I'm usually not one for predictions. Usually, my "feel good" predictions never come true and my "doomsday is upon us" ones actually do...

With that being said, I'm fairly confident in saying that I believe the future of the Athletics franchise will be a lot brighter on January 1st, 2013 than it will be in a matter of hours on January 1st, 2012. I base this big prediction on a number of small predictions that I see unfolding in the following manner over the next year:

Prediction 1 - February 2012: The A's will get clarity about their stadium situation - in the form of a "yes" vote to San Jose. The recent rebuild and public overtures of a decision already being made, coupled with the death of RDA's in California, makes this seem like the only logical result of this situation. I think that there is enough evidence to suggest that without San Jose, the A's will be a dead franchise, so that only a cash payment to the Giants needs to be worked out in the coming weeks.

Prediction 2 - Late March 2012: The A's will break camp with the following lineup and rotation and it will be better than people think!

2B - Weeks

1B - Barton

3B - Sizemore

DH - Carter

LF - Allen

CF - Cowgill

RF - Reddick

C - Suzuki

SS Pennington

This lineup will be anything but a juggernaut and will likely be painful to watch on a frequent occasion...however, there is some upside in there and some power waiting to be unleashed. By and large, that's a decent defensive team as well. All in all, it's a team that is, I'll admit, relatively boring on paper, but a team that could hit for a bit of average, a bit of power, steal a bit of bases, get on base at a fair clip and defend relatively well. It's also a group that I fully predict will get better over time.

SP - Braden

SP - McCarthy

SP - Outman

SP - Moscoso

SP - Milone

This is a strike-throwing bunch that will either work quickly, take advantage of decent defense and the Oakland Coliseum for half their starts...or get hit around early and often. Either way, at least the outcome of the game won't hang in the balance very long with these guys taking up all the starts.

Prediction 3 - June 2012: The A's draft Kenny Dierkroeger 11th overall in the MLB draft.

This is a very tenuous prediction, but I'd love for this happen and for it to make sense for the A's...Diekroeger - a shortstop at Stanford - is a local product from Woodside, CA and a great athletic talent. He had a sensational freshman year in 2010, but a down year last year. He seems to have the talent to stay on the left-side of the infield long-term and could be kind of a Tolowitzki-lite if he reaches his full potential. Would love for him to have a bounceback year, solidify his defense, get drafted by the A's and develop in 2012, 2013 and 2014 into the A's shortstop of San Jose and beyond!

Prediction 4 - July 2012: Brett Anderson returns from Tommy John surgery successfully and spearheads a mini-overhaul of the A's starting rotation into the following form:

SP - Jarrod Parker

SP - Brett Anderson

SP - Sonny Gray

SP - Dallas Braden

SP - Brandon McCarthy

Prediction 5 - August 2012: Grant Green and Michael Choice debut in the Oakland outfield and provide enough hope that they are long-term solutions at CF and LF, respectively.

Prediction 6 - September 2012: A's finish third in the AL West, get another top-15 draft pick, but show gradual improvement over the course of the season to become a fashionable "up and comer" on the MLB Network during casual playoffs conversation.

Prediction 7 - November 2012: Dallas Braden and Brandon McCarthy are each extended for two years, with an option for a 3rd year in 2015.

Even with a bumper crop of young pitching prospects, the A's are going to need some stability in their rotation while the young guys go through some growing pains. Braden, while under team control through 2013, is the heart and soul of the franchise at this point, and if he gets through 2012 without major injury, should be rewarded and made the face of the rotation...he's worth more to the A's than anyone else and due to his contact-oriented approach and loyalty to the 209, would likely be well-suited to committ to Oakland for a few years. He also shouldn't brake the bank...ditto McCarthy.

Prediction 8 - December 2012: A's sign OF Nick Swisher to a 4-year free agent contract.

