Swingin’ A’s Top 10 Articles of 2014
By Tony Frye
2014 has been a record breaking year for us at Swingin’ A’s. Every month of the year was, for at least a month, the best month in site history and our most viewed article this year had more hits than any full month of page views from 2013 and earlier. These are all great signs that you like what we’re putting down here at Swingin’ A’s. In honor of the growth this site has seen, we’re going to run down the top 10 articles of 2014 which are, as luck would have it, the top 10 articles in site history (until 2015, I’m sure).
10. Manny Machado Is In For a Rough Weekend by Jason Burke
He got in Donaldson’s face, threw a bat down the right field line, flopped on the field with the intensity of ten soccer players and then had to come to Oakland to face the fans and the fastballs. It was the weekend that created the Right Field Migration and spawned some of the most clever signs and banners that Oakland has ever seen. It was magic.
9. Brett Anderson is Not a Fan of the Fans by Jason Burke
Brett Anderson puts out one little tweet and it becomes one of the biggest articles of the year. Anderson has a history of questionable tweets that have caused a bit of controversy but when he sent out a vague attack at our crew in the right field bleachers, well, that was over the line. He’s certain to be greeted with boos if one of his six yearly starts happens to take place in Oakland and he may get a few boos in L.A., his new team, since he bad mouthed his new team mate, Yasiel Puig a few months back.
Maybe it’s better to delete the ole Twitter account, Brett.
8. Rivercats May Be Heading to Nashville by Jason Burke
It wasn’t quite official when Jason reported it but it did end up coming true. The Rivercats are now a Giants affiliate and the new Athletics affiliate is the Nashville Sounds. They’ve got a cool logo and a sweet new stadium and their midwest location will make it easier to call up players when the A’s are playing in the south or New England.
With all of the moves Billy Beane has made during this off season, the location won’t be the only thing we don’t recognize in 2015.
7. It’s Time to Bring Back Rickey Henderson by Tony Frye
With the departure of two key Athletics coaches, Rickey’s name had been floated around by fans as a suitable replacement. No word ever came from Henderson or the Athletics that it could even be a possibility worth considering but A’s fans enjoyed their own speculation for a while. This article included a poll that received 900 votes, 98% of which were in favor of Rickey’s return.
More from White Cleat Beat
- Oakland A’s giving Drew Rucinski a chance to prove himself
- The pain of the Oakland A’s first round draft picks
- David MacKinnon joins Oakland A’s alumni overseas
- Oakland A’s select Walker Jenkins in first MLB mock draft
- Cody Thomas worth Oakland A’s hanging on to
Maybe next year.
6. How Much Money is Billy Beane Saving by Tony Frye
This is a pretty recent article about the budget surplus Beane has created for himself by using smart trades and acquisitions. Whether or not you agree with the moves, you can’t deny the financial flexibility they offer to Beane so that he can make one more big, game changing move before spring training.
5. Can A’s Fans Root for the Giants by Tony Frye
For a solid week, I was the most hated A’s writer in all the land for writing this article which simply asks the question, do you root for the home team or the team that eliminated you from the race? With a poll that grabbed over 700 votes and ended up being a 60/40 split, it’s possible that the topic wasn’t as universal as some A’s fans would have me believe. I’m nervous about posting this here and opening old wounds but it was a bit of an honor to be called a homer and “not a real A’s fan” all in the same season.
4. The A’s 2015 Projected Rotation by Nick Avila
This was a popular article at the time due to the uncertainty of certain players returning from injury, the possibility of trades and the recent departure of free agents. Of course, it’s out of date now because of the Shark trade, but it’s still a good read and our fourth most read article for 2014.
3. Lew Wolff Had a Plan All Along by Tony Frye
A couple weeks after the fire storm of #5 had cleared, I thought it’d be a good idea to maintain my reputation of being a monster traitor and wrote a half-way positive piece about Lew Wolff. I, as is well documented, am not a huge fan of Wolff but I also don’t think he’s the devil that many other bloggers paint him out to be. This article, which is more focused on a letter, even spawned a YouTube “journalist” to call me out and call me a liar. He didn’t read the article, clearly, because there were no lies. I still stand by this piece and if you can make it all the way to the end, you’ve got some serious time on your hands.
2. Addison Russel Traded for Samardzija and Hammel by Nick Avila
This was big news when it broke and I attribute a lot of the hits that this piece received to people reading it ten times, looking for the punchline. There was no punchline and now the A’s have neither of the pitchers they acquired nor the shortstop they gave up for them.
1. The A’s Fan Complex by Selena Smith
This article may hold the record for most comments on our site, I didn’t take the time to check, but it has more hits than any article on our site ever has and, like I said before, out performed every month prior to 2014. You read that right, this one article had more hits than the entire website got in any given month prior to 2014. In fact, it was so popular that it spawned a response article from another blogger and is responsible for a little more than 4% of our yearly total of page views. It’s a popular piece of writing.
There you have it, the top 10 articles of 2014 for the Swingin’ A’s website. I’m sure you read them all when they were new but in case you didn’t, go back and read them now. It’s a fun trip down memory lane.