SB Nation Blog: Taj Adib

A's Interested in Adrian Beltre? WTF?!?

Taj Adib — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 22:59:05 -0000

When reading the latest column from the usually very well-informed Ken Rosenthal, I was struck when Kenny mentioned that, "The A's like (Adrian) Beltre." It was a quick quip, and nothing of real substance, but it got me thinking. Beltre has always hit the A's really well and as Rosenthal mentions, he brings defense and (right-handed) power. But he also points out that Beltre has a sub-.330 career on base percentage...on top of the fact that he's owed what's left of his $12 million 2008 salary as well as another $12 million for next season AND plays the same position as the current highest-paid Athletic, Eric Chavez.

More than anything, this quip was probably based on the fact that, yeah, the A's are always in need of right-handed power and probably like the fact that Beltre could bring that along with strong defense at third. Regardless, I don't think Beltre is a good fit for the A's, and I doubt Beane is actively pursuing him...however, this quip might indicate that Beane IS in fact actively looking for a 3rd-baseman type. Chavez's temperamental health and Hannahan's offensive limitations have left the team oftentimes punch-less from the hot corner. As of now, we're all focused on upgrading the offense via a corner outfield bat (Holliday, Bay, Nady) but what about adding a 3rd-baseman type to help cover the corner when Chavez needs rest while putting Hannahan back into a utility role?

To that end, I think the A's should pursue Casey Blake. The Indians are fading fast and as soon as they decide to trade C.C., they will likely auction-off their other veterans. Blake is in his last season under club control and will be a free agent after the season. He comes with a modest 2008 salary of $3,500,000 (the remainder of his total 2008 contract), could probably be had for a low-level prospect and most importantly bats right-handed, has solid stats against lefties (.278 BA and .768 OPS against) and is very versatile defensively - he's played 17 games at 1st, 69 at 3rd and even one at shortstop. He also played 100 games in right field for the Tribe between 2006 and 2007. Blake currently sports a .280/.353/.433 overall batting line with 7 homers and 46 RBIs (which, at .786 OPS would be second on the A's active roster behind Cust).

Having Blake would enable the A's to DH Chavez often and let him take his time getting back to 100% for field duty. He could also slide over and play 1st when the A's face a tough lefty, giving Barton a break (or soften his demotion to Sacramento). If in fact the A's get 100-percent healthy (doubtful) he could even be sent to the outfield to play against lefties if/when Rajai Davis or Emil Brown are DFA'd.

Granted, Blake is not a masher. He won't be an impact bat the way Holliday, Nady or Bay would be. However, he's a solid, veteran righty bat that is highly flexible and might be able to add just enough offense to the club to help turn all of the inevitable 2-1 and 3-0 inter-division games into victories for the young A's, and he will likely come cheaply. I'm thinking Jay Payton circa-2005 here. Whaddya guys think?

Top o' the Mornin' Monday Minors Musings

Taj Adib — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 17:53:24 -0000

The A's organization is now firing on all cylinders. As of this week, all eight of the A's minor league affiliates (two Dominican Summer League teams, Arizona Rookie League Team, Vancouver Canadians, Kane County Cougars, Stockton Ports, Midland Rockhounds and Sacramento Rivercats) have either begun their seasons or have resumed their seasons after their respective All Star breaks. With the big league team embarking on a 20-games-in-20-days sprint toward the MLB All Star break, it's an insanely busy time in the A's-osphere! Let's get to it!

Debuts Galore!

LHP Brett Anderson - Midland Rockhounds: Promoted to Double-A just this last week, Anderson one-upped Trevor Cahill's strong Double-A debut with a masterful performance of his own. The 20-year old went 6 innings for the win last Thursday, scattering 2 hits and 2 runs while compiling a career highs 12 strikeouts while walking no one. With outings like this against much older competition, it's no wonder that many experts consider Anderson to be one of (if not the) very best left-handed pitching prospect(s) in the minors, especially with Clayton Kershaw in the majors now. It's going to be a joy seeing him and Cahill progress together and break the majors in a year or two!

