To Buy, Sell, or Stay Pat, What's the New Plan for 2019?

With the A's on a superb winning role and emerging as serious 2018 contenders, decisions will need to be made as the trade deadline approaches. With AN giddy with trade proposals right now I think it'd be wise to take a brief step back and look at the longer term plan for this franchise. You never know what tomorrow will bring, but it doesn't hurt to arrive there well-prepared.

I wish I had more time to do an exhaustive analysis of this, but I didn't want to let that stop me from at least starting this discussion. Below is an initial dive in, and I hope looking at this helps people think longer term as the trade deadline approaches.

Note: Turns out I actually dove pretty deep after all. It was fun. And distracting. Which is ironic is a post warning about the perils of not preparing for the future. I had a blast preparing this and hope you all enjoy.

Short version - it's hard to say just how competitive the A's can be the next few years. If anything, it's been the bullpen just as much as the hitting that's propping this team up. And the good news there is that TnT, Butcher, and Pagan are all controlled through at least 2020. Olson, Piscotty, and Chapman are a strong position player core who will be here a long while. But is that going to be enough? Here are some questions that will need answering over the next two years:

2019 Needs

Catcher

Lucroy is on a one year contract and isn't even all that great. Sean Murphy is the bright hope long-term, but he was probably not starting Opening Day in 2019 even before the injury. Huge short-term problem.

Outfield

Piscotty has RF locked down through 2022 and looks back to form. CF and LF are still question marks. Dustin Fowler is not exactly lighting the league on fire. Canha and Pinder are both dominant as short-side platoon options, but are stretched as everyday outfielders.

Second Base

Barreto has yet to emerge and may never do so at this point. Lowrie is playing so well that we might not have the funds to keep him if we want to resign him this off-season.

Rotation

Who the heck knows? It's Manaea and question marks. Mengden's probably hopefully a mainstay, but Graveman may be unfixable. Luzardo should be ready by 2019 and could be dominant. Puk, Holmes, and Cotton got derailed by injuries. Maybe we'll use Triggs in the pen? Whole lotta maybe here with some promise and not as many answers yet as we'd hoped for by now.

2020 Needs

Designated Hitter

Krush was an early boon helping turn this franchise around. Sadly, he's a free agent in 2020 and will be entering his age 32 season. The A's have been SO, SO bad at filling the DH slot over the last couple decades. I worry.

Payroll Woes

The A's currently have the lowest payroll in MLB. Good news is that $24.5 million is coming off the books this off-season (Lucroy, Lowrie, Casilla, Joyce). Bad news is we're losing another $8.7 million as part of continued revenue sharing phase-out. As a rough estimate, there's only going to be $15.8 million in payroll room this year. And next year we lose ANOTHER $8.7 million.

Note: We had been receiving roughly $30 million from the league in revenue sharing from before 2017. Those funds were taken away in 2017 as the A's were determined to be "not a small market team". You can view my chart here for what the monetary phase out plan looks like and the effects on likely payroll moving forward.

Conclusion

Looking at all this, I think what I'm most stunned by is that, in addition to the hitting, we really need to thank our lucky stars that the BULLPEN has emerged as such a strength of this squad. And yay, that bullpen is cost-controlled and here for a while, with several prospects in the minors (Wahl, Wendelken, ect.) looking like they could provide additional support.

That said, we are losing our two best hitters over the next two years (Lowrie, Davis) and unless Barreto makes a miraculous turnaround, there's not much in the minors short-term to fill that gap. Neuse and Mateo are flailing and the rest of our good position prospects are years away. We also don't have the funds to really fix the issue - good offense is EXPENSIVE.

If the rotation comes through to be a true strength we'll stay afloat as a somewhat competitive squad. With Luzardo, Puk, Kaprielian, and more to hope on, plus maybe the emergency of Mengden this year, the rotation could well be fine. But right now, that's still a maybe, and we actually have more upcoming lineup holes that you may think given how well the team's doing right now.

Nothing like uncertainly to throw a wrench in planning, but these are some points to consider as we all continue with the trade speculation fun.

Ultimately, tomorrow is tomorrow's problem, and we can shelve worrying about it for now. The current A's are ridiculously fun and that's something to just sit back and enjoy. But if you one gets too caught up in the present, the future can really wallop those who arrive unprepared.