Oakland Now Serves Country Breakfast

As the wintery offseason wears on and on and gigantic contracts are being signed, we have another contract to discuss. No, it is not Giancarlo Stanoton's $325 million mega signing, or Jason Heyward's trade to the a Cardinals, but a rather surprising one coming from the AL champions. 

The story broke Tuesday night that Billy Butler, warmly known as "Country Breakfast", had signed a 3 year, $30 million contract with the Oakland Athletics.

I'm having trouble picturing him in green and yellow. Courtesy of Baseball Reference.

 Butler, 28, had finished his 8th season with the Royals, hitting .271 (career low) with 9 home runs (career low since his rookie year of 8) and 66 RBIs. This is an intriguing signing to say the least, so let's look at it from a variety of angles: 1) how it affects the Royals, 2) how it affects Butler, and 3) how it affects the A's moving forward. Shall we?

How It Affects the Royals
Coming from my perspective, whenever I watched Billy Butler play, he absolutely raked. Butler's career stats against his AL Central opponents are rather inflated compared to his future home in sunny Oakland: against AL Central opponents, Butler hit .301 in 534 career games while only hitting .283 in 200 career games against AL West opponents. There are a couple of factors that could explain this nearly 30 point increase in batting average:

• Travel: when the Royals went to anywhere in the AL Central, it was either in the same time zone or only one hour ahead, versus a trip out west which is one or two hours behind and a 2,000 mile journey to Seattle (I picked the longest trip to skew the data in my favor, sue me) - that could put a hitch in your swing.
• Experience: Butler has hit well against the Central's best pitching, including a .405 average against Justin Verlander and a .357 average against Chris Sale, but that's because he's faced them so much more than most any other pitcher. Like any good hitter, he's adjusted to what they've thrown and made them pay, but will he do the same out west? In his career, Butler is hitting .211 against CJ Wilson and .217 against Felix Hernandez. We'll be getting more exposure to watching him face the West aces and see if his improvement is real talent or just has a knack for ruining the Central's day. 

How does this affect the Royals? To put it simply, without Butler, I think it will be much harder for them to be as competitive as they were this year. The Royals finished a game behind the Tigers in the Central and still snagged a Wild Card spot, but they didn't play all that well against the Central; 39-37 overall including 6-13 against Detroit and 9-10 against Cleveland. They took care of business against Chicago (13-6) and Minnesota (11-8) and they should have, considering they were AL Champs and the White Sox and Twins trudged below .500 most of the year. While the Royals as a team struggled to beat the better Central teams consistently, Butler had no trouble, hitting .298 with 2 home runs against Tigers pitching and .279 with another 2 home runs against Indians pitching (.289 against all AL Central pitching). Keep in mind: Butler only hit .271 this year with 9 home runs.

So you're telling me he hit 18 points higher in the Central, 27 points higher against the division winner, and almost half his home runs came against the only other teams above .500 in that division? If the Royals want to take the division crown in 2015 rather than settle for a Wild Card spot again, they will need someone to step up like Butler did against the AL Central. 

As for the Royals lineup in general, Butler, primarily their cleanup hitter, served as excellent protection to Hosmer and Cain or whoever was batting 3rd that day depending on the pitcher. In 2014, he hit cleanup in 78 games, 3rd in 27 games, 6th in 23 games, 5th in 11 games, and 7th and 9th a few random times as a PH. Now, the Royals finished at 89-73 last year, a winning percentage of .549 and good enough for the 2nd Wild Card spot. When Butler appeared in games (not necessarily started, but had an AB or an inning in the field), the Royals were 85-66, which was a better winning percentage of .563. When Butler did not play, the Royals were 4-7. I know that's not a lot to pick from, but most of the games he missed were in September, and notably 2 in the same series at Detroit and another against Detroit at home which allowed the Tigers to widen their division margin. See what I mean how he's useful to the team? 

