Jack Cust DFA'd

[The Logan]

Athletics designated DH Jack Cust for assignment.

The A's have opted to keep both Travis Buck and Jake Fox on-board instead of giving a roster spot to Cust and will probably play around with the DH position this season. Cust, 31, should draw interest from other teams but may settle for a minor league assignment in the end. He smacked 25 homers and 70 RBI last season for Oakland and was re-signed this winter for $2.65 million

[Little Slide Rooter]

I mentioned this briefly in another post. The A's must really like Fox if they were willing to eat Custs new 2.5 million dollars to keep him on board. Foxes ST line was .151/.224/.321.

[CubbieBum]

I mentioned this briefly in another post. The A's must really like Fox if they were willing to eat Custs new 2.5 million dollars to keep him on board. Foxes ST line was .151/.224/.321.

 

The cutting of Cust seems a bit weird but Fox and him are redundant. Fox is a bit better defensively, more versatile, younger with lots of potential and likely to be able to do the great power and nothing else that Cust has done for a couple years. Fox could do much better than Cust but at the minimum Fox should be able to do what Cust has done in recent years so why keep a guy like Cust who can really only DH on the team and eating a roster spot?

 

Fox hasn't been good this Spring but in the last couple games he started hitting and knocking the ball out so I'm guessing that is why Cust is being released now.

[Little Slide Rooter]

I mentioned this briefly in another post. The A's must really like Fox if they were willing to eat Custs new 2.5 million dollars to keep him on board. Foxes ST line was .151/.224/.321.

 

The cutting of Cust seems a bit weird but Fox and him are redundant. Fox is a bit better defensively, more versatile, younger with lots of potential and likely to be able to do the great power and nothing else that Cust has done for a couple years. Fox could do much better than Cust but at the minimum Fox should be able to do what Cust has done in recent years so why keep a guy like Cust who can really only DH on the team and eating a roster spot?

 

Fox hasn't been good this Spring but in the last couple games he started hitting and knocking the ball out so I'm guessing that is why Cust is being released now.

 

I believe the real question is why, after aquiring Fox and Kouzmanoff, did they bother resigning Cust to begin with? Its almost as though Beane was taking money wasting advice from Jim Hendry.

[The Logan]

The first thing I thought when I saw this was that perhaps they're doing this as posturing to bring Chris Carter up to the big club sooner rather than later. Carter can probably draw a walk as good as Cust (who can do it better than the majority of all MLB players) and he was blocked by Cust at DH (and Barton at 1B), whereas Jake Fox is easily expendable for when Carter is ready. Moving Fox to the bench is a lot easier to do than a guy who can draw 100 walks a year if he gets the AB's. Having Cust's elite patience riding the pine would be pointless. I think this has more to do with Carter than Fox.

[erik316wttn]

I don't think he'd be horribly expensive, and would be great to have as a power bat off the bench. If only there were room for him. :(

[Andy]

I don't think he'd be horribly expensive, and would be great to have as a power bat off the bench. If only there were room for him. :(

There would be if we weren't so eager to have Colvin up (and probably rot on the bench after Lou forgets about his edict to play him 3 times a week by April 20th).

[CubbieBum]

I don't think he'd be horribly expensive, and would be great to have as a power bat off the bench. If only there were room for him. :(

 

His bat would be great off the bench but he will go to a AL team. He can't play the field anywhere which means he must only be a pinch hitter in the NL. Go to the AL and he can pinch hit and play DH some.

[NewUserName]

I was talking to my brother who lives in the Bay area yesterday about this. He said one of the down sides of Sabermetrics and Moneyball is there are players who are wise to these baseball philosophies very young now. He says a player like Jack Cust spent a lot of time honing his Saber friendly abilities in the minors but didn't spend enough time learning how to play baseball. I don't know if my brother made that up or there was some rumors of that sort of thing in the bay area. I think there is something to be said about a player who can learn to take a bunch of walks and hit for power but doesn't take the time to at least learn how to be an okay corner outfielder.

