Operation Shakeweight (or How I am in the best shape of my life!, a Fangraph's inspired thread)

Every Year, Spring training comes along and... hell, I'll let Fangraphs say it, as they put it best; 

Every spring, there is one constant, a telltale sign of the beginning of baseball, when people are starved for news but there just isn’t any – the "Player X is in the best shape of his life" story... Most of the the time, it turns out to be nothing. The player is what he is, and he plays just like he always has, with his new form never mentioned again as he’s struggling in July. But, I’m sure some players have made legitimate strides in their work ethic this winter, and for some, it might even pay off.

Fangraphs put together a tally for those who are being featured in Spring Training Articles about how this will be the best season ever, and they are healthier than a new born kitten, and how eating all those puppies made them lose 50 pounds, and that the new Ab Abber 2000 (and totally not the extra bit of Hungarian Green Hornet mix they added to their cereal) helped them gain that extra 3 ft of muscle mass. Fangraphs gives a list of suggested themes for these articles, and I think they are a good place to start, though not necessarily to stop at. Personally, I would add "changed something in their swing/mechanics/glovework" to that list as well.

1. Lost 30 pounds
2. Had laser eye surgery
3. Rehabilitated their knee/back
4. Rededicated themselves to the game
5. Found a new passion for baseball

I feel that this would be a very interesting project, documenting the bullshit quota of Spring Training articles compared to the reality of if a player will actually have a good/better season. It might even be graph worthy. But, I feel that Fan Graph's work on it will be buried and ignored, as it may already be.

So I thought of the obvious solution. I've seen these articles all the time as well. I remember them every year. I even, regrettably, read them, and sometimes even believe them! How many times did we think Eric Chavez would be healthy, or Bobby Crosby good, before we gave up? Longer than we'd like to admit. Well, I realized that I am primarily interested in how A's players are with this, and here we have a large community of A's fans, of whom are probably also interested in this, and with Spring Training just starting, are desperate for news, and maybe a nice little project to tinker around with those news stories as well.

So post those articles you have found, and add them as we continue to find them, of A's players who are in the best shape of their life, are going to give it 130% this year, and/or had a revelation of motivation, though preferably about Baseball, not Priesthood.

Hopefully, this time next year, we will have a nice collection to look back on, dissect how the players did, and see what we can expect from Sean Doolittle and his "My knee is the best its ever been, 2011 will be the year" comments.