07
** Level is the highest level the player has reached
*** Our rankings combine a player's ceiling with the odds that he'll reach it and favor recent production
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1. Daric Barton, 1B (8/16/85)

Going .293/.389/.438 in Triple-A is impressive, but .347/.429/.639 in the big leaues? That’s plain silly. Survey says: The Oakland Athletics will be sure to tab more than 72 big league at-bats for Daric Barton come 2008. Hailing originally form Springfield, Vt., Barton had his typical silent assassin-esque season in Triple-A, yielding the said vital and a stellar 78:69 BB to K rate. Barton hit just nine home runs in 516 at-bats for the River Cats, but unleashed 38 doubles during the same timeframe. Those waiting for the 6-foot, 225-pounder to develop a home-run stroke could very well be waiting forever, so as everyone starts realizing that a MiLB IsoD of well over 100 points (.127) more than makes up for that fact, Daric Barton continues to strive for the peak of any Top 25 chart.

2. James Simmons, RHP (9/29/86)

There really aren’t too many positives to be drawn out of a 1.51 WHIP. Until, of course, you throw all the variables into the equation for James Simmons. A 6-foot-3, 205-pounder, Simmons’ WHIP came courtesy of 36 hits allowed in 29.2 frames of work (.308 BAA), posting a far stronger 2.88 K/BB clip in the midst of the same sample size. Above all, the fact that the UC Riverside product was able to be even somewhat effective after being sent directly to Double-A following the draft this season speaks volumes about James Simmons and his already advanced stage of development.

3. Trevor Cahill, RHP (3/1/88)

Trevor Cahill’s numbers to the untrained eye jump off the page with ease: a strong 11-4 record with an equally imposing 2.73 ERA. And once you toss those skewed metrics aside, there’s still plenty to like about the Oceanside, Calif. product. A high-end talent who was drafted in the second round due to signability constraints, Cahill impressed in 2007 to the tune of a 2.93 K/BB rate and 1.19 WHIP. The 6-foot-3, 195-pounder also holds solid K/PA (26.8 percent) and GB rate (59 percent), making Cahill a solid overall prospect.

4. Corey Brown, OF (11/26/85)

Living proof that batting average is to be thrown on the backburner, Corey Brown has wasted no time making an impact in the professional ranks. A sandwich rounder this past June, Brown dominated the Northwest League, yielding a .268/.379/.545 vital line. The Oklahoma State product posted a staggering XBH rate of 57.9 percent in the process. The lefthanded-hitting slugger needs to work on his patience (37:77 BB to K) and start advancing out of the lower minors quickly given his age. But with an overall package like the one Corey Brown brings, there’s no reason to bet against him doing just that.

5. Sean Doolittle, 1B (9/26/86)

When the A’s landed Sean Doolittle with the No. 41 overall pick, they were expecting to see him do plenty. The University of Virginia product, however, lived up to his namesake in most respects in his first professional season. A 6-foot-3, 190-pounder, Doolittle went .243/.341/.347 in 239 MiLB at-bats this season, landing a strong showing in the IsoD department, but little else. Doolittle – who doesn’t exactly bring a power stroke to the table (7 HR in 226 college at-bats) – has the OBP potential to make the metric into a personal cornerstone statistic, and will need to do just that to land firmly on the prospect radar. There was also plenty of talk about him pitching in the professional ranks entering the 2007 Draft.

Honorable Mentions:

After watching the likes of the Travis Bucks and Kurt Suzukies of the world make an impact for the big club, a then sparse MiLB system was continuously revamped by a strong 2007 Draft showing. Grant Desme (OF, 4/4/86) – better known to some as Grant the Destroyer – was an excellent value pick in the draft’s second round after sliding due to minor injury woes, while Josh Horton (SS, 2/19/86) has the potential to shore up Oakland’s shortstop issues in the not so distant future.

 

Adam Loberstein can be reached at aloberstein@projectprospect.com.