A little bit of my fandom died when Swish was traded so many years ago...there's no doubt the A's have gotten great value out of that trade, but something about the franchise has not been the same since that time. Swish is now a World Champion and still a great guy. He would be the ideal guy for the A's to bring in to help lead the position-player contingent of the rebuilding process mature and congeal in preparation of San Jose, while still retaining an Oakland-attitude and bent. He's an upbeat, blue-collar guy who has never said anything bad about Oakland...seems to have a good relationship with Beane and would likely get along swimmingly with Melvin. On the field, he would offer versatility at 4 positions - corner outfield, 1B and DH - with a solid glove, solid-average power and OBP with a proven track record of being able to hit in the Coliseum.

All in all, I am predicting good things for the A's in 2012. The win-loss record will be ugly, but we're used to that. I predict progressively more positive things to occur for the team as 2012 progresses, with the final result being the revealing of a core of solid, compelling veterans (Swish, Braden) leading a talented bumper crop of prospects into a 2013 full of promise and eventually a new stadium in San Jose...

(Don't tear down these dreams too quickly, guys...I've got one wish to make tomorrow on New Year's eve, so at least one of these 8 predictions will come true!)

Happy New Year's everyone!

Why talk about the past when you can peek into the future? Enjoy another front-page worthy piece by Taj. So worthy, in fact, that you can actually now see it on the front page! -67M

In my previous post of the past week, I outlined my thoughts concerning what I feel is a strategic direction the A's should take with regards to player acquisition over this off-season in anticipation of building a contending squad by 2015. This timeframe was specified in terms of preparation for the inanguaration of a new venue in San Jose, or generally just an arbitrary date for when the A's could best blend their current assembled resources together with the anticipated debut of some of the more heralded organizational prospects.

I'm glad that the thread evolved into a more general discussion about possible trades and avenues the A's could pursue to holistically revamp their talent base for greener pastures in the future. I certainly welcome the criticism/dismissal of my specific trade proposals on their own merits, so I will not seek to undertake a defense of these proposals on a case-by-case basis, but I wanted to establish this thread to address a general directional issue that I think was not fully fleshed out in that previous discussion.

Namely, I want to set-out to establish the fact that even though the A's may be building for 2015, this doesn't mean that the A's should ONLY target prospects that may be ready to debut in the majors in that exact year.

Many of you, in critiquing my trade proposals, pointed out that it doesn't make sense for the A's to acquire currently MLB-ready talent like Domonic Brown or Logan Morrison during a "rebuilding" effort, because these types of players will be into their arbitration years by 2015 and thus won't be ideal candidates for the new "core" we are all hoping materializes by that time.

I disagree with this general sentiment. I do not think the A's should use their current assets to just assemble a grab-bag of the highest-upside low and mid-level minor league prospects in the hopes that a few might develop on-schedule and ready to fire on all cylinders by Opening Day 2015 without much major league seasoning whatsoever.

From my perspective, to really ensure a viable "core" for 2015, the team would be graduating and "trialing" pieces on a near-constant basis from now until Opening Day 2015 to ensure that what constitutes the core can actually produce on a regular basis at the highest level. For every Michael Choice out there who makes us dream on the possibilities of him in an everyday role with the A's,the team will need at least one Jemile Weeks who has actually proven that he can fulfill those dreams on a daily basis.

With that being said, I'd like some of you to revisit the ideas of acquiring talents like Logan Morrison or Dominic Brown, whom, while no spring chickens in the prospect world, have proven at pretty much every level that they can produce on the offensive side of the ledger.

The next A's playoff team will likely be composed of a mixture of differently-tenured players, and will also likely require a few established relative "veterans" to lead the team into the promised land. This type of evolution won't happen if the A's just focus on acquiring pieces at a specific development-state and hope for a mass actualization of talent exactly on or nearly by Opening Day 2015.

By acquiring guys like Brown and Morrison, the A's would be bringing on-board resources who could immediately begin establishing themselves in the big leagues in a non-pressure situation. They could get their "reps" in over the next few years and the team can take the time to evaluate about whether or not they may be worth banking on during the critical focus years. If they work out, they can be treated as the "bedrock" of the core that can be augmented by guys like Choice, Green, ecetera, as the next few years play-out.

