2006 Oakland A's (April-October) RIP

For now I will retreat to MLB 2k6 where the A's are 54-2.

Billy B has some work ahead of him.
I hope BBG enjoyed her cruise.
I love my A's

on second thought, that'll probably be in about 20 minutes. so i'll stick around.

1.  I can't believe it's over.
   
2.  But man... wow, what a season.
   
3.  I'll miss you, Barry Zito.
   
4.  The thought of the dreaded offseason is scary.  Damn.  
   
5.  Can we PLEASE have a ST countdown on the homepage?  Like, right now?  That would help with the healing process.
   
6.  I hate Kenny Rogers.
   
7.  I won't be rooting for the Tigers in the WS.  I just can't bring myself to root for a team that beat us.  I hope they get swept.
   
8.  I love AN.
   
9.  I hate offseasons.
   
10.  My god, this sucks.

I love our boys, and I am so SO so proud to be a fan of this team. Thanks for a great season AN!

I hope to see Milton and Frank coming back in the green and gold, who knows Zito might be coming back too (One can only hope ...). It's been a great roller coaster ride and I've enjoyed every second of it. I love everyone on this team and I love you guys! I can say that I'm damn proud of being an Oakland A's fan. Ours are a very special team.

I cannot wait for spring to come and I'm missing them already, here is hoping for a better season 2007.

1. street did an incredible job in the 7th and 8th.  
   
2. i'll miss barry zito.
   
3. the tigers are a likeable team and i'll most likely be rooting for them in the world series.    

In the meantime, Go Sharks and Go Cal!

To be sure, they appeared to have pooped out in the latter part of the regular season.  But then how were they able to muster such incredible energy and aggressive attitude?

Discovering that the Yankees could be beat really recharged them, I guess.

How do we develop that kind of aggressiveness for next year?  Please someone tell me.

Some disappointment, yes, with the way things transpired in the ALCS, but overall, it was a wonderful season, with plenty of ups-and-downs, but lots of ups to enjoy. Most of all, my very first playoff game in person was a wonderful experience - I am very happy I was able to participate in the ALDS clincher.

Can't wait for next season!

-- I don't even hate Kenny Rogers.  Why?  Because he's really good, especially against the A's, and got redemption for all his past postseason failures?  Because he has been a bit of a pill in the past?  Who cares?  Frank Thomas and Milton Bradley were jerks elsewhere, or so I've read.  Does that stop us from liking them here?

-- I don't like being swept, but the team got mediocre to bad starting pitching, nothing or very little from its two big boppers, and subpar defense even from its Gold Glover.  You play like that and you get swept.  That's what happened to the Twins.  We deserved every loss, and can't blame this or that boneheaded player decision or managerial move - though some were questionable.  The Tigers were superior, end of story.

-- Frank Thomas' market value went down.

-- Milton Bradley's market value went way up.  We might want to take a chance and sign him to a longer-term deal while the rest of baseball is still frightened of him.  His will to win was inspiring, and his tribute to Leyland was a classy move at the end.

-- Goodbye, Barry.  You provided a lot of fun moments, and were good far more often than you were maddening.

-- Chavez needs to get healthy.  His various ailments seemed to hamper his defense in this series.  Chavez is what he is, but he's a better player than he showed in 2006.

-- Mark Ellis is a very important player on this team, even when he's not hitting.  This series proved that, if nothing else.

-- I am not counting on Rich Harden, but if he can have a healthy season, the A's won't miss Zito too much.

-- The team overachieved when you consider the overall talent, run differential, injuries, et cetera.  They will need to get a lot better just to win the same number of games next year, and the Angels look like a formidable rival now that their rookies are seasoned.

-- Feel sad?  Think about AN Day, even if you weren't there.  That game (ending with Bradley's three-run homer against B.J. Ryan) was the most fun I've had at an A's game in a long time.

Great, great season, made all the better because we got to share it with fellow fans right here on AN.  

LET'S GO OAK-LAND!

The second half was just so satisfying and so much fun.   And then the Minnesota series was just awesome.  Thanks, A's!

