Coco Crisp

Oakland Athletics center fielder Coco Crisp is one of the key players in the team's pursuit of the American League West division title in 2011. The veteran is entering his 10th season in the big leagues and brings a lot of wisdom and experience to a rather young group.

Crisp started his career with the Cleveland Indians in 2002, before joining the Boston Red Sox in 2006. In Boston, he helped the team win the 2007 World Series. Crisp spent the 2009 season with the Kansas City Royals, before joining the A's as a free agent in 2010.

A look at last week’s least-owned, best performing sluggers and hurlers.

Coco Crisp is as fast as the Flash. Homer Bailey is stingy, allowing one run in 13 IP. Yuniesky Betancourt takes over against the White Sox. Can they keep it up the rest of the season?

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When Billy Beane made no moves at the All-Star break to improve the Oakland A's lineup, it was only a matter of time before the overachieving A's squad started to crumble, and now that time has come. 

Over the last 10 games the A's have gone 4-6 and went from second place in the American League West division, to third place, with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim now one and a half games ahead of the A's. 

The Oakland A's played the biggest game of the season tonight against the Seattle Mariners. Now, some would say it's way too soon to talk about big game especially since it's only August 9, but with a young team like the A's, any time the team has a chance to make ground on the division-leading Texas Rangers, it's a big game. 

Just because you’ve slipped behind in the Stolen Base category doesn’t mean you can’t catch up.  Here are some reasonably available SB threats.

Coco Crisp, OF, Oakland A’s

If steals are what you’re looking for Coco is your guy.

Major League Baseball has a rich history of nicknames, but not all nicknames are created equally. The league is currently flooded with lazy, uninspired nicknames that are, more accurately, abbreviations that hold no real meaning.

Some, for instance A-Rod (Alex Rodriguez) and Arm-Ram (Aramis Ramirez) are better left without meaning. Both monikers are better suited to something you would find in the adult section of the video store. Other nicknames are stretches or just sound ridiculous. Jimmy "J-Roll" Rollins comes to mind.

Late Saturday night, the Athletics and Coco Crisp came to terms on a one year pact worth $4.5-$5 million dollars . The deal set off some heated discussion in the blogosphere, namely, what in the world is Billy Beane doing? For one, ESPN's Rob Neyer is not a fan of the signing:

This article originally appeared on Friar Forecast