Basically...I just want to re-iterate that I think it's a good idea for the A's to be open-minded with who they may target in trades and not be prejudiced towards assembling resources that may only begin paying dividends by 2015. It would be a huge help and a big relief to us fans to know that a few players at key positions have established themselves as viable MLB options prior to a new stadium or window of contention.

Remember the days on AN where Taj Adib wrote on the front page, and grover was all over the thread? They're baaaaaack!  -Nico

We've all heard the reports over the past month/few weeks that basically spell out the A's immediate, on-field team-building plans in the following terms:

"...if the club's San Jose plans are approved...they would rather then turn their focus to the Draft, player development and international signings -- all of which would, hopefully, equate to a contending team just in time for the opening of a new ballpark. However, if they're denied such plans, the A's would likely open the checkbook in an effort to not only draw bigger crowds to the Coliseum, but make the franchise appear attractive to potential buyers."

From Jane Lee's inbox on MLB.com, 10/27/11:

http://oakland.athletics.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20111027&content_id=25809384&vkey=news_oak&c_id=oak

We've heard basically the same thing(s) from Stiglitz, Slusser and even Beane himself since the final weeks of the season.

Now that this has kind of sunk-in as official team strategy, I've kind of taken to analyzing the logic of the two options on the table.

Continue reading this post »

Berkman's off the table and it seems like Beltre is just waiting patiently for some other team besides the A's to offer him something remotely close to what the A's may or may not have reportedly/allegedly/possibly offered him so that he can go play in a place where there is a great fan base so that he can feel better about leaving millions on the table.

Continue reading this post »

It would appear from MLBtradeumors (courtesy Olney's insider article on ESPN) that "rivals" believe that BJ Upton is available in the right trade. It appears the Rays will be going through a mini-rebuild/restructure this off-season and so there is probably some truth to this rumor, in my opinion. With D Jennings coming on in center for the Rays and Matt Joyce/Zobrist in the mix for the outfield, there are some indications that the Rays could theoretically afford to lose Upton. Upton himself isn't the prototypical power guy it seems a lot of us are clamoring for, however, his ISO was at a pretty respectable clip last season (.187) and he's shown in the past that he can hit homers (2007 and 18 last year). He's also a speed demon and solid defender, so he seems to be a guy Beane might be eyeing.

Continue reading this post »

From Slusser's latest article this morning:

Continue reading this post »

As we await the beginning of, most likely, the defining series of the Oakland Athletics 2010 season, I'd like to take a little full-scale view of why I think the winter of 2010 and the 2011 season will be the defining year(s) of the Athletics franchise as we know it.

Continue reading this post »

..at the All Star Break...

1. The A's would be 3 games under .500 and 7.5 games out of 1st place in the division...I would think "that's exactly what I expected."

2.  Trevor Cahill AND Andrew Bailey would be All Stars...I would have thought, "who did Bob Geren bribe to convince that two people on this entire 40-man roster were worthy of All Star consideration?"

Continue reading this post »

I know I that I should have woken-up yesterday morning livid at Bob Geren and livid at this team for being completely miserable at baseball.  I know that I should have spent all of yesterday conjuring-up trade rumors where this team is completely dismantled, piece-by-piece and elegantly replaced by young guys who "play hard and play the right way" and are spearheaded by a fiery, well-respected and feared manager.  I know that I should have blasphemed Billy Beane for being too busy watching the World Cup to realize that his team was slowly, painfully fading into complete non-relevance.

I know all of these things because I've felt like doing them countless times over the past four years.  But this morning, I got to thinking. What choice do I, or any A's fan or even the organization itself, have but to grudgingly accept what we've got here? And besides that...is what we've got here really all that bad after all?

Continue reading this post »

I'm going to really try to stay as positive as possible while our Green and Gold guys battle through this funk they are in right now. I think this team still has a chance to contend this season with the personnel at-hand and obviously, with memories of Braden's Mother's Day Masterpiece still fresh in my head, there is still some nice, positive stories to fall back-on so far...

