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OAKLAND ATHLETICS
Multiple Scenarios

By Christopher Scheer

If you want to understand what a weird crapshoot of a season this is for Your Swingin' A's, you need only consider the monstrosity that faces me each morning on my way to work: A billboard touting the Oakland Athletics' possession of Eric Chavez.

That's right, we should care about the team because they field a third baseman who hasn't been an everyday player for the last three seasons. A man whose shoulders are connected with duct tape. A man who got 89 at bats last year and who, even at his best, was not a clutch hitter. This is the equivalent of saying, "Come visit the Bay Area, we have the Mothball Fleet!"

However, stupid marketing decisions aside, the A's do have a pitch that should appeal to the hardcore baseball fan this year: See the kids play, watch them grow into stars. By trading away all their name-brand guys who aren't completely broken-down (read: Chavez) Billy Beane has stockpiled a boatload of young arms and a few bats who need to start showing something this year.

With Justin Duchscherer out on the DL, the A's starting rotation is phenomenally young: Dallas Braden, Dana Eveland, Brett Anderson, Trevor Cahill and the comically named Josh Outman peg out at an average of just 23.8 years old. Behind them, an army of even younger prospects clamors for attention at AA and AAA in the A's rebuilt farm system.

All of these guys are legitimate possibilities to establish themselves in the majors, although, by the same token, they all could turn out to be marginal, or outright busts. Throwing them out there and seeing who sticks seems to be the approach, and the A's have a rich tradition of successfully developing young pitchers, so there are worse things to try — especially in a year when none of the other teams in the division seem overpowering.

Things aren't quite as popping, prospect-wise, among position players, so Beane foraged in free agency to bulk up an offense that was the worst in baseball last year. The big strike was nabbing slugger Matt Holliday, although there are questions about his ability to really mash away from his old bandbox in Colorado; in each of the past five seasons, the outfielder hit from 30 to 110 points better at home than away. Regardless, Holliday is a legitimate middle-of-the-order hitter and that is something the team did not have last year.

Less exciting but serviceable are the pickups of shortstop Orlando Cabrera to bump aside the perennially disappointing Bobby Crosby, and Jason "I Used to Be a Big Deal" Giambi to take some at-bats from cuddly strikeout king Jack Cust. Their stats will be modest, but they lend a little crusty professionalism to the goings-on.

What else? Hmmm. Well, that whole Fremont thing turned out to be a joke. Never mind! Ha ha. Now they're talking about San Jose again, and, of course, the old Vegas discussion. But look, people: I've been an A's fan since 1972 and they have been rumored to be about to leave Oakland ever since. That's 36 years! Past performance is no guarantee of future earnings, but… wake me when they are actually gone. With the big recession here to stay for a few years, expect all talk of building new stadiums to be on the back, back, back, back, back burner for some time.

In other A's news, quality filmmaker Steven Soderbergh is telling all that he is actually making a feature film out of the Michael Lewis best-seller "Moneyball." Guess who is going to be play Beane: Brad Pitt!! That should bring Billy's ego down to size, no? Honestly, I expect that movie never gets made, but weirder things have happened, and it sure would be fun to see the SABRE-metric crowd immortalized on the Big Screen.

Besides, it will be insurance in case the A's can't become relevant on the field again with this latest wave of the Eternal Youth Movement. We can escape into the multiplex to remind ourselves that we came sooooooo close to toppling the Yankees and Red Sox and the other big-money teams not so long ago.

In the meantime, forget Hollywood and all that other jazz. Just hit the old cement bowl on a sun-soaked afternoon to watch our guys play nine against their guys. Eat a dog, slam some suds and remember Reggie and Ricky, Vida and Catfish. That's what it's all about.