I do wish the A's had played better in this series.  Game 1 was as bad a game as they played all year.  You can say what you want about the great Tiger pitching, but Robertson was horrible in Game 1.  It looked like he was throwing batting practice and the A's hit the ball hard practically every at bat ... until there were runners in scoring position.  At which point the A's gave away at bat after at bat by swinging at tons of pitches way out of the strike zone.  That Swisher at bat with runners on second and third was just awful.  I really think the A's should have won Game 1 easily.  As it is, if Chavez makes that play -which he made every day all day during the entire regular season- and if Jimenez doesn't throw that ball away, then the Tigers win Game 1 by a score of 2-0 ... which, since the A's went 0-13 with RISP tells me it should have been a win.  And if the A's win Game 1, who knows what might have been different?    Who knows how different things would have been had Chavvy played third base in this series the way he did all year?  

As regards next year, this should still be a damn good ball club.  You have to assume you'll get more from the entire infield - Swish, Ellis, Crosby and Chavvy.  (If you don't get much more from either Crosby or Chavvy, it's time to dump them, because enough is enough. )  You'd have to expect more from Bradley, too, in terms of his health and Harden, and perhaps Loaiza, too.  So there's reason to believe in improvement.  And though I should say too much, I really won't miss Zito that much.  (He's been a terrific pitcher here, but I can take only so many 0-2 counts that then go full.  Against lousy clubs he usually works out of it, though.)

Having said all of that, the Angels were pretty tough the second half, too, and you get the sense that they would have caught the A's had the season gone another week.  And they have made it clear they are going to re-load offensively, with a Miggy, an ARod, a Soriano ... or perhaps two of the above or something similar.  So this has been a hell of a ride the past 6 years, but I think even Moneyball's Michael Lewis thinks it's coming to an end.

Why do I say that?  Well, for one, the farm system really doesn't have anything in it.  Barton looks pretty good when healthy, but ... from what I read, that's pretty much it.  We got a sense of our depth in the infield when the A's replaced Ellis and Perez (Perez, for crying out loud) with, um, Jimenez and Kiger.  I think Boca boy is the top outfielder, and I certainly didn't see anything among the young arms that made you think "Wow, that's the next Harden, or Street, or Duke, or whatever."

So I'm calling here and now for some off-the-field changes to make 2007 more enjoyable:  (1) a healthy Roy Steele; (2) the end of dot racing and hide the ice cream in the hat; (3) a Vince Controneo that knows when and how to change the modulation of his voice; (4) the early retirement of Robert Buan; and, OK, on the field: (5) an Eric Chavez that you actually look forward to seeing at the plate in a clutch situation.

Gret season, AN!
 

1. game time temp in detroit is 12 degrees.
2. glavine/carpenter hits magglio in the face with a fastball.
3. leyland coughs up a lung in the dugout.

You have to go back to September 14th to find when the A's weren't the 5th best team in baseball based on their record. That means only 4 teams were better than us from the 15th on, 3 of which are still in the postseason, with one going to the World Series.

The fourth we swept three games straight, which was no small feat at all!

We saw Swisher emerge as a future top hitter, a future hall-of-famer in Frank Thomas, and a great bunch of pitchers and batters that made up such a fantastic team. If Frank Thomas believes that this is the most fun he's had reaching the postseason out of his career, that has to count for something.

That's not to say I'm not bummed at all by the loss (I wonder how many teams have swept in the ALDS only to be swept in the ALCS), and it sucks that Thomas and Swisher didn't produce, but I'm still pumped up for next season.

Harden will be back in full swing and mini-Harden (Haren) will bring his game up to the #2 pitcher he's shown he's capable of being, of that I'm sure. If we don't get Thomas back, there can be no doubt that we'll find some other slugger to fill his void. Chavez and Bradley will perform like they should have during the regular season (though Bradley did, more than less), and our young players will continue to be some of the best in the league.

And like Nico said, being here with everyone makes it much more palatable. Who else could I count on for endless trade speculation in the offseason.

Thanks AN for a great season.

Street already resembles Eck, Hall of Fame...?

A's fans, don't hang your heads.  I'm not.

The White Elephant.

Great season, many thrills but wished they got the series back to Oakland. I agreed with everyone's comments in the game thread that the Fox announcers (well not all of them) sounded idiotic talking about small ball. The A's only got two hits the day before, so how many runs can you "manufacture" if you only get two hits?

