Stephen Piscotty: The Risk The A’s Should Take

I agree with Tim Eckert-Fong on nearly everything Oakland A’s-related. However, he recently posited that the A’s should seek a new outfielder elsewhere than St. Louis’ Stephen Piscotty. I don’t love Piscotty as a trade target, but I believe he makes much sense for the Oakland A’s both now and in the future.

One thought of Tim’s with which I disagree is the idea that, despite his team-friendly contract, acquiring Piscotty isn’t a risk worth taking:

“At six years, $33.5 million, Piscotty’s contract is relatively cheap in the world of baseball. Even the A’s can handle that limited dollar amount, particularly with their currently low payroll. It’s not a backbreaker even if he’s bad and if he bounces back? You’ve got an asset for an extended period of time.

It means more risk though, even if only slightly and for a reasonable amount of time. It’s a notch, again only slightly, against Piscotty. The notches add up, and Piscotty isn’t the risk worth taking.”

First, Piscotty’s contract really is team friendly. In 2018 he’ll make just $1.3 million and won’t exceed $8 million in 2019, 2020, 2021, or 2022 before hitting a $15 million team option with a $1 million buyout in 2023. The contract covers Piscotty through his age-31 season.

Those annual salary figures are the amounts that decent relief pitchers earn in today’s market. Piscotty would fit into Oakland’s lineup as a regular position player. Piscotty has already outearned his entire contract in roughly two season’s worth of PAs. Which brings me to my point.

How well would Piscotty have to perform to be worth his contract over the next 5 seasons? It appears as though he’d need to be worth a little more than 1 fWAR each season or total about 4 fWAR over the course of his contract.

What does that type of production look like?

Let’s say Piscotty doubles that level of production and performs as a league-average player and tallies about 2 fWAR each of the next 5 seasons?

There is a lot of surplus value to be gained from acquiring a player like Piscotty who has the tools to string together multiple seasons of at least league average production. He produced 4 fWAR in less than 900 PAs from 2015 to 2016, good for 41st among MLB outfielders.

Can Piscotty return to his 2015-2016 production level? The answer to that question provides the greatest evidence either for or against Piscotty, but it is also the hardest to predict. My answer, though, is yes.

You can see in the chart above that through 2016 Piscotty’s actual production nearly matched his expected outcome. In 2017 his production fell short of the expected outcome. Piscotty’s 2017 xwOBA of .337, had that been his actual number, would net a wRC+ of right around 108, which is where Mookie Betts (wOBA: .339, wRC+: 108) and Brett Gardner (wOBA: .336, wRC+: 108) were in 2017. Those aren’t record breaking numbers, but when paired with quality defense, can total 3-4 fWAR.

Earlier in the offseason I piggybacked on Eno Sarris’ idea that the A’s should be looking specifically for risk because that is where teams will find the most reward. My focus then was on free agents, but a Piscotty trade embodies that sentiment just as well.