RHP Craig Italiano- Stockton Ports: After dominating the Midwest League for Kane County in the 1st half of the season, Italiano was moved up to Stockton to bolster the Port's rotation after Cahill and Anderson got bumped up. He certainly didn't overwhelm Cal League hitters in his debut on Friday, starting the game and lasting only 4 innings, giving up 3 runs on 6 hits, 3 walks and 2 strikeouts. Italiano won't turn 22 until late this season and he has never thrown as many innings as he has this season, so I'm guessing he'll either get shut down soon or get moved into the bullpen (where his power repertoire might work better long-term anyways). Future Oakland closer perhaps?

RHP Tyson Ross - Kane County Cougars: As was reported in my Mid-Week Minors Update, Tyson Ross has become the first A's 2008 draftee to debut with a full season affiliate. After throwing a couple scoreless innings out of the Kane County bullpen on June 24th, Tyson made his debut as a starter on Thursday, going 3 innings, allowing 2 hits and 1 run while striking out 3 without walking a batter. Tyson now has a 5-0 K-BB ratio in 5 innings on the year. It remains to be seen if the A's minor league coaches will begin tweaking Tyson's mechanics in the near future. However, even without tinkering, Tyson looks like he could become an above-average, mid-back rotation starter at the major league level, with three average-plus pitches and good control.

3B/2B Jesus Guzman- Sacramento RiverCats: After tattooing Texas League pitching for months, Guzman has been moved up to AAA for the first time ever. He's only 5-for-29 so far in AAA but it's still early and Guzman's got some thunder in his bat.

It Wasn't Much of a Battle - Giants 11, A's 1

Taj Adib — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 22:25:45 -0000

At first it was just the familiar refrain for an A's starting pitcher: one bad inning. But then it turned into two back-to-back bad innings, no response from the offense, another bad inning and then eventually morphed into a complete blow-out. The hemorrhaging started with Joe Blanton, who started off so well with 3 scoreless innings while facing the minimum 9 batters via 3 strikeouts. However, the wheels came off for big Joe and the rest of the A's in the 4th when the Giants batted around, putting together a 4-run, 5-hit inning, at one point stringing together 4 straight 2-out hits. Joe finally got out of the inning, but would not record another out, as he started off the 5th by giving up a triple, double (run) and a walk before being lifted for Andrew Brown, who followed the veterans' lead by coughing up a few more walks, hits and runs before ending the frame with the A's fatally behind at 9-1. That was really the game right there. Blanton got hammered on his second time through the Giant's order, and the bullpen and the offense simply couldn't recover from his disastrously bad start: 4 IP, 8 hits, 7 earned runs. Jack Cust mustered the only run for the Green n Gold via a Custian bomb to right center in the 2nd

(To add insult to injury, Rich Aurilia - scourge of the A's marketing department - tied his career high with 5 RBI's today and K-Rod just fist-pumped his way out of a bases-loaded 9th inning jam at Dodger Stadium to notch another save and extend the Angels' lead over the A's in the division to 4.5 games)

The big question coming out of this game is: what to do with Joe Blanton? I wish I could muster up some Batting-Average-to-Balls-in-Play data and tell you all that all of the multitude of hits Big Joe has allowed as of late were all lucky and that Joe will be an above average starter for the rest of the season. But even if I could find that data (and his BABIP IS in fact really high by the way) I wouldn't necessarily come to that conclusion. First off, batters aren't getting cheated when getting hits off of Joe. The Giants' meek offense absolutely hammered the ball on their second time through the order today. Hell, Joe allowed an extra-base hit to Dan Haren two starts ago for God's sake! And the A's defense is near the top of the league in defensive-efficiency, so it's not the defense's fault so many hits are falling. It might just be true that Joe is just not an above-average pitcher. He's an average, command-and-control-oriented innings eater that has not had very good command or control so far this season, which is truly the most alarming aspect of Big Joe's game.

All that said, Chad Gaudin is most definitely a better pitcher at this time and should be starting for this team. However, Blanton's trade value is negative at this point, and it seems like the Duke and Harden are fairly healthy and keeping the team competitive. So what are the A's to do? Switch Gaudin with Blanton straight-up? Trade Harden and/or Duke while their values are high thereby keeping both Joe and Chad in the rotation? Trade Gaudin? Designate Joe for assignment? Keep the status quo and hope Blanton's BABIP and ERA plummet in the next month so that he can be moved for a couple decent prospects before the deadline? Ahhhhh! The Sky is falling!

