Hello Fellow ANers, let's get things going.

SI, for once, has decided to take a break from covering Johnny Damon, Curt Schilling, and Pedro Martinez to throw us A's fans a bone.  Actually, John Donovan wrote a pretty good article about Thomas and included a few notes about other A's players:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/writers/john_donovan/03/14/big.hurt/index.html

Here are a couple of excerpts from two recent ESPN chats.  The first is from Gary Gillette's chat:

"Brandon (PA): How do you think Frank Thomas will do in Oakland?"

"Gary Gillette: Poorly. While it's possible Big Frank will be healthy, happy, and productive, I'd give 3-1 odds against that happening. I think he's done. "

http://proxy.espn.go.com/chat/chatESPN?event_id=11062

The second is from Rob Neyer's chat from today:

"Tre (Chicago): Can Rich Harden nab the Cy Young this year? The only real difference betw. him and Johan Santana is one has played a few full seasons."

"Rob Neyer: That's one real difference, and a pretty big one. Here's another; in 2005, Santana walked 45 hitters in 232 innings; Harden walked 43 in 128 innings. I love Harden. But Santana's in a class all by himself."

http://proxy.espn.go.com/chat/chatESPN?event_id=11078

And finally, Mychael Urban returns with another edition of "A's Mailbag," addressing our relative abundance of catching prospects, what's in store for Juan Cruz this year, and a few other goodies:

http://oakland.athletics.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/article.jsp?ymd=20060313&content_id=1348706& ;vkey=spt2006news&fext=.jsp&c_id=oak

Sorry this DLD is short; I just wanted to get the DLD rolling for today.  When the boss is away, the mice will play, but the boss won't be gone for long.