while of course that’s important, and Holliday’s acquisition was also important, I think the health and performance of Ducschere, Ellis and Chavez will be key to making the A’s a contending club in 2009….and in any event, I’ll be in the stands cheering them on!

I hope you’re right, but I see a 38 year old who has been declining for the last several years.

Granted, he’s declined from superstar to merely above average, but there’s only so long a guy can sustain production.

Also I think there is little logic to the fact that his altering his swing at Yankee stadium hurt his offensive output. Clearly he changed his swing to improve his output and he probably left it that way because he felt that it was indeed improving his output. Unless he is a really poor mathematician – very possible albeit – then I doubt he was suffering from a great unrecognized inefficiency. Personally, I just think he is more comfortable in Oakland, knowing he can stink it up for 20 ABs straight if that is what it takes to go on a surge. Little things like that that will help him more than age will hurt him next season.

But it looks like that may be largely a function of staying healthy.

436 PA, 21 HR, 64 RBI, .232 BA, .346 OBP, .450 SLG

If we can get 550 PA out of him, that would project to a nicer looking 26 HR and 81 RBI.

I think PECOTA is selling Giambi a little short in the batting average department. I’ll say .250/.360/.475 with 24HR and 85 RBI, and I’ll be very happy if he has that season.

whether you’re diving into the shallow end or the deep end. Come to think of it, shallow end is probably better because at least you don’t have as far to fall.

Although that over-exaggerates how not-that-great I think he’ll be, since Piazza was just about useless.

A .350 wOBA is about what I expect out of Giambi. Not terrible by any means, but not good enough for a poor defensive 1B, either. I think he’ll appear to be helping the A’s far more than he actually helps the team.

I’m interested to see what Geren decides as far as a lineup is concerned. Me thinks a top of the order looks something like:

1)Buck/Sweeney (depends on who has a better spring or if Barton starts the year in AAA or not)
2)Cust
3)Holliday
4)Giambi
5)Chavez
6)Suzuki
7)Sweeney/Buck
8)Ellis
9)Crosby
or something like that. I guess you could alternate Suzuki in the 2 hole if need be, bumping Chavez down to the 6 hole with Cust hitting 5th etc.. but anyway you slice it the A’s are gonna be lefty heavy in this type of lineup. It would be nice if the A"s had one more solid, RH stick in that lineup to balance things out.

be it Denorfia or Cunningham. Then you could platoon in the outfield with matchups L/R etc.. I think it it will be Denorfia, myself, with Cunningham starting in AAA, and R.Davis picking up the 5th OF slot.

in the lineup will be huge. With the combination of Cust, Holliday and Giambi, opposing pitchers will not be able to pitch around any of them. Last year a BB to Cust was a regular occurence because there weren’t a lot of guys to knock him. That all changes this year. I like mrod’s lineup and hope that Cust hits 2-hole all year long. That should be a handful for opposing pitchers and I think we’ll see a lot of runs scored in the 1st inning this year.

If our young staff can pitch with a lead then I suspect that they will be much more successful. Our pitching staff had to be darn near perfect last year and that is too much to ask when the majority of them had little to no experience. I’ve always been down on Crosby but if he’s hitting 9th in ’09 than he has an opportunity to be one of the more productive 9-hole guys in the league. I just hope the negativity surrounding him will finally be enough to force him into making some adjustments in his stance and approach.

For a season that is 6 months long… it seems that the off-season lasts for 9 months. I want some baseball and can’t wait until it gets here!!

Especially since the Warriors season is already over halfway thru the season. ST can’t come soon enough! Go A’s!

And I think he will, but I dont really care because he’s still an upgrade from the crap we had last year

I’m feeling a .250, 25-30 HR, 90+RBIs season. But it all depends if he wears his green and gold thong or not. Regardless, he’s going to make the other guys around him hit better.

league AB. My bench would be:

C – Powell
IF – Hannahan
IF – Pennington
OF – Buck

OK you don’t want Powell or Pennington to get AB, but then just don’t play them. I’d play Buck in CF against lefties and bring him in to replace Cust for defense late in games. Also play him a couple of times a week against righties and rest Giambi.

I don’t want to see Baisley, Denorfia, Patterson or anyone else except in an emergency, and I don’t want to see emergencies.