Well it finally happened, the A's brought back Frank Thomas and it breaks AN, thanks alot Billy Beane.

Thomas Returns to Oakland

Thomas signed for a pro-rated league minimum contract which checks in at about $337,000.  Even though I am a little concerned about the log-jam at DH, for that price you really can't complain about the signing, it would be stupid not to make it.

To make room Buck has been put on the 15-day DL, and Chavy has been moved to the 60-Day DL.  No one has been let go yet, but more moves will have to come in the future I'm sure.

So, let the celebrations begin and lets see what this server can do!

Still not too much to go on, but with about a week and a half untill the plane takes off for Tokyo I think it's a good time to start making predictions for one of the bigger battles going on right now in Spring Training.  With Rich Harden at least looking like he will start the season, Chad Gaudin ahead of schedule and likely to be ready when the A's first need a 5th starter, and Duke looking good so far it looks like there will be only one spot available in the rotation when the season starts.  With only a few more games to go no one has really jumped out and grabbed the spot, or you could say all the candidates have pitched well enough to still be in consideration.

So it comes down to:

Dana Eveland, Lenny DiNardo, Dallas Braden, Kirk Sarloos, Greg Smith, and Gio Gonzalez

I would put Eveland as the favorite right now, and he has pitched adequately so far but not as good as some of the other contenders.  Gio has impressed me the most in his Cactus league appearances but with no AAA experience he would have to absolutely blow the other contenders out of the water to leap frog to the top and he hasn't done that yet.  I think Braden and DiNardo slot in behind Evelend in the running and have both pitched well, but Braden's poor numbers with the big club last summer and DiNardo's limited "stuff" mean they have to show a little better to take the lead.  Saarloos is pretty much dead in the water in my mind, with 4 righties in the rotation I think the team would rather have a lefty win the last spot and Captain Kirk hasn't out-performed anybody and doesn't have the "up-side" of any of the other contenders.  As for Smith, I don't really know what to think about him other than I think he is destined for Sacramento.

So what do the great minds of AN think?

Just thought I'd put out a diary for those of us who follow the minor league portion of our beloved A's to consolidate info on the newest additions.

So far 13 of the 50 or so draft picks have signed.  The most notable being our 6th round pick Scott Hodsdon, a right handed pitcher from Azusa Pacific, the same school as Jimmy Shull and (I think) Jason Ray.

With short season ball in Vancouver starting up on Tuesday, we should start to see some of these guys playing fairly quickly.  Hodsdon is apparently allready on his way.

Continue reading this post »

Well, for anyone who is interested in this kind of stuff, most minor league seasons started today.

The A's are off to a promising start as Kane County had the earliest game and managed a 6-3 win.  None of the high-schoolers threw but Trey Shields had a quality start giving up 3 runs over 6 innings.  The lesser known high school draftee from last year Jutin Sellars did play and managed to go 2-4.

The A's double A team in Midland is in action right now and is up 2-1 with Jason Windsor taking on the first leg of Texas' famed DVD trio.  I'm hoping Windsor can do well this year.

AAA Sacramento and A Stockton play later tonite, so if anybody is interested in minor league action we could keep updates going in this thread.