Here's their lineup moving forward (assuming Aoki does not re-sign with the team)

1) Dyson, CF

2) Infante, 2B 

3) Cain, RF

4) Hosmer, 1B

5) Perez, C

6) Gordon, LF

7) DH

8) Moustakas, 3B (hopefully he can repeat his postseason power surge)

9) Escobar, SS

So far the Royals have been quiet on the DH market. I think Michael Morse would fit in really well in Kansas City, he's cheap and has a huge swing for a huge park, but I also read a post today from a blog called Pine Tar Press saying Yasmany Tomas, the Cuban defector, would be a good fit for Kansas City. While I certainly agree with that statement in that Tomas could hit well in such a spacious field and give fellow Cuban Jose Abreu a run for his AL Central and ROY money, I don' think the Royals are the type of team to go sign a big free agent like that. After all, the only few players that they didn't grow themselves on the farm were Infante and Escobar. They don't rely on buying talent. They make it.

Long story short, I think the Royals will still be competitive, but by judging how strong Butler really was when it mattered, that's too big of a loss for the Royals to make up unless they do something huge at the Winter Meetings in a few weeks. 

How It Affects Butler

It will be hard parting with his first team, that is for sure. But he's in for a huge payday by moving out to Oakland; Butler made $8 million last year for the Royals and now he'll make $10 million - even after having a career low year. 

Jon and I were chatting about the A's signing Butler and how this came as a little bit of a shock for how much money he's getting despite having an uncharacteristically unproductive season. He said "guess this player and how much money they will make next year" and gave me the stat line of .271/.323/.379, 9 home runs, 66 RBIs. I first guessed Jacoby Ellsbury, was wrong, then guessed Kyle Seager, again wrong, and he told me Billy Butler and that he was going to make $10 million. To put that in perspective, that's working 1,226,994 hours at minimum wage, or 30,674 work weeks, which is 589 YEARS. But here's the shocking part: it wasn't just a low year, he's been plummeting the last 3 years. Check it out:

• stat: 2012/2013/2014
• average: .313/.289/.271
• slugging: .510/.412/.379
• on-base plus slugging: .882/.787/.702
• home runs: 29/15/9
• RBI: 107/82/66
• total bases: 313/240/208
• hits: 192/168/149

Granted, he played 11 fewer games in 2014 than 2013 but if he can hit 18 points higher, 6 home runs, 16 RBIs and 20 hits in 11 games, then he deserves the $10 million. 

Aside from the payday, I think the O.co Coliseum will fit his swing very well. Butler is a powerful hitter, but does not have a home run swing. 

.gif courtesy of MLB.com.

He swings downward on the ball, which makes him a great low ball hitter (as seen here) but also means he won't hit as many towering fly balls as Giancarlo Stanton, for example, who has a rather uppercut swing. 

See what I mean? Stanton aims to hit home runs (and holy cow does he) while Butler is a much more line drive type hitter, hence why he has good doubles numbers and only decent home runs numbers (his doubles were the only stat not to decrease from 2012-2014 - in fact, they increased). Here's a very well analyzed FanGraphs article proving my point. O.co Coliseum is a big park, but it can play tricks on you.  

See what I mean? Courtesy of Oaklandathletics.com

Given the massive foul territory and the centerfield grandstand that shoots into the sky, the field looks much bigger than it actually is, and it is actually smaller than Kauffman stadium (10 feet shorter to centerfield). Ample room for Butler to keep hitting doubles and hopefully get those RBI's back up.

How It Affects the A's

Billy Beane does it again.

The FanGraphs article I referenced earlier said that the A's have never had 3 $10million players on the roster at the same time under Beane until now. Butler is a great fit in terms of his swing matching, but the lineup doesn't really get a lot of help. Oakland's batting ranked 12th in the AL last year, hitting only .244 but they were third in the AL in runs scored. I will never understand how they grow to be such good situational hitters, but the fact of the matter is, Billy Butler is just like the rest of the A's: good power, good situational hitting, low average. But that's the Billy Beane way, so it makes it such a beautiful signing (I'm also just now learning of the Billy Beane Billy Butler alliteration and I love it). Here's what their lineup looks like:

1) Crisp, CF

2) Donaldson, 3B

3) Gomes, LF

4) Butler, DH

5) Moss, 1B

6) Reddick, RF

7) Norris, C

8) Lowrie, SS

9) Sogard, 2B

Really not a bad lineup. Serious home run threat and great timely hitting. Again, its the Billy Beane way. 

Butler? His OBP isn't bad, but its certainly better than last year's DH in Alberto Callaspo. 

To bring it all back around, I think the A's will be better off than last year, the Royals will be slightly worse unless they can sign someone big, and Butler is happily driving to the bank in essentially whatever vehicle he chooses. 

Thanks for reading.