He was a never thought of as a plus defender while in the minors, and many were surprised he was while in the majors. Sample size or bad scouting? Who knows. But he never had decent-to-average power. He did have below average power (never hit more than 13 HR in any season as a pro). Sure his plate disciple was great, but that can’t make up for the huge negative of next to no power. When teams can find a big slugger and hide their defensive liabilities at 1B, why would you put a no-power having 1B there?

Cabrera actually looked like a 1+ win over Crosby coming into the season. They seemed to be about even, perhaps a little in favor of Cabrera in terms of offense, but Cabrera’s glovework according to UZR had been incredible and a huge upgrade Crosby. In 2008, he was worthy nearly an extra 2 1/2 wins over Crosby.

It was a gamble considering Cabrera’s age and shaky offense, but the hope was that he could maintain it enough to provide a good push for the A’s. Obviously that has not happened, but both players were worth a shot for the A’s this year.

Really, apart from Kurt Suzuki and Adam Kennedy in May, the A’s have been plagued by underperformers. Along with Giambi and Cabrera underperforming their projections, Sweeney is worse offensively than he was last year (from .328 wOBA to .286). Garciaparra had a similar drop in wOBA while Cust has gone from .371 to .331. And while no one expected Holliday to put up an OPS over 1.000, his OPS this year (.792 right now) is not even close to his road OPS last year (.891).

The truth is, trading an OPS of .634 (C. Gonzalez) for .891 (Holliday’s road stats) to go along with the 3.5 wins from Giambi and Cabrera and another win from Nomar (hopefully), should have provided the A’s the boost they needed to challenge the Angels. Instead, everyone is underperforming their projections and the A’s are stuck in last place. It was a solid gamble, it just didn’t work.