But as I look into the near future, there are two very irksome issues that are dashing my hopes for this organization. They aren't anything new to any of us, but I thought I'd throw out some of my latest thoughts regarding them to make myself feel better.

Continue reading this post »

Haven't posted in awhile, but all that means is that there's a ton of crap bubbling in my head. Here are some of my recent - but not altogether lucid - thoughts concerning our little engine that could (or could not) of a baseball team:

Continue reading this post »

I haven't contributed to the site in awhile for a variety of reasons, but I feel that with the flurry of (mostly) encouraging moves being made in the past few weeks, I'd like to chime-in with a few of my opinions on the upcoming 2010 season.

Continue reading this post »

Well, now that JJ Hardy is all-but-certainly not becoming an Oakland Athletic anytime soon and Billy Beane has all-but-dismissed any intention of signing veteran free agents this winter, it seems like I can now officially move past my admittedly half-baked, crackpot off-season plan and re-evaluate my hopes/thoughts concering these Oakland A's as they prepare for the 2010 season.

At this point, it certainly looks like the organization is not motivated at all to contend next season, and I guess that's a realization that's better accepted now than sometime later in the off-season/beginning of Spring after a winter of nervous/excited rosterbating and rumor-mongering. With that in mind, I'm starting to "come around" on a few ideas that I've seen posted here at AN or other sites in regards to our Green and Gold of 2010 and beyond:

Continue reading this post »

I just got through perusing the Bill James 2010 projections that have been posted on the Fangraphs player pages.  Some have suggested that James' projections are fairly optimistic...that may be true generally, but it doesn't seem to be the case with his projections for the 2010 A's position players. Even so, there seems to be a few reasons for optimism next season, if you're a believer in James' method of evaluation. Here are some of the highlights:

Continue reading this post »

Now that my disappointment from this past season has somewhat subsided and I've gathered my thoughts as to what I think this team needs going into the winter, I'm going to attempt to put down on (virtual) paper my plan for making the A's more competitive in 2010 than they were in 2009.

First off, I'm going to admit that some of my plan involves a bit of "wishful thinking" and "sentimentality". From my perspective, 2010 will be the last time that we as fans will likely see life-long A's Eric Chavez and Mark Ellis wear the Oakland uniform (at least as players). Both guys have been class-acts both on and off the field, have represented the organization extremely well and have played instrumental roles on the field over the past decade in creating some of the best memories us fans have of this team. While I don't think that the future should be mortgaged or tens of million should be spent just to ensure that the last year of Ellis and Chavez in Oakland is a memorable one, I do think that some efforts should be made to give this team some hope of contention in 2010 before a full wave of youth overruns this organization and ushers in a totally new era of A's baseball.

In short...I think a component of the 2010 season will be the symbolic "passing of the torch" from the Big 3/Chavez/Ellis era to the Suzuki/Wallace/Carter/Anderson era, and the construction of the roster should reflect that gradual transition through the season. I would like to give these guys one last chance to win in an Oakland uniform, while still keeping the door open for the guys that should comprise the next great A's team once they prove they are fully major league ready.

Without further ado...

Continue reading this post »

Wow...it's truly a wonder what a week or two of "not-awful" baseball will do for my energy level and willingness to share my thoughts with AN. A few weeks ago, even if I had something remotely interesting to say, I'd just say "Eff it, this team is going to suck no matter what I say..." But anyways, here's a few things that have been on my mind:

Continue reading this post »

The latest blog post from Susan Slusser really highlights a worrying off-the-field trend I'm seeing with this organization...namely the inexplicable lack of available information related to player news and the general lack of transperancy in general with this club. The Slusser article seems almost laughable:

Continue reading this post »

Despite a continuation of the team's season-long losing ways, the past few days have seen some renewed hope around these parts. Personally, I'm getting really excited for the near-term future for the first time since the first series of this season. Even so, I think there are still several things that I've been concerned about/thinking about as this organization runs full steam ahead towards preparing for the 2010 season:

