Butler finishes out a rough first season with A's

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SEATTLE -– Billy Butler just finished up one of the most productive months of his major league career.

Unfortunately for the A’s designated hitter, it comes at the tail end of one of his toughest seasons.

Like so many other aspects of Oakland’s disappointing 2015, Butler’s first year in green and gold simply hasn’t gone according to plan. Despite a six-homer September, tied for his most home runs in any month of his career, Butler hasn’t made the impact that was anticipated when the A’s signed him to a three-year $30 million contract last winter.

He’s hitting a career-low .253, and his 65 RBI rank just fourth on a team where the current leader (Josh Reddick) may not even reach 80. On the plus side, Butler’s homers are up significantly from last season (15 compared to nine), and he’s tied for the A’s lead with 28 doubles. But, his 26 ground-ball double plays are second most in the American League, and his OPS of .719 ranks just seventh in the league among DHs.

“It’s been a tough year all the way around,” Butler said.

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His numbers stick out, particularly in the context of what his signing represented. As All-Star sluggers Josh Donaldson and Brandon Moss were subtracted from the team via trades last offseason, Butler was the marquee run producer that Oakland added. He was expected to provide right-handed thump in the middle of the lineup. And the A’s were banking that, entering his age-29 season, Butler had the ability to reverse a trend over the three previous years that saw his homers, RBI, batting average and OPS all decrease with each season. But that noticeable, across-the-board improvement has not happened in 2015, which makes his three-year $30 million deal look like quite the risky investment.

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“No matter what expectations someone has on me, I always have higher expectations for myself,” Butler said. “That being said, I’m a 15 to 20-home run guy (over my career), and I’ve hit 15. I’m a 30 to 40-double guy, and I’m two doubles away from that. So it’s basically been where I’m at. My RBIs aren’t where they’re supposed to be, and those kind of come and go with luck.”

In Butler’s defense, another first-year Athletic, Ike Davis, was also supposed to shoulder some of the load, and he made minimal offensive impact before being lost to a season-ending hip injury. Another key hitter, Ben Zobrist, was traded away at the deadline.

Butler enjoyed a surge in September. Along with his six homers, he hit .316 and collected 17 RBI, his most RBI in a month since he had 24 in September 2012.

“You always want to look to see how guys finish,” A’s manager Bob Melvin said. “…. I think mechanically he’s doing the right thing in trying to hit the ball the other way now and keep the ball off the ground, which earlier in the season he was having a tough time doing, because it appeared to me he was trying to pull the ball.”

Does his hot September mean better things might be in store for Butler in 2016? It’s reasonable to think he could be better next season simply by having a year under his belt with his new team. Butler was drafted by the Kansas City Royals, developed in their farm system and played his first eight big league seasons with them before signing with the A’s. He’s never hid the connection he felt with that city and those teammates.

Butler and wife Katie are expecting their third daughter in November, and he admits -- semi-jokingly -- that he’s still experiencing some culture shock living in the Bay Area. For one, the traffic getting home after day games has been an eye-opener.

“It’s the opposite spectrum from where I was in Kansas City,” he said. “It’s an adjustment. It’s not necessarily my favorite lifestyle. I’m more of a country boy, slower pace. When I get to the park, everything’s the same. (But) I’m not used to that type of pace.”

As the A’s prepare to finish out their season with a three-game weekend series in Seattle, Butler looks back on a season in which the A’s held optimism that they could contend, but couldn’t climb out of the AL West cellar.

“I think anything that could have went wrong did,” Butler said. “It seemed like everything positive we did, we counteracted it with more of a negative. … (But) I feel like we have a tremendous amount of talent in this room, and I think they’re going to build around that and see if we can’t turn this around next year.”

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