2012 AL WEST CHAMPS Oakland A's Regular Season Thread

CESPEDES WITH A 2 RUN HOMER TO TAKE THE LEAD!!!

Back to Back home runs!!! I haven't seen that in forever!


Johnny Gomes with another homer lol didn't know he can still hit a ball

The defense these past 2 games have pretty pretty good. This team could be fun to watch if they could keep up the HR totals and the stellar defense. Im glad we salvaged a split these past couple of days.

Originally posted by niners4lyfe:
did the a's win?

Ya 4-1

Originally posted by socalfan21:

The defense these past 2 games have pretty pretty good. This team could be fun to watch if they could keep up the HR totals and the stellar defense. Im glad we salvaged a split these past couple of days.

It was a great game definitely worth waking up to

But I don't think we'll keep up that homerun pace

It was awesome to see that Weeks and Cespedes already have a handshake lol

Giants fan here but I love that Cespedes dude's game, I think he's going to be a mega star lol. Plus Weeks is pretty good. You guys might actually surprise some people this year.

Originally posted by WillistheWall:

Giants fan here but I love that Cespedes dude's game, I think he's going to be a mega star lol. Plus Weeks is pretty good. You guys might actually surprise some people this year.

I think we'll be a little better than people think. I think we'll win like 70 games lots of people saying we'll get below 60 wins

And ya, I've been in love with weeks since we called him up last year. Easily my favorite player
Cespedes is showing nothing but positive signs so far that 2015 plan is looking pretty legit right now

Originally posted by ImaMod:

Originally posted by WillistheWall:
Giants fan here but I love that Cespedes dude's game, I think he's going to be a mega star lol. Plus Weeks is pretty good. You guys might actually surprise some people this year.

I think we'll be a little better than people think. I think we'll win like 70 games lots of people saying we'll get below 60 wins

And ya, I've been in love with weeks since we called him up last year. Easily my favorite player
Cespedes is showing nothing but positive signs so far that 2015 plan is looking pretty legit right now

Dont take this as trolling, but I have to ask....being an A's fan, doesnt it get depressing knowing your team will never keep any star players? its constant developing players and trading them off for prospects just as they begin to break out.

I couldnt be a fan of a team where you cant even buy a jersey, knowing that player will be gone in 2 years.

Originally posted by Niners99:

Dont take this as trolling, but I have to ask....being an A's fan, doesnt it get depressing knowing your team will never keep any star players? its constant developing players and trading them off for prospects just as they begin to break out.

I couldnt be a fan of a team where you cant even buy a jersey, knowing that player will be gone in 2 years.

Yes. It pisses me off. I'm hoping they don't trade weeks, I love that dude and hope he's an Athletic and would buy his jersey if I knew he'd be on our team for the next 10 years. If the A's weren't too cheap to keep players they'd be a pretty good team.

And that last paragraph is so true. Its annoying not being able to buy a jersey. My cousin bought a Nick swisher jersey when he was on the A's and I told him he'd end up getting traded. And he did but it was a pretty good trade since we got Gio Gonzalez for him. And now we just traded him

The A's do this every 4 years. They develop their prospects and then trade them all the same off season while they're still young. Look at this article http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/03/SP81U8RB6.DTL

Its the most annoying thing about being an A's fan. And I don't blame Billy Beane, I think its the owners that are too cheap to keep their own players. You can't blame the fans for the 10,000 fans that show up at games at the end of the season, why show up to games when your team doesn't give you a reason to.

I wish we gave Willingham that 7 million dollar deal instead of Coco Crisp

Crisp isnt needed as much as before now that we have Cespedes in CF

oh well..
Pay a 32 year old player 7 million dollars a year while trading away our 24 ad 25 year old proven SP's. doesnt sound like rebuilding to me

Originally posted by ImaMod:
I wish we gave Willingham that 7 million dollar deal instead of Coco Crisp

Crisp isnt needed as much as before now that we have Cespedes in CF

oh well..
Pay a 32 year old player 7 million dollars a year while trading away our 24 ad 25 year old proven SP's. doesnt sound like rebuilding to me

who did you guys trade them for?

Originally posted by WillistheWall:
who did you guys trade them for?

We traded Cahill for a decent 25 yr old RP Ryan Cook, a 22 yr old future ace Jarrod Parker, and a CF named Cowgill who the A's wanted a couple years ago but won't be anything special
I don't mind that trade cause Parker has the potential to be as good as Cahill if not better, and Cahill only had one good year 2 yrs ago and looked like crap last year

We traded Gio Gonzalez who I really really liked, 26 year old lefty that was getting paid 600k this year, for 24 yr old SP Brad Peacock who also has potential to be a very good #2 pitcher in a rotation. 23 yr old Catcher Derek Norris who has potential to be a pretty good player and has a lot of power and 25 yr old Tommy Milone who will be our 3rd pitcher in the rotation. We also got AJ Cole who is just 19 and is also supposed to be a great prospect

We got good deals for both of them

All of the players we got should be in their 2nd season in 2015, which most are saying was part of Beane's plan. Also Cespedes will be in his 3rd year, Weeks will be a vet, and a couple other pretty good prospects we have should be ready by then.

