Oakland Athletics

The year 2005 was indeed an interesting year in the baseball world.

The Chicago White Sox won their first World Series since 1917, Alex Rodriguez and Albert Pujols were again having monster years and Jason Giambi and Ken Griffey Jr., again, rose to prominence.

The 2005 season was also a breakout year for the former MVP and six-time All-Star, Jose Canseco.

On Wednesday, the San Francisco Giants will be taking the field against the Texas Rangers in the 106th edition of baseball's World Series. The players will be trotting out to their respective positions, digging into the batter's box and toeing the pitcher's mound with only one thing on their minds: winning.

Trevor Cahill enjoyed a breakout season in 2010, his second full season in the Major Leagues.  At the surface the numbers are certainly impressive, but there certainly are reasons to be concerned.

Before we get to the reservations, let’s take a look at his statistics:

18 Wins
196.2 Innings
2.97 ERA
1.11 WHIP
118 Strikeouts (5.4 K/9)
63 Walks (2.9 BB/9)
.238 BABIP

Expectations can be tricky things.

Often times, teams with high expectations fail to measure up, while squads without expectations do better than anticipated.  For the 2010 Athletics, the latter is true.

Without any considerable power threat on the roster (Jack Cust started the season at Triple-A), it was hard to imagine the non-explosive A's coming close to .500 record.  With two games the left, Oakland is two wins away from finishing 81-81.  

The Oakland Athletics have a history of talented and interesting players.

The club was born in Philadelphia in 1901, left for Kansas City in 1955, and finally settled in Oakland in 1968. They are the proud owners of nine world series titles, trailing only the Saint Louis Cardinals (10) and the New York Yankees (27).

37 Athletics are enshrined in the baseball hall of fame and there are certainly more to come.

My criteria for this list includes: statistics, defense, aura, and longevity with the team.

Oakland, CA simply cannot support the Oakland Athletics. Moved to Oakland from Kansas City for the 1968 season after the completion of the then state-of-the-art Coliseum in Oakland, the team has enjoyed profound success in the “other” city by the Bay – capturing 4 World Series Championships and 7 AL Pennants since 1968. Their time in the Oakland sun, however is fading fast. Here are the reasons why relocation is the only answer to the A’s small-market dilemma and potential (and theoretical) new homes for the vagabond A’s.

Words that you never want to hear if you are a pitcher: “We are going to send you to Alabama to see Dr. James Andrews.”

Those are the words that Oakland A’s pitcher Andrew Bailey heard this morning. The odds have already been set to 3-1 that we will next see Bailey in August of 2011.

For a young pitcher starting out in the Major Leagues, success can come and it go as quickly as it came. A perfect example of this is the case of Vin Mazzaro, who from June eight to July 18 saw tremendous success and looked like a mainstay in the rotation for the A's. 

Sunday's game did not go as planned, as the Angels were able to outscore the A's seven runs to four.

While it was upsetting and Mazzaro struggled in his second start in a row, it was not horrifying. While he gave up five runs in the game, he was able to last 4.1 innings, which is certainly better than his last outing.

The game made the 23 year old's era jump up to 4.29, which is a respectful number. However, the A's organization did not like this and decided to option the young pitcher down to AAA.

The former No. 4 prospect in baseball Jeremy Hermida signed a Minor League deal with the Oakland Athletics on Friday.

Hermida, 26, has been inconsistent in his major league career so far, as his best season was back in 2007 with the Florida Marlins, where he hit 18 home runs and drove in 63 runs while hitting .296 for the year.

After that season, he hit .259 in 2008 and .249 in 2007: clearly becoming worse as each new season started.