Put It On The Board...Yes!

Each spring, when the A's major and minor league landscapes finally come into focus, I create two poster boards. One is the "major league landscape" and the other is the "minor league landscape". They can be found below and should slow the load time of this page down to "Billy Butler foot speed" levels.

The boards are not supposed to represent every single player worth knowing about, but rather the key pieces, as far as we know, at the time the board was made. As you know, with the Oakland A's things tend to change kinda fast.

Part of the purpose is to give my mom a study guide for the upcoming season, because you can't watch Opening Night being unfamiliar with the #3 starting pitcher. You have to be crystal clear on who "Kittenface" is. You need to have the new starting shortstop distinguished from the new first baseman. Actually, the new first basemen. It's the A's, after all.

It's also imperative to know which exciting prospects will never actually play for Oakland, so I keep the minor league board current along with notes about the player's profile, skill set and ETA. I decided to let this year's minor league board reflect the dearth of outfielders along with the likelihood that Billy Burns can just go ahead and play all three positions. Hey, it worked for Ryan Sweeney.

Enjoy...Before you know it, Brad Mills will be warming up to open the Cactus League season!