Continue reading this post »

Last night's loss was tough, but I've gotten used to it with this outfit. I don't want to really re-hash any of the "lack of passion/lack of intensity/lack of focus" debates that we've had here on this site several times already this season, but I need to vent on a few topics regarding this team and hope to just get some constructive conservation going:

Continue reading this post »

From Jayson Stark's ESPN "Rumbling & Grumblings" column, 5/21/2009:

Clubs that have spoken to the A's report that Billy Beane "has had it" with his scuffling outfit. But it figures to be at least a month before he starts unloading Matt Holliday or anyone of significance.

"If he could do something right now, he'd do it," said one front-office man. "But I don't think clubs have enough feel for what they've got on that club. So I'd say late June, early July is more likely."

So maybe Beane isn't as clueless to this "scuffling outfit" as we've made him out to be...at least we can hope. The timeframe Stark lays out seems about right to me. Give this team one more month to snap out of it's funk and one more month for the rest of the teams out there to decide between "buying" and "selling" and then start wheeling and dealing if it's the latter for these A's.

Continue reading this post »

Although I planned to launch into a profanity-laced tirade following the team's 18th embarrassing loss of the season yesterday, I've calmed my jets over the past 12 hours or so and only have a few gripes to get to this early afternoon:

Continue reading this post »

1) I've been fairly mum on the possibility that Eric Chavez is truly, without-a-doubt, start-digging-the-grave "done" with being a productive player...well, I'm pretty close to making that concession after watching him play the past few weeks. I understand that Chavez indicated he would need a month or so to get his timing back to where he used to be at the plate, but I don't understand how he's supposed to get that timing back when he can't stay on the field for any lasting amount of time. His recent quip that he's "day to day, probably for the whole year" is classic Chavez...and I'm kind of annoyed by it now.

Nomar has been okay as a platoon partner for Chavez, but he's got his own issues and is clearly just a one-year stop-gap. I'd really like for the team to go out this coming off-season and get someone reliable to, at the very least, play 3rd against EVERY left-handed starter out there, since Chavez is completely useless against lefties at this point. Maybe Beane can swing a deal for Kevin Kouzmanoff (hacktastic/no patience, but good pop against lefties and decent fielder) or could convince Miguel Tejada to come back to be a utility infielder.

Long-term, I'm glad that Adrian Cardenas has gotten off to a fast start at Midland. By most accounts, he won't be a major league-caliber shortstop, but many scouts seem to think he could handle 3rd base defensively and while he likely won't be a really big-time slugger, he seems to hit a lot of doubles and hit for a high-average against both righties and lefties. I'd take someone like that at 3rd base any day of the week for the next few years, please...

Continue reading this post »

At this point, with Duchscerer on the shelf for the foreseeable future, Gio and Devine battling injuries and no one else really available either on this team, on other teams or on the free agent market, it's becoming obvious that the A's best strategy to put a winning team on the field to begin 2009 is to roll the dice and open the season with Brett Anderson and Trevor Cahill in the rotation and Andrew "Throwin' Zeroes" Bailey in the bullpen. I think the decision to get those guys up to the big leagues is a fairly easy one at this point and probably has already been made by A's brass.

But what's not easy, or what's not going to be easy, is finding a way to fit them all on the 40-man roster, since all three are currently non-roster players. The A's have done some 40-man roster trimming in the past few months, but the list is currently at 39 and, by glancing on the names on it, there doesn't seem to be any more obvious name(s) to cut.

Continue reading this post »

It wasn't a good day to be an A's pitcher. With the exception of Andrew Bailey, every other pitcher the A's sent to the mound gave up at least one run today. Of the other five, Edgar Gonzalez fared the worst (8 hits, 7 runs allowed), while Brad Kilby fared the "best" (1 IP, 1 run allowed). The other three pitchers, Jerry Blevins, Derrick Gordon and starter Dana Eveland, were all varying degrees of bad. All in all, they combined to give up an astounding 23 hits and 20 runs total to the Cubs.