Open Thread: Game 81 - A's vs. Giants

Taj Adib — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 16:31:33 -0000

It seems like a long time since I've managed a Game Thread on a day when Joe Blanton is pitching. I kind of miss Kentucky Joe and I was ecstatic when he finally looked like the Blanton of old his last time out against the Phillies. There's no doubt that Joe Blanton's year has been a microcosm of the A's rollercoaster season thus far: at the beginning of the year, he was the Opening Night starter, a steady, consistent workhorse that everyone expected to be dealt by the trading deadline. Then he struggled, badly, against all levels of competition, lost the "Mr. Reliable" tag and whatever immediate trade value he had while aggravating the greater Athletics Nation into believing that a trade and/or an outright demotion from the starting rotation might be a good thing for him (and the team, since Gaudin has arguably been a better pitcher this season).

And yet, when all is said and done, Blanton's been right there to take the ball every 5th day, like he always has, and while his pitches have not been as crisp as year's past, his value to the team has remained strong. In a year when nobody was sure what to expect from pretty much everyone on the roster (save Ellis) Blanton has been the steady hand, ready to eat some innings (and some cupcakes). He'll take the ball today for the Green and Gold with some momentum from his strong last start and a couple of peripheral stats indicating that he might make another strong one today: on the year, Blanton has a 3.74 ERA at home (vs. 6.75 ERA on the road) and is markedly better during the day (3.20 ERA) than at night (5.00 ERA). He also sports a career 3.97 ERA in four games against the Gnats.

Blanton will be opposed by young lefty Jonathan Sanchez. This guy's been on a roll recently and on the year has an impressive better-than-9 K/9 rate (96 K's in 95 IP). That he's a lefty who is death on fellow southpaws (.585 OPS against & 29-5 K-BB ratio) shouldn't matter too much today as two of the A's best left-handed hitters (Chavez & Swooney) weren't going to be in the lineup today anyways, due to injury issues and will likely be replaced by righties E-meal and Raj Davis. Regardless, the A's will have their hands full with young Jonathan today, considering that Sanchez is just a notch below Lincecum talent-wise and we all know how much the A's struggled against him last evening.

The A's need this one guys and gals, as they could, with a "W" tonight and another Angels' loss, travel into Anaslime for the upcoming 3-game faceoff with a chance to take sole possession of the AL West lead by Wednesday afternoon!

Lineup

San Francisco Giants @ Oakland Athletics

06/29/08 1:05 PM PDT

San Francisco Giants	Oakland Athletics
Fred Lewis - LF	Mark Ellis - 2B
Ray Durham - 2B	Kurt Suzuki - C
Randy Winn - RF	Bobby Crosby - SS
Bengie Molina - C	Emil Brown - LF
Aaron Rowand - CF	Jack Cust - DH
John Bowker - DH	Carlos Gonzalez - RF
Rich Aurilia - 1B	Rajai Davis - CF
Jose Castillo - 3B	Donnie Murphy - 3B
Omar Vizquel - SS	Daric Barton - 1B

Minor League Update(s)

Taj Adib — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 00:29:28 -0000

Hey, everyone, grover wanted to make sure that (even while he was off in the far north wilderness battling the thousands of wildfires that are endangering your mountain vacation homes) we all remained well-informed with the latest minor league news. So, thanks to him, we've got some info about the draft bonuses of several of the A's top picks:

-2nd rounder Tyson Ross was signed for $694,000

-3rd rounder Petey Paramore signed for $430,000

-5th rounder Jason Christian signed for $182,000

-8th Rounder Jeremy Barfield signed for $92,000

-9th Rounder Mitchell Levier signed for $75,000

-10th Rounder Rashun Dixon signed for $600,000

Grover emphasized the importance of the A's going WAY overslot for Dixon. The guy is uber-athletic and talented (and hit his 1st professional homer last night in an A's Rookie League Game) and it sure is nice to see Beane/Wolf going ahead and splurging and deviating from Selig's grasp by offering overslot money for once. Perhaps this is the start of new SOP for the team?

