Nico

On last night's radio broadcast, Ken Korach mentioned that the A's liked Chris Resop this past off-season despite his drop in K-rate, because they have access to numerous metrics -- some available to the public and some proprietary.

While it was frustrating to be dictated to by a King, and even worse to play like absolute Eric Patterson on Tuesday, you can only analyze so much from any 2 game sample. So let me try...

First of all, beware of any weird news you hear today. If someone suggests that Yoenis Cespedes has moved back to Cuba, or that Ken Korach has had gender reassignment surgery, remember the date and realize there's only a 50/50 chance that it's true.

In the 3rd inning, Yoenis Cespedes reached for an outside changeup and blasted it over the LF wall, a feat that served notice that the A's are probably a bad team to take lightly.

The last game that doesn't count in the standings! But it's the rubber game of a series against the A's cross-bay rivals, so we need to care or at least pretend to.

You think only tow-truck drivers play "Fantasy AAA"? Here is your A's entry for "players who might put up really good numbers" in the minor leagues this year...

If you don't care about Cactus League results, then you probably don't care that Oakland evened up its record at 12-12. But they still did.

Welcome to the Nate Freiman era! These next few days are pretty crucial for the likes of Freiman, Daric Barton, Adam Rosales, Eric Sogard, Jemile Weeks, Scott Sizemore, and Hiroyuki Nakajima. One...

Eric Sogard is not a .538 hitter, nor does he play one on TV. However there is, in my opinion, a perfectly good case to be made for Eric Sogard to make the Opening Day roster...

Shane Peterson, and his "for-realness" level, are the subject of John Sickels' lead post on minorleagueball.com this morning.

Lots of middle infielders, few spots available, but these guys just aren't going to make it simple. Coming off the bench, Adam Rosales' 2-run HR broke a 6-6 tie, and his 2nd 2-run HR capped the scoring, as the A's walloped the Cubs 12-6.

First and foremost: Happy St. Patty's Day, where the A's never get pinched because they're smart enough to wear green. Imbibe lots of alcohol today, especially if you're genetically predisposed towards alcoholism -- what a tradition!

Maybe portending a see-saw AL West race that could end up dead even, the A's and Angels each scored 4 runs in the 9th inning to end a day of giant ups and downs in a 13-13 tie. Travis Blackley,...

My exhaustive research (and by "exhaustive research" I mean "typing this sentence") has not been able to unearth any news of flights which were sabotaged because a passenger stormed the cabin and brushed the pilot's and the co-pilot's teeth -- twice!

The good news? Jed Lowrie HRed, doubled, and drove in 3 runs as the A's evened up their Cactus League record at 7-7. The bad news? Before the game's first out, Brett Anderson found the Diamondbacks to be a complete pain in the neck.

I've actually lost an hour. Seriously, I cannot find it anywhere. I've also lost my pants, but that seems to happen more often to me. But a whole hour? OK now I'm losing my temper.

My focus for this interview was less baseball itself, and more the remarkable year it has been for a kid who, at this time last year, was not quite yet getting ready for the prom.

Yes, it's a 4-person race for the 2B job. You thought it was just 3? You obviously missed the under-the-radar signing of free agent Ugueth Upside. I kid, I kid...

On March 2nd, I had a chance to interview Scott Sizemore before the game. My main goal for this interview was to get a sense of what this past year - featuring an unexpected injury, a year-long rehab, and the birth of his first child - had been like.

Nothing screams "well that's fair and reliable!!!!" like watching a couple games in early March and then writing a scouting report for all to see. My disclaimer: "Extreme small samples apply, so kindly disregard everything."

It was a "natural selection" to ask Darwin Perez to bat with 2 on and nobody out in the 7th inning of a 4-4 game...

I hate to use the expression "must win game!!!!!!" but we may well look back at February 24th and say, "I had a good sandwich that day." So make yourself a killer sandwich, kick back, and enjoy the A's and Angels from Tempe.

If you're sabermetrically inclined, or just a fan of science over astrology, probably nothing infuriates you more than to hear about a player's intangibles as if how peppy they made the clubhouse was worth .090 points of OBP or 4 MPH on a fastball.

Bud Selig and his famous committee have done something slightly beyond nothing, which is in and of itself a miraculous event in the context of the past 4 years. Apparently they have "laid out criteria" for a move to San Jose...

We're not just talking about filler here. From the scrap heap of pitchers you've never heard of or hadn't thought about for years come guys like Travis Blackley, Brandon McCarthy, and Gil Heredia (I might have skipped a few years).

Happy Precedents Day, everyone! I'm hoping to set 3-4 great precedents today, only one of which will be that front page writers begin their stories with really lame opening paragraphs.

As I like to say, "Life is 50% attitude, and 50% not finding yourself in the middle of inventing a proverb only to realize you don't have a clever ending and now you're kind of left looking stupid."

Any post titled "An Insane Prediction Regarding Chris Carter" has to be worth a read -- especially when it's from John Sickels and he throws caution to the wind, deciding instead to go out on a...

In a "If he didn't have bad timing, he wouldn't have timing at all" development, some elbow concerns are cropping up as the Seattle Mariners and Hernandez try to put the finishing touches on a record $175M contract.

The first thing that stands out, though it's a week and not a month, is that Oakland has a chance to get out of the gate fast with 4 games against Seattle followed by 3 against Houston. That's Felix Hernandez and 6 very winnable games.