One trade I didn't like was our closer Andrew Bailey for Josh Redick, who homered in our 2nd game and is our starting RF

2015 will be an awesome year to be A's fan

Ultimately I think Beane did the right thing. We were going to compete with the Rangers or angels this year and we had one of the worst (bottom 3) farm systems last season. Now we have one of the best (top 10) farm systems. Beane did what he had to do imo

Originally posted by Niners99:
Dont take this as trolling, but I have to ask....being an A's fan, doesnt it get depressing knowing your team will never keep any star players? its constant developing players and trading them off for prospects just as they begin to break out.

I couldnt be a fan of a team where you cant even buy a jersey, knowing that player will be gone in 2 years.

I thought you were a Billy Beane sabermatic junkie/fan/believer. Why won't this work? Especially since the A's don't have a horrible GM like the guy across the bay.

Originally posted by ImaMod:
We traded Cahill for a decent 25 yr old RP Ryan Cook, a 22 yr old future ace Jarrod Parker, and a CF named Cowgill who the A's wanted a couple years ago but won't be anything special
I don't mind that trade cause Parker has the potential to be as good as Cahill if not better, and Cahill only had one good year 2 yrs ago and looked like crap last year

We traded Gio Gonzalez who I really really liked, 26 year old lefty that was getting paid 600k this year, for 24 yr old SP Brad Peacock who also has potential to be a very good #2 pitcher in a rotation. 23 yr old Catcher Derek Norris who has potential to be a pretty good player and has a lot of power and 25 yr old Tommy Milone who will be our 3rd pitcher in the rotation.

We got good deals for both of them

All of the players we got should be in their 2nd season in 2015, which most are saying was part of Beane's plan. Also Cespedes will be in his 3rd year, Weeks will be a vet, and a couple other pretty good prospects we have should be ready by then.

One trade I didn't like was our closer Andrew Bailey for Josh Redick, who homered in our 2nd game and is our starting RF

2015 will be an awesome year to be A's fan

Ultimately I think Beane did the right thing. We were going to compete with the Rangers or angels this year and we had one of the worst (bottom 3) farm systems last season. Now we have one of the best (top 10) farm systems. Beane did what he had to do imo

Love your optimism; dont believe it will ever happen. A's under Lew Wolff won't ever compete; and the Moneyball BS is just Hollywood hype. Sorry Ima, just don't believe all of the "someday it will happen" attitude. Not being a hater on the A's, but I don't see anything changing. Beane...lol sorry for you saberjunkies but he won't get hired by any other mlb teams any time soon.

Originally posted by dcsham:
Love your optimism; dont believe it will ever happen. A's under Lew Wolff won't ever compete; and the Moneyball BS is just Hollywood hype. Sorry Ima, just don't believe all of the "someday it will happen" attitude. Not being a hater on the A's, but I don't see anything changing. Beane...lol sorry for you saberjunkies but he won't get hired by any other mlb teams any time soon.

I respect your opinion and I also believe we will never win a world series with lew Wolff as our owner
I also don't think Billy Beane is a bad GM. Our ownership is the problem, if he was given the money needed to make a team competitive he wouldnt have to do that "Moneyball BS"
Look at teams payrolls of WS champs the last 5 years and compare them to A's that year
2011: Cardinals: 105 mill, A's: 66 mill
2010: Giants: 98 mill, A's: 51 mill
2009: Yankees: 201 mill, A's: 62 mill
2008: Phillies: 98 mill, A's: 47
2007:Red Sox:143 mill, A's: 79 mill

Anyways, back to Billy Beane's plan of 2015

Here's our prospects and how old they'll be in 2015
Catcher: Derek Norris (26)
2B; Jemile Weeks (28):
OF: Yoenis Cespedes (29) Michael Choice (25) Grant Green (27)
SP: Brett Anderson (27) Jarrod Parker (26), Brad Peacock (27), Sonny Gray (25) Tommy Milone (28) AJ Cole (23, probably wont be ready yet)

Those are all great prospects and I also included Jemile Weeks who had .300 BA/ 20 sb / 26 doubles in 90 games and Brett Anderson who you probably already know

Were going to have so much young talent in 2015. That starting 5 will be so damn scary if all goes well. Cespedes has star potential and can be our #3 hitter in the future, Choice should be a great #4 hitter, Green should be a good #5 hitter.

I know I'm being very optimistic but its also very realistic.