Oakland A’s Season Preview

It’s hard being an A’s fan sometimes. As soon as you fall in love with a player, he gets traded for a crop of prospects. But I suppose I don’t really have anything to complain about until the team moves south to Fremont. I’m not expecting big things for the Green & Gold in 2008, but I think they will be entertaining as always.

For the A’s to be competitive this season:

Like last season, the front of the rotation is good, and the bullpen is strong. Harden and Blanton are a solid 1-2 punch, but Harden only pitched 16 times in the past two years. Justin Duchscherer is one of the better setup pitchers in baseball, but he isn’t proven as a starter. If these three make lots of quality starts, the A’s will be in decent shape.

The young guys need to keep hitting. Daric Barton came up at the end of last season and smashed his way to a 1.067 OPS. Travis Buck played half a season as a rookie and had an OPS of .850. Jack Hannahan filled in as a very respectable infield replacement for part of the year. Jack Cust, though he’s not a youngster, was a huge success when he finally got regular at bats, and he might not need to keep up his Ruthian home run pace, but he can’t slip too much. Kurt Suzuki will be an offensive improvement over Jason Kendall, though not behind the plate.

Bobby Crosby and Eric Chavez need solid years. Crosby hasn’t played in 100 games any season since he was a rookie in 2004. Chavez played hurt as much as he could the past two seasons, and his production suffered tremendously. If they can each play something like 120 to 140 pain-free games, it will be the equivalent of the A’s signing two good free agents.

The A’s won’t be very good because:

The back end of the starting rotation could be a problem like it was last year. Lenny DiNardo, fourth in the rotation, looks like he could be ok, but then things get shaky. Dana Eveland made the rotation out of spring training though he has a flimsy resume. Last year the A’s experimented with a lot of fifth starters with little success, and if the same happens this year, the team will have a losing record again. At least Danny Haren was around last season.

With Oakland, it will all come down to injuries. Chavez is hurt. Crosby and Harden usually get hurt. Chad Gaudin and Kiko Calero, two of the better pitchers, are starting the season on the disabled list. If the A’s use the DL anywhere close to the 22 times they did last year, there’s no way they will be good.

My prediction is that injuries will be a problem, the young team will go through growing pains and spurts, and they will be competitive in any given game but not for a division title. A winning record is possible but something of a best-case scenario. Last year’s win total of 76 seems like a realistic prediction.