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What the Projections Got Right, and Wrong, About A's Pitchers in 2026
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- What the Projections Got Right, and Wrong, About A's Pitchers in 2026
(Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images)
Some very early Steamer projections are up for the Athletics over at FanGraphs , but before we get into those, we just wanted to take a quick look at some of last season's projections to establish a bit of a baseline for the projections.
Heading into 2026, the A's had just four players projected for an ERA under four — Jack Perkins (3.76), Brady Basso (3.80), J.T. Ginn (3.89), and Mark Leiter Jr. (3.91). Ginn had the highest projected inning total of the group with 86 ⅓, which left plenty of innings over the course of the season to be filled by other arms.
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The projections were spot-on in a couple of spots and missed widely in others. Leiter finished with a 4.28 ERA thanks to a tough first month, but he was tremendous for the A's from the middle of April through his season-ending injury in July, holding a 2.81 ERA with a 2.16 FIP in that span. He was on track to finish below a four ERA.
Ginn ended the season with a 3.71 ERA (4.38 FIP) and turned out to be arguably the team's biggest breakout player from 2026. Given his home (6.85 ERA) and road (3.14 ERA) splits from 2025, it makes sense that he was able to even things out a bit and find more consistent success.
Brady Basso finished with a 6.07 ERA across 43 innings, but he also held a 3.63 FIP and had been having a sterling season up until his last three appearances when the wheels fell off. After his outing on September 9, he held a 3.86 ERA. He then proceeded to surrender 13 earned runs across 5 ⅔ innings spread over three starts.
Perkins was the biggest whiff by the projections, because his season wasn't derailed by injury or a small sample size like Leiter or Basso.
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Instead, Perkins made 37 appearances (17 starts) and held a 6.10 ERA (4.77 FIP) over 121 innings. He was tagged for 23 home runs, which certainly didn't help, but his 63% left-on-base rate suggests that he would collapse a little when someone got on base.
He would often get tagged early in the game, holding a 10.06 ERA in the first inning and a 6.75 ERA in the second inning, but tended to settle in nicely by the third, where he held a 3.15 ERA. Perkins has the stuff to be a presence in the big leagues, but that mental aspect slowed him down in 2026.
Throughout the season both Medina and Perkins were dealing with getting over the mental hurdles during their games. While Perkins was taken from the bullpen to the rotation, Medina stayed in relief and ended the year as a key late-inning option for the club heading into 2027 — if he doesn't get a crack at the rotation himself .
The A's staff as a whole ended up with a 5.53 ERA in 2026, though there were some standouts that were not expected from the projections before the season, including Luis Medina (3.08 ERA), Chris Roycroft (3.29 ERA), Scott Blewett (3.31 ERA), Hogan Harris (3.33 ERA), and Elvis Alvarado (3.90). Ginn was the other pitcher to finish with an ERA below four.
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All six pitched at least 10 innings with the A's in 2026, while Roycroft and Blewett were late-season additions to the bullpen.
While the projections weren't perfect, they did give a general sense of the season-long pitching issues the A's would face and the team's lack of depth, while also being correct about some of the standout arms the club ended up having.