The A's offense, meanwhile, squandered some early game opportunities and only pushed out two runs until a garbage-time rally in the bottom of the 9th plated 3 more for the Green and Gold.

All in all, the A's drop their 6th straight game and at this point have to be just a little bit concerned about the state of their pitching staff. "Opening Night" starter Dana Eveland certainly didn't improve his stock with his early inning drubbing and Edgar Gonzalez, who many thought had a good shot at grabbing a rotation spot out of Spring Training, looks to have worked his way out of that conversation with his latest mound misadventures. In the bullpen, Jerry Blevins continues to look very shaky. As Nico pointed out in the Game Thread, we all know it's Spring Training and all, but it would still be nice to see the JerBle occasionally get a few batters out consecutively.  We can see now why Beane was trolling for some left-handed relief help on the open market as recently as a wekk ago.

Well, with another rotation hopeful seemingly dropping by the wayside, it seems increasingly likely that at least one and maybe both of Cahill/Anderson will break camp with the big league team. Read into that what you will. Jason Giambi at least thinks it's a good idea.

In other news, I just wanted to let everyone know that this will be the last day that I officially appear as a front-page writer on Athletics Nation.  In the past few weeks, I've had a bunch of developments in my personal life (engagement, graduate school stuff) that I've come to realize will take a lot of my free time over the next few weeks/months/years. I simply cannot continue to commit quality time to this blog, and in fairness to the community and the other front page writers, I thought it would be best to surrender my Monday slot to someone with more time to share with all of you. So, without further ado, please welcome 67Marquez when he takes over the Game Threads next Monday! I'll still be around as much as I can on the community and will be sharing my thoughts with the everyone as often as I get the chance! Cheers and go A's!

Eveland got whacked around regularly in his 4+ innings, while Dempster and squandered opportunity has kept the A's off the board.  Cubs lead the A's 5-0 going into the bottom of the 5th.  Hopefully this offense can get going and the A's bullpen can hold down the fort, becuase I'm getting very tired of hearing the cheers of Cubs fans at what is supposed to be a home game for the A's!

In deference to Blez's ongoing three-part interview of Billy Beane, the Game Threads for the next three days will be located in the Fan Posts section. 

Today, the A's host the team from the Chicago that they didn't play yesterday.  On the mound for the A's will be one of the one or two guys virtually assured of a rotation spot come Opening Day, and that is Dana Eveland.  Eveland is nobody's idea of an ace, but we all better get used to him in that number one spot in the rotation as it's becoming more and more obvious that he'll be the Opening Night starter.

One guy that will not be joining Eveland in that first week's starting rotation is Vin Mazzaro, who has been reassigned to minor league camp...which is A's-speak for "not ready for the big leagues just yet". Cahill and Anderson remain with the team though, despite the latest round of cuts that also saw Henry Rodriguez, Andrew Carignan and Matt Carson follow Mazzaro back to AAA. 

In somewhat pleasant injury news, Eric Chavez is set to play 3rd base for the first time this spring in a minor league game tomorrow but will not hit in the game. Duke will throw a 20-pitch, then sit, then another 20-pitch bullpen session today and could possibly appear in a minor game leage Thursday if everything goes well! And to top of the relative-rosy bit of news, Brad Zeigler is expected back with the team today after his stint with the U.S. WBC team! Welcome back Ziggy!

Ryan Dempster will go for the Cubs today.