The team also announced the signing of 3 more draft picks this week:

-4th Rounder LHP Anthony Capra, Wichita State

-13th Rounder RHP Daniel Thomas, U of Southern Florida

-32nd Rounder RHP Ben Hornbeck, Kansas State

Other News

- Second round draft pick, Cal-alum & Oakland-native Tyson Ross made his professional debut last night for the Kane County Cougars. He tossed 2 scoreless innings, retiring every batter he faced via 2 strikeouts, 2 ground outs and 2 flyouts. Encouraging debut for the right-hander. It'll be interesting to see if he'll be handled like James Simmons was last year and used only in relief for the rest of this season.

- Craig Italiano (of 7-0, a gazillion strikeouts in Kane County-fame) has been promoted up to High-A Stockton for the second half of the season - presumably to bolster the Stockton rotation that lost Cahill & Anderson to promotion and Travis Banwart to injury earlier this week.

LET'S GET THE SERIES WIN TONIGHT!!!!!!!!

Monday Midday Minors Musings: Movin' On Up Edition

Taj Adib — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 16:34:27 -0000

There's plenty of updates to get to today regarding the state of the A's system. The halfway point of the minor league season has come and gone, and with it, several promotions and player movements have occurred. Here's a glimpse of some of those moves:

INF Jesus Guzman - Promoted from AA Midland to AAA Sacramento

Guzman destroyed Texas League pitching for the entirety of the 1st half of the season, so his promotion was long-expected. Despite beginning 3 of the last 4 seasons in Double-A, this will be his first taste of the AAA level. At 24, Guzman is no spring chicken, but if he can continue producing at a high level for the RiverCats, he could be in line for a September call-up at the very least, if not consideration for a future spot in the A's infield.

RHP Trevor Cahill & LHP Brett Anderson - Promoted from High-A Stockton to AA Midland

Two other promotions that were expected. Cahill, the minor league strikeout leader, came up first and made his Double-A debut last Friday, going 6 innings for the win, giving up only one run on 2 hits, with 6 strikeouts and 1 walk. BP's Kevin Goldstein included Cahill in his Monday Ten Pack, noting that Cahill's the real deal, with three above-average pitches, good size and enough control to consistently get hitters out. He mentions that Trevor "could be in line for a September look", which might be too aggressive a move for him, seeing as how he's only 20 years old, has only pitched one game at the Double-A level and will almost certainly eclipse his career-high for innings pitched within the next month. I'd say just keep him at Double-A for the rest of the season.

Anderson was just added to the Midland rotation and will likely get his first start for the Hounds tomorrow or Wednesday, if he's kept on turn. If Cahill and Anderson continue performing at a high level (especially with their peripheral stats), they could be promoted side-by-side and both make their major league debuts late next season.

Wrap: Game 75 - A's 7, Marlins 1

Taj Adib — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 22:41:06 -0000

Two-out RBI's, double steals, ejections. These are words not normally associated with the Oakland Athletics, and yet, on this day they were words that described just the tip of the iceberg of the A's performance, as they captured a series win with a 7-1 victory.

Mark Ellis was the story of the game, and perhaps the entire series, as he went 3-for-5 with 2 singles, 1 double, 2 runs scored and a stolen base. He set the tone early for the A's offense, starting off the game with an excellent 8-pitch at-bat, exposing Andrew Miller's stuff for the rest of the lineup and eventually reaching on a line-drive single to left on a 3-2 pitch. I think Ellis has found a permanent home at the top of the order and I couldn't be more confident in him at that spot. He's just a ridiculously composed, professional hitter that can set the table for the A's offense.

Of course, Mark actually lost his composure in the 8th inning after home plate umpire Lance Barksdale made some very dubious ball and strike calls, resulting in a strikeout for Mark. Ellis threw his helmet and bat to the ground in disgust and exchanged pleasantries with Barksdale, thus earning the ejection. Geren continued the dialogue with Lance between innings and eventually got thrown out himself. You never wish for players or coaches to get thrown out, but when calls are that bad, you gotta love seeing normally-passive players care enough about the game that they would get fired up enough to get thrown out, and normally-stoic coaches back their players up with some fire of their own. The most memorable scene from the game for me: the moment immediately after Barksdale ejected Ellis, as Mark threw his arms up in the air in a "are you f*&@king serious!?" manner that you just don't see very often out of him or really anybody in an Oakland uniform nearly often enough.

