This year's squad compared to last year's. A reason to hope?

Put the nine best bats in the line-up. There is no doubt that Defense is important, but its TEAM defense and limiting mental mistakes that makes a good defense. Highlight real plays that change the outcome of the game are rare. Having a big stick (and multiple big sticks) in the line-up significantly impacts the decsion making behind every ptich and, along with greater production, has a much greater impact on wins and loses.

I'm probably preaching to the choir on this one (Money Ball readers), but just another vote for Cust in the OF...he can rest from time to time at DH against RHP, when Sweeney takes a day off.

the gamer commercials so much

I really doubt that Henry Rodriguez will be starting the season in Sacramento. He spent last year in Kane County and he's only 21. I have very high hopes for him as well, but with the number of pitchers in the system I don't see him getting past AA this year.

Of course, as many people have pointed out on this site (here, for example), we are currently stacked with pitching in the low minors while the guys in Sacramento are pretty uninspiring (though I do like Braden). So maybe we'll see some really aggressive promotion. I still think it's unlikely.

I'm not here to rain on your parade. I think we'll see him in the bigs...2009 as a reliever. 2010 if a starter. Only Billy knows.

he threw 62 pitches over 4 shutout innings. According to Duke, there was no pain afterward.

http://oakland.athletics.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080313&content_id=2425502&vkey=spt2008news&fext=.jsp&c_id=oak

A. insinuating that Erick Aybar is flaming, or B. Chone Figgins is on some kind of drug. I'm sure your allusion was probably not that simple though.

It bugs me that the Angels have enough pure talent to win some games, because they really are a horribly run organization, topped off by a dimwit manager who can't keep his fat ass in the dugout for an entire game ever.

Not that I wish others to do poorly (that's a lie), but I'm looking forward to watching Brandon Wood flame out like all these other can't miss Angels prospects (Dallas who?). For the past half decade or more I keep hearing about how amazing the Angels farm system is and how great all these guys are going to be. Inevitably, they end up being very blah. I'm not sold on Howie Kendrick, either, unless he can pull a Jose Reyes and learn the strike zone.

When you combine prospects who aren't going to live up to potential, some downright terrible free agent deals over the past couple years (Matthews, Hunter), and aging players who weren't ever that great anyway (Anderson), I just don't think the Angels are that talented.

Of course, they'll probably still win the division this year and people will still say what a great manager Scoscia is because he likes when his guys get caught stealing as long as they get really dirty doing it (and he was a catcher, so that makes him awesome). But I just don't see them as significantly more talented than the A's, and I think the A's ceiling is about 20 stories higher.

While the Angels are not significantly better than they were last year, they were definitely a pretty good team last year who were able to breeze through our division pretty easily. Torii certainly wasn't worth all that money he got in his big new contract, but hes a pretty damn talented player, when it comes to things outside of diving for A's fly balls, and will add an elite player to an already strong team. The M's were very lucky to win as many as they did last year, which is pretty universally agreed upon in addition to the idea that its gonna be hard for them to win that many this year, so I wouldn't say their overrated, since nobody seems to see them doing anything. But they added an ace Bedard (overpaid for him but not with any players that really would have improved them this year) and got rid of a worthless moron not fit to start for a highschool team in Weaver (which sucks because taking the over on games that he started last year was pretty much the surest bet in sports, I can't imagine why nobodies picked him up yet), which means that while they might not win as many games, they are a strong team than last year.
Overall, for the A's to actually contend its going to take a perfect storm of things going in the A's direction: an injury epidemic of Athletics' proportions hitting the California Angels of Anaheim, suburb of Los Angeles in the United States, Earth (I can only make those jokes a couple years more until we become the Oakland A's of Fremont or something similarly awful so I'm trying to get them in when I can), all of the A's new players to completely live up to their potential this year and surpass all expectations, with the ones starting in the minors moving through quick enough to be able to make a difference for the A's and take us to a higher level of ball than before we had them, and for us to stay injury free in players that matter (Dan Johnson can go lop off his arms if he really wants). If all these things happen, in addition to us getting all the breaks in close games and doing exceptionally well in our divisional play, we could find ourselves in contention. Most likley it will be at least a year until we can seriously contend though. This squad has the potential to be amazing, and compared to last years squad they're practically on par with the 1910 A's, but with many "experts" (read: morons) projecting the A's to hit 90 wins, I'd say a 500 record would be fine with me as long as we can see that the young players we picked up were worth it and are looking like quality major league level players by the end of the year. Lets take this one game at a time and support the green and gold, without setting any insane expectations on a team that could realistically lose a lot of game, and maybe we will find ourselves still in the thick of it come August and September. Crazier things have happened though, and nothing would make me happier than taking this from those Assholes of Anaheim.