Official 2010 Oakland A's Thread

Originally posted by ninerpride:
Hurts every time...

MLBN right now.

Game 4 of the 89 ALCS.

And that ballpark could have been remodeled as well when needed.

I don't know about that, maybe they could've done a better job remodeling just for baseball but I think the A's if they stayed in Oakland would need to have built a new park eventually.

But in terms of remodeling it...

-first you'd have to take away the foul territory moving the dugouts and seats behind inwards maybe another 30 feet making it look very Shea like which isn't a good thing. Even so the seats because of the circular shape of the park due to it being multipurpose and having a football field going across the field are still far away compared to the new parks being built that instead of a circle are now a V shaped. The two "old parks" built in the past 50 or so years ala a Kaufmann(KC) and Angels(LAA) were built V shape. Angel was first built to be baseball only but it went multipurpose when the Rams moved in there but the "critical" V shape of the baseball park was kept in making a renovation back to being a baseball only park after the Rams left LAA made it more like the newer parks. KC did get it right, they built two separate venues, baseball and football, compared to what other teams did during that time late 60s-early 70s like the NYM/NYJ, CIN, PIT, PHI, and even Oakland building these circular multipurpose venues for base/football.

-probably would've done some sort of club as they did during the remodel of 95 with the west side club and probably would've made another one somewhere in the park.

-bleachers probably would've been refurnished.

-scoreboards would have been upgraded which they should be doing now along adding the new LCD screens along the sides of the stadium instead of keeping these old orange/black ones they have now and I don't even know of any other sports venues especially a major sports venue that uses these old ones that the coliseum still uses.

-the one drawback of the coliseum is the clubhouses, which has one of the smallest in all of baseball now and which I've heard couldn't have been extended due to so many load bearing walls that would've need to been torn down as the idea of expanding the clubhouses has been discussed before according to A's equipment man Vucc.


The coliseum during it's prime late 80s-early 90s was considered once you got past the Yankee, Fenway, Wrigley, and Dodger...the next in line in terms of visual appeal. Haas/Dolich unlike Finley before them and the two ownerships after them made the coliseum experience a enjoying one. The year the Haas family bought the team the attendance jumped from just over 307K to 842 K, course there was a 30 game win improvement the season they took over but just the appeal of an owner who was pro Oakland, heck pro FAN, which you can't say there has been any owner before or since that's felt that way owning the A's was a fresh of breath air.

Even if Mt. Davis wasn't built and some renovations were made mid-late 90s, still think the A's would've needed a new modern park in a downtown urban atmosphere which just isn't there with the area surrounding the coliseum even with the city trying to build up the place again by building those residential units near the BART station.

Sweeney switched to 21, haha, same # of another A's OF recently who most want Sweeney to be and that's Kotsay.

Pretty sure Sweeney will be able to snatch that # back when Sheets is gone after this season be it during the deadline or if he stays the entire season. Sheets is basically one and done with the A's.

Damnit... there goes my player shirt...

wooohoooo Duke to have surgery.

Well I think Sweeney like i said is gonna get that 15 back eventually.

Also, watching Chron Live earlier today and Beane was being interviewed and he was wearing a Cisco Systems cap/jacket.

Interesting huh?

Cisco being supposedly the sponsor of a potential new A's park down in the south bay.

Hint, hint?

BA top 100.

-Carter 28
-Taylor 29
-Green 52

Interesting stat I saw at an A's blog...

Quote:
Gio was 5-2 with a 2.84 ERA in seven starts; however, when the mercury dipped under 72 at game time, he was 1-5 with a 7.88 ERA in 10 starts

...Gio living all his life in southern Florida, wonder if the cold does affect him more so than others. Course there has to have been a huge # of players born in hot weather climates that have adjusted to cold weather temps.

It's been announced Cahill will start the first game this spring, doubt it means much into the 5th rotation competition.

With Cahill only gonna turn 22 early next month and Gio 24 having spent a lot more times in the minors, I think Cahill would actually benefit more from time in AAA as I mentioned early in this thread when I did player by player summaries.

Chron...

Quote:

According to sources, the A's got to $28 million over six years before conceding, but the Reds went two better, and structured the deal in an elaborate way. The straight salary is $14 million stretched over five years, with a player option for a sixth year; the bonus of $16.25 million is stretched over the same period for accounting purposes, but in reality, already has been paid. And there is a payment of $5 million if Chapman reaches arbitration after the 2012 season, and $3 million if it's after 2013.

I still much rather have Chapman than Sheets.

Even if somehow the A's could swing Sheets into a good prospect or two at the most at the deadline, I doubt that prospect will have the potential as a Chapman but oh well.

Least the A's are spending the money in LA, although as I've said many times before just hope the A's could land one of the top hitting prospects down there eventually.

Paid the highest still bonus to a non-pro from LA in Ynoa and came in 2nd to signing Chapman.

Hopefully these youngsters the next few years see that the A's are willing to spend top dollar and more will sign in the near future with the A's org.

We couldn't spend 2 million more on Chapman? I mean we were willing to go to 28 why not 30?

Imagine this rotation a few years down the line:

Anderson, Chapman, Cahill, Gio, Ynoa.

With guys like DLS, Ross, Mazarro, Leon, Outman as depth.

Chavy working out at 1st. Hopefully he could be healthy enough to take at bats away from barton. I jus don't see barton being good.

Barton? I can see why there are some doubters of him.

Like I mentioned, he's had three strong finishes to the past three seasons and last year he did well in the second half which is more than you can say about 07 and 08 where he pretty much only had a good SEP those two seasons, albeit 07 was just a SEP call up while he only hit well really in his first full season in the bigs in 08 in the month of SEP but heck he was still only 23 years old and in his first season so you shouldn't have expected him to hit well thru out the season.

I know many A's fans had hoped Barton would've gotten the full time job at 1B last season before and after the Giambi signing was made.

I still have hope for Barton. Will he live up to the expectations a lot of A's fans had for him which is a guy who could challenge for a batting title sometime in his future, probably not. But a N.Johnson type career, hopefully sans the injuries, is what Barton can produce.