Josh Willingham

Teams will normally assess where they are in the standings much closer to the trade deadline on July 31st before deciding if they will be "buyers" or "sellers". Yet, here we are in June and there are a handful of teams that have to feel like they are heading in the wrong direction and it's getting close to "do or die" time. 

When your favorite team stinks, it leads to a heated discussion over who should be the "best of the worst" and be the representative for the Major League Baseball All-Star Game.

The rule requiring that one player from every team must be in the event has lead to healthy debate and getting somebody like Ron Coomer to rub elbows with people who deserve to be there.

Josh Willingham hit 29 home runs for the Oakland A's in 2011. Tuesday night he hit a walk-off home run for the Minnesota Twins that defeated the A's.

It was a pitchers duel for most of the night but in the seventh inning, the Oakland A's looked like they might pull off the victory after they broke through for a run and followed it up in the eighth inning with another run.

Brett Lawrie, 2B Toronto Blue Jays (23 percent owned in Yahoo, 22.7 percent in ESPN)

Current Stat Line: 2/4, 1 RBI

Brett Lawrie has finally arrived! He tore up AAA pitching this season going .353/64/18/61/13. In my opinion, the call-up should have happened much earlier—but it didn't. Then Lawrie suffered a hand injury on May 31st which kept him out of the game for a while. Now that it is completely healed, expect him to rake for the Blue jays.

Oakland's newcomers finally put it all together and the A's put together back-to-back wins, taking their first series of the season.

David DeJesus, Josh Willingham and Hideki Matsui were acquired to give the Athletics an offensive boost to support their stellar starting pitching, and also to lift the A's from their 81-81 finish last season, into contention in the American League West.

I hate to look ahead and into the future, but it's looking like the 2012 free agency period may be an important one for the Philadelphia Phillies.

Many of the main cogs of the franchise will be over to the age of 35 or close to it.  The window isn't exactly opened all the way.

Not only do some of the Phillies prospects have to prosper down the line, Amaro is going to have to make some tough decisions.  Who does he want to re-sign or sign during this time frame.  Philadelphia's farm system is ranked in the top five by the way.

Oakland Athletics General Manager Billy Beane is still playing "Moneyball" to this day.

The team that used to perennially contend for the playoffs finished just exactly .500 last season, and was nine games out of first place behind the American League champion Texas Rangers.

Beane looks to compete more aggressively in 2011, as he has made quiet moves this offseason.

There has been a lot going on in baseball this winter, so I didn’t get a chance to comment on the Josh Willingham to the Oakland A’s trade. But let me just say this—what on earth are the Washington Nationals doing?

I don’t know if you noticed two things, but the Oakland A’s with their ragtag, no-name pitching staff and always-youthful roster somehow stumbled their way to an 81-81 (.500) record last season in the suddenly wide-open American League West.

Prior to suffering a season ending knee injury, the Washington Nationals’ Josh Willingham showed that he is the same player that he’s been over the past few years.  Just look at the numbers to see how consistent he’s been:

370 At Bats
.268 Batting Average (99 Hits)
16 Home Runs
54 RBI
56 Runs
8 Stolen Bases
.389 On Base Percentage
.459 Slugging Percentage
.304 Batting Average on Balls in Play