I’ve definitely had a case of writer’s block the last few weeks. Even though the A’s are playing actual baseball games, I can’t seem to find that inspiration to come up with all kinds of things to write about the team. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that this is the first spring training in a long time that I didn’t feel the A’s had a chance to make the playoffs.
No, scratch that - teams always have a chance. Well, the ‘08 Giants don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell, but at least 90% - OK, 80% - of the time, teams have a chance. It’s not a completely ridiculous notion that the 2008 A’s can contend.
So what needs to happen for the A’s to be good? Aside from saying things like “Everyone needs to play better” and “Everyone needs to get healthy,” here are some reasonable suggestions I have for the ‘08 green and gold:
1. Rich Harden needs to avoid major injury - I’m not going to say he needs to avoid injury altogether, because that’d be like saying Bobby Crosby needs to stop swinging at sliders away. It’s going to happen, but if we can avoid it happening on a large scale and get Rich to the hill at least 20 times this year, that’ll be a good start.
2. Eric Chavez needs to skip the trip to Japan. I know he really wants to go and he’s working hard to get there, but come on, Eric - if you push yourself to do it, you’re going to miss a lot more time this season than if you skip it. He needs to stay in Phoenix and not put his back in jeopardy on the long, intercontinental flights. Jack Hannahan can handle third base just fine for two games. (I checked this after I already had it written and, lo and behold, he’s staying home. Good boy, Eric!)
3. A rookie pitcher needs to make a splash. Whether it’s Gio Gonzalez, Henry Rodriguez, Fernando Hernandez, or someone else, we need someone to step up be surprising in on the mound. Someone is going to regress so we need to offset that with a nice suprise.
4. Mike Sweeney needs to be this year’s Jack Cust. So far he’s off to a good spring and if he can keep that going and be a legitimate, middle of the order threat like he was in the early zeroes, it will help balance out the lineup quite a bit.
5. A consistent outfield must emerge. Last year the A’s used something like 154 different players in the outfield. OK, so it wasn’t that many, but it was a lot. But they really need to have three guys who can consistently go out there each day and not give Bob Geren a reason to think they need to be platooned. Travis Buck? Check. Jack Cust (with Mike Sweeney at DH)? Check, despite sacrificing some defense. Let’s get one more guy in there who will have his name written down in the lineup every day.
6. Billy Beane needs to keep Huston Street and Joe Blanton. With the winter fire sale, it seemed these two were the next to go. But if the A’s are actually going to contend this year, they’ll need to keep these two guys - Blanton as the anchor at the top of the rotation and Street as the anchor at the back of the ‘pen. Without those two, you’ve got the fragile Rich Harden and Alan Embree at those anchor spots. That sure sounds like less of a winning formula.
We’ll see how many of those six things that A’s can manage and if it’ll result in an exciting summer. The start of the season is sooner than we realize, as our team will be piling aboard a plane in only three days to go to Japan.
Go A’s!!
the best bowl of cereal I’ve ever had.
team in baseball and a half game behind every team that doesn’t play in Boston, I’m excited.
