The Oakland Athletics Look To Do More Than Occupy The Basement This Season
If the Oakland Athletics are going to move forward, there needed to be a lot of changes. They had a pitiful 2009 baseball season and fans were not happy. While they will not be a favorite to get to the World Series this season, their fans have every reason to be excited about the building blocks that have been put into place and the product that will take the field in 2010.
Oakland has been one of the busier teams this off-season. There were no multi-team trades to steal headlines, but they did more than their fair share of free agency shopping over the winter. Was it enough to get back atop the division? Well, that remains to be seen. However, they should be a much better team than what they were last season.
Ben Sheets will now be wearing an Oakland uniform and fans have to be happy about that. He is considered to be one of the premier Aces in baseball and the fact that he chose to come to Oakland and be the leader of this young staff shows the fans that even he thinks there is a chance of a future for the Oakland Athletics.
There may be quite the battle to lock up bullpen positions, but the closer role is locked in stone. Andrew Bailey did more than enough to make an impression and the 25-year old phenom will go into his second season as the man that has to put the games way. Judging by last season’s 26/30 save ratio and his 1.84 ERA, the ball will be going into trusted hands late in the game.
There may not be a big name star in the lineup, but that will change soon enough. Hey, even Pujols was a rookie at one time. Expect the A’s to rely more on their speed than their power this season and a lot of long rally innings that can cause teams to go deep into their bullpen and the scoreboard to light up like a Christmas tree.
Young teams are often much underrated as the season starts and that can lead to some teams coming in and not taking the A’s seriously. That would be a mistake this season as they have some legitimate ballplayers on this squad and the pitching is going to be sneaky good.
Fans that wait until the last minute to start going to games are fools because some of the best action starts right out of the gate. There is definitely more than one future star on this team and having a chance to see them at this stage of their career is truly something special. Go early and go often because your team may just surprise you this year.
Tags: Athletics