As for the actual game, what else is new? The Duke mowed down the Fish for 7 2/3 innings, only allowing one run on 6 hits and striking out 3. He's now pitched enough innings to qualify for the league ERA title, which he currently leads with a ridiculous 1.99 overall mark. The A's offense was busy all afternoon, scoring in 3 different innings and using everything in their bag of tricks to do it. The offensive highlight came in the 6th when, with Ellis at 2nd and Cargon at 3rd, the A's pulled off the double steal with the Patrol Craft sliding into home for the run after Mike Rabelo fell for the ruse and threw to 2nd in a feeble attempt to get Ellis. Everyone was safe on the play and the A's padded their lead.

Andrew Brown and Chad Gaudin pitched 1 1/3 scoreless frames to seal the victory. With a day off tomorrow, hopefully the A's won't suddenly get cold and lose their momentum, since the combination of hot-heads and hot bats produced some fine Sunday afternoon entertainment and I'd love to see an encore on Tuesday night!

Open Thread: Game 75 - A's vs. Marlins

Taj Adib — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 19:21:05 -0000

After a very frustrating late-inning collapse last night, the A's will look to salvage a series win today on the back of Justin Duchscherer. The Duke (7-4, 2.08 ERA) is being talked about as possibly being the A's lone representative at the All Star Game. He's having a remarkable year, and as a guy who has never thrown 90'mph in his life, he's already had a remarkable career. So far, he's been the ultimate "Moneyball" player: widely overlooked by "traditionalists" due to his lack of velocity, but coveted by many due to the fact that he just plain knows how to get hitters out.

Unfortunately for us A's fans, the rumor mill is predicting that the Duke might be traded sometime this summer. And if you really think about it, it makes a lot of sense to shop him. He's proven to be an extremely versatile pitcher, able to perform at a very high-level at whatever role he is needed: long relief, set-up, closing and now starting. He's arbitration-eligible and under team control for this year and next year and is costing the team a grand total of $1.2 million for the whole package! For teams that are in need of cheap starting pitching but are unimpressed with Joe Blanton and are scared of Rich Harden's injury history, the Duke would seem to be a reasonable alternative. So, with a few weeks to go before the trade deadline, let's all make sure we thoroughly enjoy and don't take for granted every inning that the Duke throws for the Green & Gold.

Opposing the Duke and the rest of the A's will be Andrew Miller, a gargantuan southpaw that was one of the key pieces in the most recent Marlins' fire sale that saw the Fish send Miggy Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis to Motown for a package of prospects. Andrew's been somewhat inconsistent this season, as he's 5-5 with a 4.87 ERA overall; however, he's pitched extremely well as of late, going 7 innings in both of his most recent starts, striking out 9, walking only 3 and only allowing 2 runs total in that span. Let's hope Andrew's mo' was left east of the Mississippi, since as a lefty with good stuff, he could prove to be Grim Reaperian to the A's lefty-heavy lineup.

Lineup

Florida Marlins @ Oakland Athletics

06/22/08 1:05 PM PDT

Florida Marlins	Oakland Athletics
Hanley Ramirez - SS	Mark Ellis - 2B
Jeremy Hermida - RF	Mike Sweeney - RF
Jorge Cantu - 1B	Jack Cust - DH
Mike Jacobs - DH	Bobby Crosby - SS
Dan Uggla - 2B	Kurt Suzuki - C
Luis Gonzalez - LF	Emil Brown - LF
Wes Helms - 3B	Jack Hannahan - 1B
Cody Ross - CF	Carlos Gonzalez - CF
Mike Rabelo - C	Donnie Murphy - 3B

Monday Mid-Morning Minors Musings

Taj Adib — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 21:03:22 -0000

We're just about at the halfway point of the minor league season and many of the A's affiliates either clinched first-half playoff spots or came within a game or two of clinching. Here's the current situation:

Current Standings

Sacramento River Cats: 41-29, 1st Place PCL South Division

Midland Rockhounds: 33-35, 3rd Place, Texas League South

Stockton Ports: 42-28, 2nd Place for 1st Half Cal League North Division (just missed playoff spot by 1 game)

Kane County Cougars: 39-29, 2nd Overall Midwest League (clinched playoff spot)