Lineup

Davis - CF

Garciappara - 3B

Giambi - 1B

Holliday - DH

Cust - RF

Cunningham - LF

Hannahan- 2B

Galarraga- C

Wimberly - SS

That we even decided to return to Spring Training in 2009 after the debacle that was our 2008 trip is a testament to my irrational devotion to this team. It's not just that the A's lost every game we went to last year, but I pretty much lost my mind along the way as well. On one particular evening, this disastrous confluence reached a-head when, after about 13 more "adult beverages" than was wise for me to consume, I was approached by a classy-enough looking guy while I was at a bar next door to my hotel. The guy explained to me that he "just needed a place to crash for a few hours" while he waited for his friends to arrive in town on a plane that had been delayed all night. He explained that he had lost his wallet and didn't have any resources at the moment to get a hotel room. In my present state, that type of "guy's guy" sob story checked-out to me and so I had the guy follow me back to my room - where my friend was already asleep - and I opened the door for him and said, "Hey, that's my friend Andy on the right bed and that's my bed on the left. You can sleep there for now, I'm going to go back to the bar since it's only like 10pm. Leave whenever you want to." He responded with a thank you and reiterated that he'd only be around for an hour or so.

So I left it at that, thought I had just done my good deed for the trip and returned to the bar to congratulate myself. When I returned to my room a few hours later, the guy was gone and Andy was still asleep, so I thought, "Oh...he must've left like he said he was going to," and then I passed out. I woke up the next morning to Andy shaking me and asking, "Where the hell is my brand new computer?" Instantly, the my enormously moronic actions of the previous night re-materialized in my head and I just said squeaked out, "Ohhh F***, the guy must have taken it." Andy replied, "The GUY took it? What guy?" I told him, "Uhhh, well, the complete stranger I let into the room while you were sleeping...you know, THAT guy." He was not amused and I got a well deserved verbal berating and physical beating because of all that. For some reason, the smooth operating bandit only nabbed the computer and nothing else, but it was little consolation for what was one of the most disastrous nights of my life. We filed a police report and all but the computer was as good as gone and we left the desert with a fairly sour taste in our mouths...not to mention a strained relationship and me in debt a sizable sum to my best friend.

Luckily, this year's decision to power through the follies of recent history and return to the area rewarded us with a slightly more enjoyable experience, punctuated by cameos from Billy Beane, Lew Wolff and Ray Fosse and a whole bunch of offense courtesy the rebuilt Oakland lineup and powerhouse minor league system.

(Taj Adib with Billy Beane after Friday's win over the Mariners at Phoenix Muni. I asked him when we'd likely see Cabrera and/or Nomar on the field. He said that O-Cab had been sporting a "Sizable spare tire" around his torso and that he (Beane) wouldn't let him onto the field until he got his ass in shape - this was a week ago, Friday BTW.)

Continue reading this post »

Trevor Cahill has seen better days than this one. He started the game just fine, getting a strikeout, a flyout and another strikeout against Matt Kemp, Brad Ausmus and Andre Ethier. Then in the 2nd, after the A's had come up short in their half of the inning, Trevor fell behind a few guys, hit a batter, walked a guy, let a slow roller turn into an infield single and then gave up a run-scoring double to Matt Kemp. Before the damage was contained, Cahill had given up 4 runs on 4 hits. Cahill would regroup in the 3rd and get a 1-2-3 inning before calling it quits for the day.

Cahill was almost an afterthough come the 4th inning, when the A's would send 15 batters to the plate in a marathon rally that saw them pick Trevor off the "Loss" line and put up 9 runs against a parade of has-been Dodger "relievers" the likes of Jeff Weaver, Steve Randolph and Shawn Estes. The A's used the whole book in the rally, getting back-to-back hits from guys like Buck and Garciappara, walks, hit-batsmen and even some situational hitting courtesy Bobby Crosby, who got good wood on a pitch and actually knotched a sacrifice fly with the bases loaded and 1 out. Travis Buck would add a solo homer in the 5th to close out the A's scoring.

The game was effectively over after the initial A's outburst, as A's relievers Mike Wuertz, Jerry Blevins, Henry Rodriguez and Andrew Bailey would throw 4 innings of scoreless relief, before Andrew Carignan would lose the strikezone temporarily in the 9th and give the Dodgers 4 courtesy runs back before closing it out.

