January
came and went with a few more moves from Beane and company to tinker with the
regular lineup for the A’s this coming season and sure up the bullpen.
The
team avoided arbitration and reached an agreement with several players before
the deadline – including Chris Resop, Seth Smith, Brandon Moss, and Jerry
Blevins. Resop was acquired in
a trade with Pittsburgh earlier in the offseason and will compete for a spot in
the bullpen. After struggling earlier in
his career, Jerry Blevins had a phenomenal 2012 season and really turned me
into a believer. While it will be
interesting to see what happens with Seth Smith and his playing time – given the
team’s depth in the OF positions – this was a no-brainer signing for the
team. Brandon Moss will be playing 1B
for the A’s a lot more frequently in 2013 (given today’s move to send Chris
Carter packing for Jed Lowrie … we’ll cover this deal in a separate entry later
in the week).
The big
news for January came when the team announced it had acquired John Jaso
from the Seattle Mariners, who immediately became the A’s starting catcher in
2013 and provides Derek Norris with a little bit of breathing room in his
development and takes some pressure off the kid for having to be the everyday
man behind the plate. This was an
interesting deal that came out of nowhere, particularly since just days
earlier, the team had resigned George Kottaras to a one year contract. After announcing the deal for Jaso, Kottaras
was designated for assignment and later claimed off waivers by the Royals.
Looking
at Jaso’s career numbers the move itself
screams “minor upgrade” for the roster and the everyday lineup. The team has gotten rid of the black holes
that were seen towards the bottom of the lineup on most nights over the past
few seasons and continue to show signs that they are fully committed to putting
a winner on the field in 2013 and are “going for it”. Yes!
The
only reason you may not love the deal for Jaso is if you had huge hopes for AJ
Cole in the A’s organization. The A’s
acquired Cole in the deal last offseason involving Gio Gonzalez, but he
struggled mightily in Stockton. While he
is only 21 years old, there are no guarantees here and I absolutely agree with
the idea of “going for it” when you have the chance.
The one
other piece of news that came from the clubhouse in January was that the A’s
locked up Bob Melvin through 2016, agreeing on a contract extension
for the skipper. I don’t think we need
to go into too much more depth of what Melvin has brought to this team when he
replaced Bob Geren. I think a simple “thank
you” is sufficient here. That “thank you”
is to both Melvin for what he has done as the manager and to Beane for getting
this deal done.
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