2009 Oakland A's thread

Stinks that the A's won't have any more ST games televised until they get back before the season for the "bay bridge" series.

Don't know why CSNCA doesn't televise A's game on weekends at least.

Im goin to AZ tomorrow and will be attending the Cubs/A's spring training game on monday and hopefully the Royals/ A's game tuesday... It should be a great time!

Originally posted by ninerpride:
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.

Cunningham's doing pretty good as well.

Yeah, every of the A's young OF prospects seem to be doing well. But Cunningham most likely starts the year in AAA as the A's starting OF probably set being Holliday-Sweeney-Buck with Davis as the 4th OF and I doubt the A's wanna sit Cunningham in the bigs while he can get every day ABs in AAA which is just an hour away in Sac.

Nice rebound start by Cahill today going 5 strong innings.

But the thing that is worrying me a bit is the pen which is supposed to be one of the huge strengths of this team.

ST, but those who are either locks are strong contenders for the pen in Schroder, Wuertz, Blevins, Springer aren't doing all that well. Ziegler is in WBC and Devine hasn't pitch in a game since the first week...hopefully this isn't a sign of things to come that both parts of the pitching staff will be question marks.

If the season started this week, here's what I'd hope would be the starting rotation...

Eveland-de-facto "ace" until Duke comes back and even when he comes back, will it be in the rotation or pen.

Gallagher-I still like him as a potential breakout candidate for 09.

Braden-still at best a 4/5 in most rotations.

Williams-with the way E.Gonzalez has gotten hammered, I'd pick Williams out of the "veterans". Call me crazy but I still think this guy could be a decent MLB SP.

Anderson-why him over Cahill/Mazzaro...because he's the most polished out of all of them. Cahill and Mazzaro still need to work on their control and secondary stuff while Anderson has both.

Another rough outing for Mazzaro, perhaps many jumped the gun on him too fast thinking he was gonna make the rotation...now that "honor" may end up going to Anderson.

Wind that was blowing 25+ MPH according to the reports sure didn't help him but when hitter were making any kind of contact, it was hard, so good chance even without the high wins, Mazzaro was gonna have a rough outing today.

Braden came back and pitched 5+ solid innings so that's good, but the A's pitching staff is making me very worried heading into the season especially with the opening series in LAA of all places.

Last thing this team needs is to be 2 or 3 games back out at the start of the season and the pitching struggling.

Albeit still ST and the glass half full scenario is that they'll get hit hard this ST and pitch well when it starts to count but I'm not gonna bet on that.

Also reports are that Geren is gonna get a 1 year extension with an option year for 2011?

Wow, you couldn't get as ugly of a game to watch, listen to, or read about then today's game.

Bad pitching, bad D, just bad everything.

Pitching continues to get blasted. Eveland after pitching relatively well got hit hard as did AGAIN E.Gonzalez and his chances of making the opening day rotation get slimmer after each outing.

A's did option down Mazzaro which isn't surprising so cross him off the list after very early many had him as a legit contender for one of the last few spots.

Also according to an Q&A with Beane at AN, sounds as they're not gonna be all that interested in bringing back Mulder.

I left after 10-2

With it a ST game, I would've left earlier.

I don't know if I should get too worried but the pitching staff is giving me a lot of questions heading into the season.

From injuries(Duke/Gio) and just ineffectiveness...I know it's ST and these #mean nothing when the season starts but damn, you'd hope the pitching would be semi respectable at least by the end of ST the last week and into that "bay bridge series" set before the regular season starts.

Originally posted by ninerpride:
With it a ST game, I would've left earlier.

I don't know if I should get too worried but the pitching staff is giving me a lot of questions heading into the season.

From injuries(Duke/Gio) and just ineffectiveness...I know it's ST and these #mean nothing when the season starts but damn, you'd hope the pitching would be semi respectable at least by the end of ST the last week and into that "bay bridge series" set before the regular season starts.

I rarely go to places with an A's home crowd.. So we stayed til about the 5th inning my cousins I was with were cubs fans so it didn't matter..

Eveland pitched ok for the most part and our hitters stranded runners like crazy.. Only ST so I'm not worried. Had a good time regardless

.....and another one bites the dust

What?