Draft Update

The A's have now signed 18 of their 50 total draft picks, including 6 of their top 10 selections. Top pick Jemile Weeks is still competing in the College World Series while 4th rounder Anthony Capra is probably still recovering from his meltdown in the Super Regionals, so they should be signed fairly quickly once the tourney ends or when Miami gets eliminated. The other two top-10 round picks that have yet to sign, RHP Brett Hunter from my alma mater Pepperdine and OFer Tyreace House, might be more difficult to sign. Hunter began this year as a potential 1st rounder but quickly fell down draft boards after sustaining a shoulder injury. If the A's determine that Hunter is close to being 100-percent healthy, he is someone they should offer over-slot money to. He's a little raw as far as collegiate pitchers go, but as far as potential closers go, he's pretty solid: potential to hit 100mph with the fastball in addition to a nice curveball.

As far as the CWS goes, Capra got hammered in the elimination game of the Super Regionals after lasting less than an inning against Florida State back on June 8th, giving up 6 runs on 3 hits and 3 walks and was lifted after only 40 pitches. Hopefully, his professional career will start a lot better than his collegiate career ended. Weeks has been hitting very well for Miami as they march towards a national championship. In NCAA tourney action so far, Weeks is 8-for-27 (.296) with 5 RBIs, 6 walks against only 3 Ks and 1 homer.

Wrap: Game 69 - A's 5, Giants 3

Taj Adib — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 23:04:04 -0000

Eric Chavez must really love his Father! Chavvy had 3 hits and 2 RBIs to lead a balanced A's offensive attack to a 5-3 series-sweeping win. In fairness, virtually the entire A's lineup was ready to explode early and often in this game, as they routinely rocketed deep fly balls that died in the cavernous alleys of AT & T Park or laced line drives that were snapped up by a fortunately-positioned Giant. But the wheels of the Kevin Correia train finally came off in the top of the 6th, as the A's hitters batted around, put 4 runs up in the inning and at one point stringed together back-to-back-to-back RBI hits courtesy of the aforementioned Eric Chavez, Bobby Crosby and Carlos Gonzalez (who also doubled his walk total of the season by taking a free pass in the 5th).

Earlier in the game, Ryan Sweeney had provided a rare baserunning highlight for the A's, as he stole second and then came around to score on Chavvy's first hit of the game. A baserunning low-light, if you will, occurred two innings later as Geren appearently tried to tack on one more run in the 6th via a double steal with Cargon at 3rd and ever-the-floot-footed Daric Barton at 1st. While the play in theory was a neat idea, the execution failed miserably as Barton was caught at 2nd to end the inning while Cargon was breaking for home. Not a huge gaffe in light of the circumstances, but probably not the best call either, in light of the personnel involved.

Dana Eveland provided the A's defense with a nice bounce-back performance, scattering 6 hits and 3 walks and only 1 run while collecting 5 K's over 6 2/3 innings. The stats don't paint the whole picture for Dana though, as he showed in the first few innings that he was as crisp and efficient as he's ever been through the first two frames, tossing back-to-back 7-pitch, scoreless innings to open the game. He ran into a bit of trouble in the 3rd after allowing a leadoff double and then an RBI double two batters later, but limited the damage to only 1 run and settled down nicely the rest of the way, leaving the game in bottom of the 7th with two on and two out.

Chad Gaudin come on in relief of Eveland and struck out Jose Castillo to end the inning and the threat.; but Chad came right back the next inning to load the bases after allowing 3 straight singles. Geren then opted to send Keith Foulke out there to limit the damage and after an RBI single and a sac fly, Foulke was able to get pinch hitter Omar "Mr. Giant" Vizquel to fly out to end the inning. Huston then picked up the save for once in the 9th to close the door on the game and the series.

Overall, pretty good little series to get the A's acquainted with NL-style baseball. Geren showed, for the most part, that he could capably manage double-switches and pinch hitters and even showed a willingness to manufacture some runs via the hit-and-run and by letting baserunners try for stolen bases occasionally. Some moves were questionable, but you can't argue with the overall results. Unfortunately, the A's next two NL opponents (D-Backs & Marlins) are not quite the pushovers that the Gigantes are, so Geren and his band of Green and Gold Gentleman will be in for a much more trying test in the next week. But they'll ship out to AZ this evening sitting no worse than 3.5 games out of 1st place in the AL West, which is quite the feat for this "rebuilding" squad.