So, the A's are coming off their first losing season since 1998 and Billy Beane announces they are entering full fire-sale rebuilding mode and ships off their best pitcher (Dan Haren) and best hitter (Nick Swisher) along with Mark Kotsay, Marco Scutaro and Connor Robertson for 13 players and cash.
Somehow, they still look capable of being competitive enough (in this division at least) to make things interesting in September.
Daric Barton at first and Jack Hannahan at third give Oakland a new look at the corners while the double-play combo of Mark Ellis at second and Bobby Crosby at short remains intact.
Ellis and Barton both hit well for their positions and Hannahan should be able to hold his own but Crosby is definitely more in there for his glove than bat. Ellis and Hannahan are both a big plus defensively as well providing more than a little "hidden" value.
The A's have Kurt Suzuki as the starter at catcher backed up by Rob Bowen. Neither of them are anything special but it's a huge upgrade over letting Jason Kendall play half your games.
One of the players received in all those trades feature at centerfield with Ryan Sweeney starting there and Emil Brown in left and Travis Buck in right will flank him.
Sweeney's nothing special with a bat but is certainly better suited to playing centerfield than other options whilst Brown is best suited as the right-handed half of a platoon. Buck broke out in a smallish sample last year and should continue to do pretty well this year even given his painfully slow start.
Jack Cust recovered from so many teams' scrapheap to become a household name (9th in AL in OPS last year) returns to DH and demonstrate serious Three True Outcomes hitting.
Aside from Bowen the bench has Donnie Murphy to cover the infield, Chris Denorfia for the outfield and the rotting corpse of Mike Sweeney as a backup DH!
Sweeney's seeing a fair bit of playing time as Cust is sometimes being used in the outfield in place of Brown/Buck but presumably he'll be injured soon. (Sweeney's average ~110 games played per season over the last 11 years and hasn't seen the right side of 130 since 2001!)
Notably absent is star 3B Eric Chavez who underwent back surgery (among other things) in the offseason and has yet to recover. He had a second epidural treatment a week ago and is unlikely to even start "baseball activities" until the end of the month at the very earliest. With luck he might be back by the end of May, but the All-Star break is looking more realistic.
Still, after the past couple of seasons they're getting used to big injury hits and maybe that's just as well as things are worse on the pitching side.
As well as losing Haren in a trade, the team is without Rich Harden (shoulder sprain), Justin Duchscherer (strained bicep) and Kiko Calero (torn rotator cuff). Duchsherer is eligible to return next Sunday and looks reasonably promising to return but Calero is on the shelf until (at least) the end of May and it's not yet clear whether he'll have to be shut down and miss the whole season.
Harden appears nearly ready to return but the team are take an overly cautious approach and won't rush him back either.
All of which places Joe Blanton at the head of the rotation (at least until he joins the traded list) with Dana Eveland, Chad Gaudin and Greg Smith behind him. If Duchscherer or Harden haven't returned when the A's need a fifth starter thay'll likely look to swingman Lenny DiNardo.
Blanton and Gaudin are both good enough to keep things on an even keel for a short while until Harden and Duchscherer return, assuming it isn't too long. Eveland and especially Smith are rather shakier though.
Given Oakland's "rebuild" intent it's likely they'll take whatever they get though rather than rushing Harden back so these two kids - who both came over in the Haren deal - are going to have to step up earlier than expected.
Aside from missing Calero the bullpen is mostly intact with Huston Street and Alan Embree both returning at the back end.
The unretired Keith Foulke joins them along with youngsters Santiago Casilla, Andrew Brown, Joey Devine and Fernando Hernandez. DiNardo is also in the bullpen for now.
As a group they're pretty reasonable but not great (except Street) which on the whole sums up this team. A few good flashes but mostly fairly middle of the road, a road pitted with holes from injury.
If they can get healthy maybe they can take advantage of a weak division but it looks more like a year for some young guys to get experience and for Beane to see what he's got to work with.
Rough estimates for offense: 760 runs scored +/-38 and defense: 770 runs allowed +/-39.
Pythag W-L based on those estimates would be:
High: 88-74
Medium: 80-82
Low: 72-90
Given the talent that has been traded away or injured anything around .500 will be pretty impressive but it will take a lot of luck to post a playoff record.
Next: Seattle Mariners
