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POWER RANKINGS
Power Rankings
Date
Ranking
Previous
10/06/2009
19
17
Season in seven words: "Interesting as a case study, not a team." ... Hero: Nobody on this team was especially great or terrible. Viva La Collective! ... Loserhead: Ditto ... . Key need: Hitting, especially in the outfield. Of the regulars, only Matt Holliday slugged over .430 before he was traded -- and that was widely perceived as a massive letdown ... Prognosis: A duel with the Rangers to see which stocked minor-league system achieves big league glory first.
09/29/2009
17
18
I've been falling in love with A's prospects at the pace of one per week. My most recent crush: Henry Rodriguez, who's a smidgen of command away from being an unhittable closer ... From the people-are-jerkheads file: A fan refused to give up the ball from Matt Carson's first major league dinger, reportedly parrying the team's offer of a signed bat with a demand for $10,000. If you see this person on the street (and the rumor hasn't been debunked by then), hit him or her about the torso with your portable electronics device.
09/22/2009
18
22
If you want to get technical about it, the AL West has been baseball's most competitive division this season, rather than the AL East or NL West. ... The Indians looked great at the end of 2008, so let's not read too much into Oakland's post-surrender hot streak. ... Yeah, the A's pretty much deflect all attempts at Power Rankings humor.
09/15/2009
22
23
They're shutting down the young pitchers one by one, like a graveyard-shift custodian turning off the lights in a deserted office building. ... Brett Tomko is 4-1 with a 2.94 ERA since arriving in Oakland, which goes to show you: Five-game samples don't mean diddly.
09/08/2009
23
23
Young pitchers are prone to doing silly young-pitcher things, like overexerting during pre-game warmups and head-butting toilet stalls, and cannot be relied upon for anything other than a chaw loaner. Nonetheless, just about every beaten-down pauper franchise –- and several well-heeled ones –- would be thrilled to have an Anderson/Braden/Cahill/Mazzaro/Gonzalez rotation core heading forward. The clouds'll clear before too long.
09/01/2009
23
22
Coming up with material for the weekly A's blurb is agonizing. Dallas Braden's traumatized foot? Daric Barton's potential? I got nuthin'. Sorry.
08/25/2009
22
19
Quote of the week comes courtesy of boom-or-bust titan Jack Cust, identified in the Mitchell Report as a guy who might've thought about using performance-enhancing steroids, according to this other guy down at the gym: "It's kind of funny they spent all that money on the Mitchell Report and a bunch of hearsay and the guy who made all the money off it happened to work for the Red Sox." ... You can't contain Brett Tomko; you can only hope he beats himself! Or something! ... The easy joke is that Justin Duchscherer's depression can be traced to toiling in the A's organization, but really: It would be great if the players association addressed the sadness epidemic in more than a token manner during the offseason. ... If the A's weren't so pathetic against the teams in their own division –- 12-19 –- they'd be on the cusp of the wild-card conversation. Of course, that's like saying "if I drove 100 miles due west from Pennsylvania, I'd be on the cusp of Colorado."
08/18/2009
19
21
They've got a better run differential than the Mariners (minus-50 for the M's/minus-32 for the A's), so the eight-game disparity in their records can only be explained thusly: It's luck. One team has had it and the other hasn't. ... It's an indictment of MLB's success as an incubator of pitching talent that Justin Duchscherer, whose arm may or may not still be attached to his torso, still has so many suitors.
08/11/2009
21
25
Jason Giambi may now be on his way to a sublimely happy afterlife as a casino greeter or reality-show emcee, but I can't help but think he'd be able to boost a contender in a Matt Stairs kind of way ... Rajai Davis, superstar ... No idea how this has escaped our collective national notice, but Brett Anderson has surrendered a mere 13 runs in his last seven starts.
08/04/2009
25
25
There's not a lot happening on the field -- Brett Anderson, Andrew Bailey and Michael Wuertz are good, everybody else isn't -- so I'll just reprint a quote from the ceremony in which Rickey Henderson's jersey was retired: "I would like to share a little Rickey-ism. Rickey have tears in his eyes. Rickey have love in his heart for you. Rickey is so very, very, very humbled." Larry loves him some Rickey Henderson.
Preseason Power Rankings
Date
Ranking
Previous
02/16/2009
21
-
We've been conditioned to believe that, despite occasional evidence to the contrary, Billy Beane has a plan. Bad trade? No biggie, he's just assembling parts for something better. Odd free-agent signing? Relax, it's just a prelude to the master coup. And yet here we are after Valentine's Day, with the A's looking well below average at first base, third base, shortstop, right field and center field, and preparing to trot out a rotation headlined by Justin Duchscherer and Dana Eveland. Am I missing something? Is it possible that Billy Beane is merely a brighter-than-average GM, rather than Einstein with a fungo bat?
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