A’s Offseason Summary & Thoughts thru February

Photo credit: ESPN.com

February got off to a smoking start for the A’s and their fans as Billy Beane pulled off a bit of a stunner in sending Chris Carter, Brad Peacock, and Max Stassi to their new division rival, the Astros, for Jed Lowrie.  The A’s also picked up RP Fernando Rodriguez in the deal. 

I was pretty surprised to see Beane deal away Carter and several relatively prominent names from the farm system for a player that has been injured quite a bit and has played the majority of his time at SS in the past, given the Nakajima signing.  However, in four preseason games, Lowrie has been playing all over the infield, including SS twice and one game apiece at 2B and 3B.  We may see this happen quite a bit in the regular season as the A’s and Bob Melvin mix and match across the infield to try to the find the right combination of players and/or sticking with the “hot” player. 

Chris Carter has always been tough to figure out for A’s fans.  His career did not progress too far over the past two seasons and perhaps the team feels like he has plateaued a bit.  Perhaps Melvin wasn’t convinced in Carter’s ability to play more frequently and wasn’t comfortable with his limitations.  That certainly makes sense given the coach’s decision to use others in last year’s playoffs over Carter.  Also, I thought this story over at AN provided some strong rationale as to why Carter was no longer with the A’s. 

After this “blockbuster”, the month of February was very quiet.  In fact, the only other deal that the team announced was the signing of LHP Hideki Okajima to a minor league contract.  While the A’s have a good amount of depth in their bullpen, you can never have enough to cover for injuries, rest, etc.  Hideki has made two appearances thus far in spring training and has not given up a run yet, pitching 2 innings with 2 K’s and 2 BB’s. 

It is certainly nice to have baseball back in the mix, even if it is only spring training!  Now, on to the WBC, where zero A’s will be participating … thankfully!

Let’s go Oakland!

A's Baseball is Back! (Unofficially)

The #Athletics lineup for today's Cactus League opener against the #Brewers. twitter.com/Athletics/stat…
— Oakland Athletics (@Athletics) February 23, 2013

The Oakland Athletics Spring Training unofficially begins today with a 3pm (EST) game against the Milwaukee Brewers. Unfortunately, MLB.TV only has radio coverage of today's game. Those wishing to see Jesse Chavez opening up the Spring session for the A's will have to be there in person or live another day. 

The A's Twitter feed posted the lineup above and I thought it was interesting to see the middle of the infield (Weeks and Nakajima) at the top of the lineup.  I'm a big fan of Jemile and hope that he plays well enough to win the starting 2B job.  We need his speed on the roster, he will need to do a little bit of everything else however to prove he deserves the spot. 

Other notes from today's lineup - Cespedes and Crisp stay on the pine and Jaso gets the nod behind the plate. 

While today's game is virtually meaningless, it is great to have A's baseball back!  Let's go Oakland!

Photo credit: Oakland A's Tumblr Page

A’s Offseason Hardware

The 2012 A’s season was certainly one to remember.  It was so good in fact, the A’s are actually being acknowledged by others around the league and those that cover MLB.  Both players and management were in the running for some serious recognition this offseason and the majority have panned out. 

This all started with Josh Reddick receiving a gold glove for his outstanding play in RF for the team this past season.  When Reddick was acquired from the Boston Red Sox last offseason, I thought this was a decent move that might pan out over time.  In no way, shape, or form did I think the A’s would be the beneficiary of the deal so fast.  While his bat struggled towards the end of the season, his defense never skipped a beat.  Reddick’s 15 assists from right field were third most in the AL in 2012 and by the time we got to the All-Star Game, teams were largely done testing him. 

Before we get to management’s new hardware, it is worth noting that Yoenis Cespedes came in second place in this year’s AL Rookie of the Year voting.  He was up against a player who had an MVP-type season, let alone a strong rookie year.  In just about any other season, Cespedes takes the award for the type of season he had.  Also noteworthy, Jarrod Parker finished in fourth place in the same poll.  Congratulations to them both and we hope to see much more success from them both in their future. 

Earlier this month, Billy Beane was named the Sporting News’ MLB Executive of the Year.  I don’t believe we need to go over Beane’s accomplishments in great detail.  With the second lowest payroll in baseball, Beane put together a team that won 94 games, beating out two teams that were seen as far superior in the Spring to win the AL West.  Last offseason, Beane once again retooled the pitching staff, trading Gio, Trevor, and Andrew Bailey away for various packages of players that all paid dividends over the course of the 2012 season.  He brought in a handful of serviceable players to plug holes and keep the clubhouse fresh.  Finally, he somehow managed to land Yoenis Cespedes, which will hopefully be paying off for years to come. 

In somewhat of a trickledown effect from Beane’s award, earlier this week Bob Melvin was named the 2012 AL Manager of the Year.  Melvin did a masterful job of plugging holes throughout the season due to injuries, pushed the right button the vast majority of the time, and knew when to ride someone’s hot streak or find a replacement during someone’s cold streak.  He oversaw a team that had 17 rookies, including a starting pitching rotation full of rookies down the playoff stretch in September and into October. 

Melvin received 16 first place votes, outpacing his closest competitor, Buck Showalter who finished with 12 first place votes.  Acknowledging a total bias here, but I don’t think this should have been this close at all.  It isn’t our fault that Baltimore has heavily underachieved for so long despite having a pretty heavy payroll, nor is it our fault that they play in the heavily competitive (and promoted) AL East.  Sure, Showalter oversaw a revitalization of the franchise, but the cards he was dealt were much stronger than what Melvin was playing with throughout the season. 

Congratulations to all of the Athletics players and management on their awards!  Hopefully the team can build on this moving forward!  If only Bud Selig cared enough to resolve the A’s stadium issues … (I really wish he would retire from his post)

Remembering the A’s 20 Game Winning Streak

This weekend, the Athletics will celebrate the 10 year anniversary of “The Streak” – which was brought back to life due to the release of “Moneyball” last September.  There aren’t too many better memories for me beyond the 1989 World Series win and getting there in ’88 and ’90.  OK, there aren’t any better memories than “The Streak” beyond those championship runs. 

The 2002 season was a year where things were supposed to fall apart.  We just lost Giambi, Damon, etc. and knew that it was only a matter of time before Tejada was out the door as well.  It wasn’t necessarily fun whatsoever.  Then it happened, beginning on 8/13/02.  “The Streak” continued into September and I honestly remember Tejada’s home run against the Twins more so than Hatteberg’s home run to win number 20.  Why?  I have no idea. 

If you haven’t seen “Moneyball” at this point, you absolutely have to go rent/buy it.  They portray the streak pretty nicely and show a good amount of “real” footage from the actual games themselves.  Watching the movie and seeing the sign “We may never lose again”  brought back memories of how much fun baseball can (and should) be. 

The A’s have a lot going on this weekend for the streak, including a night at the park where they will show the movie on the big screen after the game.  That’s pretty awesome in my opinion.  There’s a lot of nostalgia in the air this weekend and I love every second of it. 

Not to be greedy or anything, but it would be nice to pull off a winning streak half that size over the next few weeks.

Let’s go Oakland!!