Locking up Bradley for at least 2008 and 2009 to prevent him from walking after next year looks awfully good now. Bradley should know that other general managers are so risk-averse his price on the open market may not be commensurate with his obvious talent.

we lose our ace and i doubt we will sign anyone worth a damn in the field, we never do

soooo, we will be the underdogs next year, the world series was soooo close and now we will have to fight tooth and nail to even get to the playoffs again

what an idiot! stupid miscalculation!!
I was getting so many things right today. be careful what you ask for you just might get it...how dumb am I? (don't answer that...rhetorical question)

1. Bradley is in the three hole and remains healthy.
2. Harden Crosby, Chavez, Duscherer, and Ellis remain healthy
3. We have the Big Hurt.
3. Crosby, Chavez, Swisher, and Johnson learn how to shorten up their swings with two strikes and concentrate on making contact and just driving the ball.
4. We pick up some quality backup middle infielders and a fifth fitcher.

1. (Almost) all the teams we defeated in the 70's during our awesome Playoff/World Series run have exacted revenge on us.
        A) The Dodgers and Reds of the late 80's got revenge on us for beating them in the 72 and 74 series.
        B) The Tigers got revenge on us this year for the 72 ALCS loss.
        C) We're even with Boston, Baltimore, Toronto, and Minnesota in that we've won and lost against each in the playoffs in the 70's, 80's and 90's, and 2000's.
        D) A's in four against Yankess in 2007 (we're due with them)!!
        E) As long as we don't meet the Giants or Mets in the 2000 World series we should be win the series and bring baseballs highest reward back home where it belongs in OAKLAND!!

At the beginning of the season I thought we had a decent chance to win at all, but if you had told me, Harden will miss almost all of the season and Crosby will miss a whole lot, I would have thought oh great 2005 all over again and pretty much given up. Add on top of that "Chavez will play most of the season in spite of injuries and have the worst season of his career" and I don't know what I would have thought, but it wouldn't have been "I'll be crushed if we don't get to the World Series".

Things to be happy about: Mark Ellis. Marco Scutaro. Milton Bradley. Nick Swisher. Frank Thomas. Justin Duchscherer.

And even Jason Kendall was pretty darn good this season.

And now: I can actually root for the Tigers next week. Good show guys. You stomped the Yankees, and you stomped the A's. Go stomp the NL champs. Best of luck, you deserve it.

The crazy thing is the new playoff format of eight teams has totally changed the predictability of the post season.  The Tigers looked like the weakest team in the AL coming in to the playoffs and NOBODY picked them to even get past the Yankees, let alone make the World Series in relatively easy fashion.  I'll always wonder why exactly it was that the A's couldn't stay hot after their sweep of Minnesota, who knows when we'll see them in the playoffs again?

You should check out the Billy Beane and Johnny Ramone interview that took place in the Oakland Coliseum and appeared in an issue of the fantastic A's friendly punk rock zine - "Chin Music". A gem.

The A's real weakness is the organization. One thing that I learned from studying Detroit's success is the quality of their organization, from Dombrowski to Leyland to the coaches. They were the best-prepared team the A's faced all year, as their pitchers had every A's hitter dialed-in and their hitters had the book on every A's pitcher. The fact that none of them choked in the playoffs is a tribute to their organization.

I'd like the A's to have the kind of partnership between the manager and the GM that the Tigers have, and coaching of their caliber, especially for the batters. Macha and Perry are holding the A's back, and it's not clear that Beane is capable of relinquising enough control to the clubhouse to get it done. But we'll see, 2007 is just around the corner.

Somebody in the Oakland city government should give Milton Bradley the key to the city, he's a man among men.

Also thanks for my second family known as A's Nation. This has been another banner year for us, and I don't think any other blog site even compares closely to ours. A's fans have long been accused of being so few in numbers, unable to fill
consistently our ballpark, to the point where we have to cheat by knocking off 10,000 of our seats. But we lack in numbers, we gain in having the MOST number of truly dedicated fans in baseball. I think this site speaks volumes to that. Thank you all for being such a fun part of all my summers.

Congratulations to the Tigers. A much well deserved AL representative and I hope you sweep your way to the title as well. I think your fans have deserved it.

I'm still so very very proud of our boys and will continue to where my A's jersey with pride. Here's to next year. Long live AN.

End of season - lots of fun. AN has given me tons of entertainment and on the whole some good insights.

Thank you all.