As the baseball season is now a quarter done, our occasional A's contributor, Christy of Athletics Nation, takes us through a team that somehow is managing to stay afloat despite the fact everyone on the team is on the DL except one of the ball girls and a coke vendor. Today, we'll go through the infield, and then we'll continue on with outfielders and pitchers.

Well, effectively grading the A’s on their performance so far is like giving out report cards when half of the class has been out for most of the semester with mono. There will be a lot of incompletes in here, just due to the ridiculous use of the DL, so bear with us.

We don’t think the following players can be fairly graded based on their shortened (or non-existent) seasons so far, so we’re assigning them a grade of INC, based on small sample size:

Milton Bradley
Justin Duchscherer
Chris Snelling
Rich Harden
Estaban Loaiza
Mark Kotsay
Bobby Kielty
Hiram Bocachica
Colby Lewis
Danny Putnam
Javier Hererra
Donnie Murphy
Erasmo Ramirez
Connor Robertson
Dallas Braden

Now, for the rest of the Oakland team, which is hovering right around the .500 mark, a pretty incredible feat considering the list above:

Infield
Eric Chavez (.233 AVG, .294 OBP, .404 SLG, 6HR, 24 RBI, 5 E) - C-

Chavez is always a tough player to make predictions about, or to hold to any kind of a standard, because there is such a marked difference between the player we think he should be and the player he actually is. Chavez looks like he should be a .280/30 HR hitter, with the best third base glove in the league, but for whatever reason, the last two seasons; he has struggled mightily at the plate. There is no doubt that he is plagued by injury; although Chavez doesn’t like talking about it, it is not something he easily hides. Even with five errors already on the year, we still believe there is no one better at third on defense, but on offense, Chavez is positively killing the team. Most concerning to us is his .294 OBP, which is fairly dismal for a type of hitter that depends on walks. Although he does have six homeruns, this small surge of power in no way makes up for the rest. And the really discouraging part of it all is that with no discernable cure for his ailing forearms, it doesn’t look like a second half surge is in the cards.

Bobby Crosby (.258 AVG, .302 OBP, .393 SLG, 5HR, 20 RBI, 7 E) - C+

If there was a ‘most improved’ award from the beginning of the season, there is no doubt in our minds that Crosby would be one of the recipients. To say that Crosby stumbled out of the gate in April would be a gross understatement--he pretty much fell flat on his face, both on offense and defense, and despite him coming off an injury-plagued year, we were ready to give up on him for good right about the time of the Yankees series at the Coliseum. Surprisingly (one of the few nice surprises of the first couple of months), since then, he has steadily climbed up to a serviceable player. His defense has been very steady lately, and he is having good at-bats, which if they continue, will begin to make a dent in his overall numbers. Right now, his numbers are not much better than Chavez; give or take a couple of singles, but for Crosby, this is marked improvement, and maybe for the first time, we see the potential for him to be more than just a good defensive shortstop.

Mark Ellis (.235 AVG, .326 OBP, .333 SLG, 3HR, 23 RBI, 4 E) - C

Despite being one of the few relatively injury-free players this year, Ellis has been quietly struggling at the back end of the A’s lineup, looking more like the 2006 version of himself than the 2005, not just at the plate, but in the field as well, where he has already doubled his error total from last year. The good news is that last year Ellis struggled early, and then really found his stroke after the All Star Break. We should be so lucky again this year.

Dan Johnson (.315 AVG, .426 OBP, .514 SLG, 5HR, 18 RBI, 3 E) - A

If you had told us at the beginning of the season that a short month after Johnson went down with an injury, that we would not only be thrilled to welcome him back to the team, but that he would earn an A for his performance so far this season, we would have thought the world was coming to an end. Johnson’s injury was almost a relief of sorts, and now that he is back, he has been one of the only reasons that the A’s are still clinging, albeit precariously, to a chance at a winning season. Dan Johnson has earned his ‘A’. Our only concern with him is that while we have seen him play a serviceable first base, and at times, a very good one, we have also seen some ugly, ugly play out of that position. DJ has been helped by all of the outfield injuries; they have allowed him to be in the lineup every day to rack up some incredible numbers. Considering that we are now getting the power one would expect at this position, I will live with a substandard defensive first base. If Johnson keeps hitting like he has been, no one will say a word about his fielding. We just hope this new Johnson is the real deal, and will be for the rest of the season.

Marco Scutaro (.241 AVG, .277 OBP, .342 SLG, 2HR, 7 RBI) - C

We have decided that Marco Scutaro is doing exactly the average of what he should be doing; no more, no less. He is an average fielder, who has really saved the A’s by how versatile he is in playing every position imaginable, and although his moments of brilliance can be summed up with one instance this year--the most dramatic, game-changing three-run walk-off homerun off Mariano Rivera to snatch a victory out of the certain jaws of defeat you will ever see--he has still been a serviceable player, filling in for more talented, yet less durable, players this year.