I still don’t see a spot for Dan Johnson on this team, and was waiting for his name to come up in light of Carlos Delgado’s injury. But on Sunday, when Buster Olney laid out some possibilities, D.J. was not mentioned.

“Dan Johnsoooooon!” I sang at the computer screen while reading the column. Apparently Buster eventually noticed, because he brought him up (along with Doug Mientkiewicz) yesterday. The Mets certainly wouldn’t have to give up much to get him.

A good spring, of course, would help. D.J. is hitting .214 with a homer and two RBI in 14 at-bats.

It may not count in the season standings, but today’s 23-5 rout of the Giants certainly counts as far as “Ha ha, Giants suck!” is concerned.

(Sorry, Barry. I still heart you.)

A few days ago, Bob Geren said the A’s are emphasizing baserunning during spring training in an effort to get more aggressive on the basepaths this season. After all, if you listen to ESPN commentators, this is something the A’s really need to improve on. I mean, really - they NEVER bunt, they NEVER run, and all they do is walk and wait for the three-run homer. 

Apparently in their intrasquad game yesterday, however, they were really bad at it. (Though for the record, the example used in the article is Jeff Baisley, a dude who has no chance of making the team.) But I guess running aggressively and making outs is better than not running at all, right, Joe Morgan?

Today the A’s play their Cactus League opener against the Brewers. We may have an actual box score to look at soon!

Go A’s!!

I’ve got a couple A’s items to address as we begin our first full week of Spring Training:

1. Jeremy Brown retiring was surprising news. But, how surprising to me, really? It was only a few months ago when I created him in The Sims 2 to play out his post-baseball life. He was a school teacher, married a doctor, and had two daughters. Did I subconsciously expect that the end was near for our loveable “fat catcher”?

In response to Brown hanging it up, the A’s signed Matt LeCroy to a minor-league deal. LeCroy was another one of my Baseball Mogul favorites and he has often been an A in my imaginary A’s world. But this time he’s likely to be a Rivercat, baring some catastrophic event involving Kurt Suzuki or Rob Bowen.

2. Baseball Prospectus released their 2008 PECOTA projected standings, and guess what? The A’s didn’t finish in last place. They didn’t even finish third. They finished second, bee-yotches. (78-84, 11 games behind the obvious division winner, LAAoA.)

Sure, it’s fake baseball played with fake stats, but if I can get confirmation from a credible source that I’m not crazy in thinking this team isn’t that bad, I’ll take it.

3. My hubby and I cleared 8 inches of snow from our driveway this morning. We’ve been dumped on mercilessly by Mother Nature this winter, but just knowing there are men in green and gold playing baseball somewhere in the country right now makes me see a light at the end of this cold, dark tunnel.

Go A’s!!

We now have photographic evidence of actual Oakland Athletics partaking in baseball-related activities in Phoenix.

Looks like Duchscherer is preforming a magic trick for the skipper. Or maybe that’s a new pitch… if so, that’s pretty devastating. Go A’s!!

Today is the first voluntary reporting day for A’s pitchers and catchers to spring training in Phoenix. Here are the names we may see in green and gold in the coming days!

Active roster - pitchers:

Joe Blanton, Jerry Blevins, Dallas Braden, Andrew Brown, Kiko Calero, Santiago Casilla, Joey Devine, Lenny DiNardo, Justin Duchscherer, Alan Embree, Dana Eveland, Keith Foulke, Chad Gaudin, Jeff Gray, Rich Harden, Fernando Hernandez, Dan Meyer, Henry Rodriguez, Huston Street

Active roster - catchers:

Rob Bowen, Landon Powell, Kurt Suzuki

Non-roster invitees - pitchers:

Troy Cate, Angel Garcia, Gio Gonzalez, Arnold Leon, Jay Marshall, Kirk Saarloos, James Simmons, Greg Smith, Ryan Wing, Brad Zeigler

Non-roster invitees - catchers:

Jeremy Brown, Justin Knoedler, Anthony Rucker

The list includes four trade acquisitions, a Rule 5 guy, and three of the team’s top 10 prospects. For the first time in 2008, I’m saying it - Go A’s!!!