Baseball Historians

Reporting day is Friday for pitchers and catchers and while the bulk of the work will start on Saturday, a lot of eyes will be on new A’s manager Bob Geren.  For now, Geren says he’s not going to change much.  Geren has the advantage of having the same bullpen and pitching coaches as the […]

The A’s have been pretty quiet the past couple of weeks but for better or worse, they made another signing.  This time it’s another injury prone player in Shannon Stewart.  Stewart signed a one year, $2.5 million deal with the A’s.  I’m not sure what the A’s have planned for Stewart but he’s an almost […]

Kevin Goldstein recently unveiled his list of the top ten A’s prospects in his latest Future Shock column.  Number one on the list is first basemen Daric Barton.  Barton is a walk machine and he had a solid season at Triple despite being only 20.  He won’t break into the A’s lineup in 2007 but it’ll […]

Over the last five years, the players that have left the A’s could make up an All Star team.  As an A’s fan, you expect it and the latest players to leave are Barry Zito and Frank Thomas.  The Big Three are no more, at least not the early 2000s version.  Now the A’s are […]

Here’s a great story at the Minor League Baseball website that gives a run down on David Shafer.  It looks like Bob Geren has him pegged for Triple A but a spot on the big league club might not be out of the question with a good spring.

Just a few days after signing Kirk Saarloos, the Athletics have traded him for a relief pitcher in the Reds organization.  Shafer had a very good season for the Reds Double A affiliate but you also have to be a little careful because he was 24 while doing it and he doesn’t show up as […]

The A’s signed relief pitcher Justin Duchscherer to a one year, $1,187,500 deal today and the two sides will avoid arbitration.  While Duchscherer was limited to 55 2/3 innings, he’s one of the best set up men out there.  His career strikeout ratio is 221 to 67, which is pretty impressive and the right hander […]

The A’s settled with another arbitration eligible player as they signed Kirk Saarloos to a one year, $1.2 million deal.  Basically, the two sides split their differences and there are a couple of incentives that could get him up close to his asking price of $1.475 million.
Saarloos had a tough season in 2006 after a […]

The Athletics signed three of their arbitration eligible players and in addition, also inked Joe Kennedy to a one year deal.  The big name was Milton Bradley, who signed for $4 million.  He had a decent regular season but he really shined come playoff time and he was one of the few A’s to actually […]

I talked about this last week but it looks like the Athletics have made Darin Erstad an offer for a one year deal.  I talked about the pros and cons of Erstad already so check that post out to see where I’m coming from.

Bryan Smith at the Hardball Times recently wrote a column on eight prospects to watch in 2007. One of those prospects is pitcher Vince Mazzaro. Smith talks about how Mazzaro might be the only one of the three high school players taken in the first three rounds of the 2005 draft and while […]

It looks like the Athletics are interested in centerfielder/firstbaseman Darin Erstad.  I guess I’m a little surprised because Erstad hasn’t played a full season since 2002 and he hasn’t had a good year at the plate since his career year in 2000.  He is an incredible centerfielder though and he’d definitely be welcome roaming out […]

The Athletics and Adam Melhuse reached a one year, $815,000 deal that will keep the backup catcher in Oakland one more season.  This will be Melhuse’s fifth season with the team.  The downside is Melhuse has been regressing the past couple of years after peaking in 2004 with 11 homeruns.  Then again, how good does […]