2009 Oakland A's thread

Man I can't wait for the season! Watching that 30/30 kinda got me even more pumped up

To be honest, all these 30/30 shows are extremely optimistic about every team even if you're PIT.

But hey, I'd take it. I'll be watching MLBN over ESPN this baseball season. I don't know if ESPN could have a hour long show for each team without the words BoSox or Yankees being brought into the conversation.

Also, BP ranked the A's as the #1 org...

Quote:

1. Oakland Athletics
Last Year's Ranking: 2
Why They Might Be Better Than This: Their Triple-A rotation, led by Trevor Cahill and Brett Anderson, could be better than some big-league rotations; Michael Ynoa is the best Latin American prospect of the decade; 2008 draftees Jemile Weeks and Rashun Dixon bring much-needed tools to an advanced group of hitters.
Why They Might Be Worse: Ynoa has yet to pitch in a pro game; expected to be the fifth starter, lefty Gio Gonzalez might fit better in the bullpen; there is plenty of debate among scouts concerning the ceilings of hitters like Aaron Cunningham and Sean Doolittle.

Outlook For 2010: Could depend as much on how well the big-league team does during the first half of the season as anything else, as the second half is either spent gunning for a post-season spot or the beginning of a rebuilding mode, which could mean that a number of players will lose their prospect status going into 2010.

Originally posted by ninerpride:
To be honest, all these 30/30 shows are extremely optimistic about every team even if you're PIT.

But hey, I'd take it. I'll be watching MLBN over ESPN this baseball season. I don't know if ESPN could have a hour long show for each team without the words BoSox or Yankees being brought into the conversation.

Yeah I agree... MLBN is great.

Wouldn't call it, studio analysis, great but compared to the northeast's mouthpiece that is called ESPN, it's at least more watchable.

But I could watch the shows and past games they show all day long.

E.Gonzalez now has gotten lit up his last two starts, after he pitched well before that.

That makes it him, Cahill and Mazzaro all struggling in their last start this week.

Hitting has looked good all this spring but the pitching has struggle and again, that could be the key to this entire season..along with the health of the team.

Originally posted by ninerpride:
E.Gonzalez now has gotten lit up his last two starts, after he pitched well before that.

That makes it him, Cahill and Mazzaro all struggling in their last start this week.

Hitting has looked good all this spring but the pitching has struggle and again, that could be the key to this entire season..along with the health of the team.

How ironic would that be

Yep, considering how bad the offense has been for really the past two seasons.

I remember last year right after the break, the A's averaged like 2 or 3 runs a game at most for a month plus stretch. It got so bad that I didn't even wanna watch the A's come up at bat for their half inning.

Now this year, the bats look like they could be good and now the pitching, at least starting pitching which has been a strength of this team for this entire decade now is the big question mark.

Well Anderson starts FRI against CLE so hopefully the bad string of starts doesn't continue later today.

I guess the good thing about the A's if they bring up the young pitching is that when they've brought up their top pitching prospects over the years, not many if any have really busted.

You an point to the Big 3 when they all arrived and became studs with all making all star games from 00-04. Harden in 03. Blanton in 05. A's seem to handle their pitching prospects well although I do think that the trio of "MAC" as they're known by many A's fans now will be a bit rushed and would hate to see them placed in a situation where they'll feel more pressure although I guess having a good offense and a solid and deep pen potentially does help.

We've seen how it can f**k up a young pitcher when they're being backed by a question offense and pen, as bay area baseball fans have seen over the past few seasons with both teams in the bay having huge problems with offense and questionable at times pen arms.

I'd rather have young-talented-inexpereinced pitching arms with a good veteran offense backing them up than the other way around with a veteran pitching staff being backed up by a young-talented-inexperienced lineup which is how the Big 3 were brought along with a lineup in 00 made up of...

Giambi, Tejada, Chavez, Stairs, Grieve, Ramon, Velarde and later on Damon/Dye producing solid offensive production for them.

Looking at the boxscore today, I thought damn another bad outing for an A's SP this week with Anderson pitching today but reading the A's took him out after two scoreless because of "forearm tightness".

Alright feel better, it was just a precaution that they took him out.

Anderson said himself he feels alright.

Originally posted by ninerpride:
Alright feel better, it was just a precaution that they took him out.

Anderson said himself he feels alright.

We need to stick this kid into the rotation to start the year. Like you said, it looks like pitching, unlike other years, is going to be giving us the most problems.

Yeah, one who won't be getting any chance of a starting rotation spot for the A's is Simmons who followed Anderson and got absolutely blasted.

The guy has looked solid in AA the past 1.5 seasons but he's gonna need to work on some of those secondary pitches to make it in the bigs.

Still a Blanton type at best is what most envision for Simmons.

Slusser reporting that Gio has some issues with his shoulder.

Dammit, somebody put a damn hex on this team's health.

Good thing is the OF at least in ST is doing very well.

Holliday, Buck, Sweeney and even Davis are all hitting the ball so far. Good, one of the things that need to happen is for the youngsters to continue to improve offensively. Course healthy will play a role in some of these youngsters acutally getting a chance to get 500+ ABs.