[CubbieBum]

I was talking to my brother who lives in the Bay area yesterday about this. He said one of the down sides of Sabermetrics and Moneyball is there are players who are wise to these baseball philosophies very young now. He says a player like Jack Cust spent a lot of time honing his Saber friendly abilities in the minors but didn't spend enough time learning how to play baseball. I don't know if my brother made that up or there was some rumors of that sort of thing in the bay area. I think there is something to be said about a player who can learn to take a bunch of walks and hit for power but doesn't take the time to at least learn how to be an okay corner outfielder.

 

Uh ok. This is no different than guys who realized that AVG and HR's were heavily valued and tried to get good at them. If they neglected defense they wouldn't find a place in the majors other than DH. Taking walks and hitting for power makes you a very valuable player but you still have to be able to play defense or be relegated to DH.

[Guest]

I was talking to my brother who lives in the Bay area yesterday about this. He said one of the down sides of Sabermetrics and Moneyball is there are players who are wise to these baseball philosophies very young now. He says a player like Jack Cust spent a lot of time honing his Saber friendly abilities in the minors but didn't spend enough time learning how to play baseball. I don't know if my brother made that up or there was some rumors of that sort of thing in the bay area. I think there is something to be said about a player who can learn to take a bunch of walks and hit for power but doesn't take the time to at least learn how to be an okay corner outfielder.

 

Why can't all those okay corner outfielders learn to hit for power like Jack Cust? In fact, why can't middle infielders do that? Brendan Ryan is a selfish, anti-sabr, mustachioed toolbox.

[jersey cubs fan]

I was talking to my brother who lives in the Bay area yesterday about this. He said one of the down sides of Sabermetrics and Moneyball is there are players who are wise to these baseball philosophies very young now. He says a player like Jack Cust spent a lot of time honing his Saber friendly abilities in the minors but didn't spend enough time learning how to play baseball.

 

Jack Cust is 30-something years old. Being wise to saberfriendly philosophies at a young age had nothing to do with it.

[davearm2]

I don't know that Jack Cust is illustrative of anything, but it sure seems reasonable to me that young players coming up through the 2000s might have tended to focus on their hitting (be it power, patience, OBP, or whatever best suits their game) to the detriment of their defensive games. Nobody in MLB was getting rich with their glove only. That may be changing, but if it is, it'd be a very recent trend.

[UK1679666180]

I don't know that Jack Cust is illustrative of anything, but it sure seems reasonable to me that young players coming up through the 2000s might have tended to focus on their hitting (be it power, patience, OBP, or whatever best suits their game) to the detriment of their defensive games. Nobody in MLB was getting rich with their glove only. That may be changing, but if it is, it'd be a very recent trend.

 

I think it's unfair to assume that he didn't work at his defensive game as much as needed compared to a lack of physical abilities needed to be a solid defensive player.

[biittner77]

for as long as I can remember there has been a saying in baseball: if you can hit they'll find a place for you to play. Guys that can hit but are bad at defense have been around forever. This isn't some new trend.

 

Every player wants to be a complete player. Jake Fox, for example, reportedly has worked really hard on his defense. Unfortunately for him he still sucks at it. But that's not for lack of effort. The idea that young players don't care about defense is laughable. If Fox could play even a decent catcher he'd likely be an all star. At the very least he could have made the major leagues much sooner and therefore made more money.

[TruffleShuffle]

I don't know that Jack Cust is illustrative of anything, but it sure seems reasonable to me that young players coming up through the 2000s might have tended to focus on their hitting (be it power, patience, OBP, or whatever best suits their game) to the detriment of their defensive games. Nobody in MLB was getting rich with their glove only. That may be changing, but if it is, it'd be a very recent trend.

 

I think it's unfair to assume that he didn't work at his defensive game as much as needed compared to a lack of physical abilities needed to be a solid defensive player.

 

agreed... he was with two NL organizations and the question was always "what do we do with him?" he's a bad defender now but the a's actually did use him some in the OF.... the reviews on his defense improved from "looks like he's trying to corral a wild chicken" to "bad", which is improvement.

 

cust's problem is that teams figured out that his game is walks, home runs and that's it, so they challenged him more and his walk rate went down.