MLB SHOWDOWN 2019 SET -- Oakland Athletics

The Oakland Athletics were an AL Wild Card team this season losing to the Rays in the wild card game. This team came from the tough AL West and finished with a 97-65 record falling just short of being another 100 win team. A strong September record of 18-8 helped them clinch that #1 wild card position.

Lineup: Defense lovers rejoice this is your team, the Oakland Athletics come in with a +14 infield defense, so build your pitching staff accordingly with this infield. The outfield leaves a little to be desired with a +3 defense for the outfield. From a batting perspective AL MVP candidate Marcus Semien starts things off with his fun 9 on base card that doubles at 14, includes a triple and three home run opportunities. The Matt attack follows with two 8OB and a homer at 17 and 16. The big hitter Mark Canha hits cleanup and brings the teams only 10 OB, ideally I would hit him second behind Semien and hope for the 8s to drive them in. Ramon Laureano, another 8 OB looks to clean up any potential leftovers from Canha and Krush is up next, not the Krush of last year has a weak card that might find his way to the bench in big games for this team. Profar, Grossman and Phegley turn the lineup over with Grossman being another one of the 8 obs that Oakland has.

Bench: A pretty weak bench for Oakland as Stephen Piscotty isn't a high OB and provides no defense, he could take Davis DH role in a high control pitching match-up. While Chad Pinder can slot in for a defensive manager in the outfield to improve the defense in the outfield late in games to try and slow some runners down.

Rotation: The leader of the Athletics deep rotation is Frankie Montas and his stellar card. Sadly due to his limited number of starts and innings is only a 4IP but for his starts you can bet your team is getting a stellar start for at least 4 innings. After that this deep rotation is 4 more starters all ranging between 330 and 350 points including Mike Fiers and his stellar cinnabon beard. They have a 6th starter in Tanner Roark as he will be coming out of the bullpen for this team.

Bullpen: Liam Hendriks leads the charge for the bullpen as he is a tier 1 closer that can be heavily relied upon for some big innings. Yusmeiro Petit is his set up man for the bullpen as its third option Joakim Soria is the last in the bullpen before things start to go downhill. The end of the bullpen has two 0s and one 1 control who will only be used in blowouts most likely. 

This Oakland team will win its fair share of games behind solid starting pitching and a better than average lineup with a few arms in the bullpen that can close the games out. Coming in at 5720 points and 248 points per player they fall right in the average team area but a big contribution to that is the end three bullpen pitchers and their low point totals. I expect this Athletics team would be competitive in their division and probably challenge for a wild card just like in real life this past season.

Updated point per player averages
Astros 300
Nationals 295
Twins 293
Braves 256
Athletics 248
Cardinals 245