The Oakland Athletics Week in Review
By Tony Frye
If you have been starving for baseball news over the past month, the Oakland Athletics have quelled your hunger in the past week and a half with big news both happy and sad. To help insure that you’ve seen all of the news, Swingin’ A’s has compiled all of it into one place for your ease of browsing.
In Remembrance
First we begin with a bit of sad news as the Oakland Athletics lost two of their own recently. Brad Halsey, who pitched for the Athletics briefly in 2006, was a favorite in the clubhouse and regarded as one of baseball’s “nice guys”. Devin Pangaro wrote a lovely tribute in remembrance of the young pitcher who was taken far too young.
Next: In Remembrance of Brad Halsey
The Oakland Athletics also lost a legend of Oakland past with the passing of former manager Alvin Dark. Dark spent two seasons with the Athletics and managed the final two years of their legendary dynasty period with two post season appearances, a world series victory and a .580 winning record. Staff writer Richard Paloma wrote a great piece about the former manager who has the distinction of being hired and fired by Charlie O’Finley twice, once for the Kansas City Athletics.
Next: In Remembrance of Alvin Dark
Acquisitions
The Oakland Athletics made a couple of interesting acquisitions this past week, the biggest of course being Billy Butler for three years and $30 million. Swingin’ A’s has a ton of coverage of that signing but the best place to start is with Nick Avila’s piece detailing the transaction.
Next: The A's Sign Billy Butler
Not content with securing a big time baseball star, Billy Beane also picked up a minor league pitcher who, when he gets the call, is going to make a big splash in the majors. Why? Well, he’s a switch pitcher! Yeah, you read that correctly. Check out Devin’s analysis of this young pitcher who’s already being credited with a MLB rule change.
Next: A's Acquire Ambidextrous Pitcher
News and Rumors
Oakland mayor elect Libby Schaaf spoke with Damon Bruce this week and left some mixed impressions among sports fans in Oakland. While making it clear that she intends to fight to keep the A’s and the Raiders in Oakland, she did throw one sentence in her interview that caught the ire of Raiders fans. What could she possibly say to tarnish the good news she brought to the interview? Based on economics alone, she was going to have to give priority to the A’s.
Some fans were not convinced that the economics actually favored the Athletics so, of course, Tony took a stab at analyzing the impact of both teams.
Next: Libby Schaaf Says A's Get Priority
Around the Site
And last but not least, we’ve had a number of fun things going on here at the website. First off, we announced the launching of our epic Fantasy GM game that is going to start just in time for the MLB winter meetings. This is fantasy baseball to the extreme but it’s going to be a ton of fun this season and we hope you’ll join us. As of this writing, there are still some teams available for you to manage! Read the rules here.
Much in that same vein, the editors of Swingin’ A’s have been involved in faux winter meetings with the editors of all 30 Fansided baseball sites. If you follow our Twitter account, we’ve been tweeting out and asking for your advice on proposed trades. One of our first orders of business was trading Josh Reddick and John Jaso. Check out what we got for these two players and leave your suggestions for the remainder of the trade meetings.
Next: Faux Meetings: Reddick and Jaso Gone
We also released our fifth podcast episode this week and it was a momentous occasion because it marked the first appearance of our lovely co-editor, Jason Burke. He was more amazing on the show than anyone could have possibly imagined. I mean, it’s pure magic.
That should just about do it for this week’s review. As always, you can stay up to date on all the Athletics news by subscribing to this website or just by visiting every single day around 9:00, 11:00, 1:00, 1:15, 1:34, 2:00, 4:00, 4:14, 5:11, 6:00, 6:02, 7:11, 8:22, and 9:00.
More from White Cleat Beat
- Zach Logue yet another disappointing Oakland A’s trade return
- Luis Barrera heading to familiar foe in Los Angeles Angels
- Looking back at Ruben Sierra with the Oakland A’s
- San Francisco Giants showing Oakland A’s offseason could be worse
- Lucas Luetge what Oakland A’s need in bullpen
Be sure to follow us on Twitter and like our Facebook page as well! Hey, while you’re there, be sure to follow all of our writers as well. They often have some great tweets about the Athletics that don’t grow up to be articles here.
Thanks for the support. Go Oakland!!!