The story of the game, besides the A's phenomenal 3rd inning, will likely be Trevor Cahill's percieved "downfall". I don't see it that way. Yeah, he struggled in the 2nd inning, but by and large the hits he gave up weren't well-hit (excepting Kemp's double) and he showed some gusto by going back out there in the 3rd and shutting the Dodgers down. His performance today was a nice learning experience and I bet he's still with the team tomorrow, well into next week and the week beyond that as well. He might not be quite ready to be that top-of-the-rotation starter he's long been regarded as, but the guy can compete at the major league level right now. Everybody gets one mulligan during Spring Training, and thanks to the A's offense, Cahill just used his today without even knotching an "L" by his name.

Stay tuned for the 2nd part of Blez's interview with Jason Giambi coming later this evening!

Cahill wobbled early and gave up 4 runs in the 2nd, but the A's offense picked him up by pummeling Dodger pitching in the 3rd inning for 9 runs. Buck added a solo homerun in the 5th. Bottom of the 6th now, and the A's are up 10-4.

Whenever someone mentions the Dodgers while on-air, the local Fox affiliated radio station down here in SoCal (AM 570) constantly loops a sample of a caller referring to the team as the "Doyers, Doyers, Doyers." It's a pretty funny little bit and as a result of that constant gimmick, I've started calling them the Doyers myself. Today, the Atleticos will host a split-squad contingent of said Doyers at Phoenix Municipal Stadium.

The original, and arguably only legitimate, Los Angeles team will send the $47 million man Jason Schmidt to the mound as part of his latest quest to get back on the field and reward Ned Colleti for his considerable investment of several winters past. As you might recall, Colleti, former SF Giants assistant GM, nabbed Schmidt off the free agent market in December of 2006 for 3 years, 47 million. At the time, many experts, including ESPN's Keith Law, lauded the move as one of the shrewdest of the off-season. A little over two years later, the move looks foolish. During the timeframe of the deal, the oft-injured Schmidt has only made 6 starts for the Dodgers, all of which occurred in the 2007 season (that's works out to about $5 million per start and that does not include Schmidt's $15 million 2009 salary). Joe Torre seems to think that Schmidt is still a little ways away from being ready for the regular season, but at one time Schmidt was one of the better pitchers in the NL, so I hope he can figure his stuff out at some point this season and contribute to the Doyers....just not today or the few games the A's play the Dodgers in interleague play this season.

(Luckily for the A's, Manny will not visit Phoenix Muni today, as he is taking a scheduled day-off from game-action.)

On the other side of the ledger, the Green and Gold will send the greenest member of the MAC pack to the mound today in the form of Trevor Cahill. I'm hoping that Trevor doesn't suffer any sort of Samson-like drop off in effectiveness after he buzzed-off his moppy locks and is now sporting a shaved head under his bill.

So far this Spring, the MAC has been all the rage at A's camp, especially now that it's looking like Duchscherer will start the season on the DL and will thus leave the A's with at least two openings to fill in the starting rotation for at least the first week of the season. My quick take: if any or all of these three guys keep mowing down Cactus League hitters over the next three weeks, it just might become obvious to all observers that they are among the best five starters on the team right now. If that were to be case, then I say, service-time and "seasoning" be damned...the A's have more than enough offense, defense and bullpen pieces to cushion these young guys as they get acclimated to the major leagues, which might not take as long as some might fear. So with that, good luck Trevor!

In somewhat related news, the A's trimmed their Spring roster down a tad about cutting/optioning/reassigning several "on the bubble" players this morning. Among the notables are Jerome Williams (reassigned to minor league camp) who is now effectively out-of-the-running for one of the open rotation spots and who will therefore open the year at Sacramento. Sean Doolittle, who is having a fabulous Spring, was also sent to minor league camp, likely to get the most at-bats as possible now that Barton seems to be back in big league shape.

Lineups

Rajai - CF

Buck - RF

Garciaparra - DH

Giambi - 1B

Powell - C

Crosby - 3B

Denorfia - LF

Hannahan - 2B

Pennington - SS

Doyers

Kemp - CF

Ausmus - C

Ethier - RF

Loney - !B

Blake - 3B

Pascucci - DH

Repko - LF

Castro - SS

Abreu - 2B