Ben Sheets

The A’s will enter the new year as an upgraded team thanks to a series of additions this offseason, but the team will need to stay healthy in 2011 if they are to catch the Texas Rangers in the AL West. The A’s finished the 2010 season on a winning note, as the team won four-straight to finish at 81-81. Injuries to Eric Chavez, Ben Sheets, Justin Duchscherer, among other star players, plagued the team in 2010, and the team needs a relatively healthy 2011 campaign to stay competitive. When you think about it, it’s almost freakishly amazing how many [...]

The Oakland A’s have a couple of player options to deal with this winter, but more importantly, they have the opportunity to address their anemic offense this winter. The A’s are expected to have over $20 million to spend this winter after they dump Ben Sheets‘ $10 million contract and decline Eric Chavez’s $12 million option for 2011. While A’s owner Lew Wolff has said in the past that he does not expect the team to make any surprising moves this winter, it’s difficult to imagine a completely quiet winter this year for Oakland. This has to be one of [...]

Say it ain’t so, Joe! According to FOXSports.com, the Oakland A’s pitching coach, Curt Young, who has spent 27 years within the organization decided to decline his contract for the 2011 season. According to the report, Young left the team in order to pursue another opportunity within the league. Young joined the big-league team in 2004, and has served as the team’s pitching coach ever since. The A’s young rotation, which includes Brett Anderson, Trevor Cahill, and Gio Gonzalez pitched well this past season thanks in part because of Young’s guidance. It is disappointing news for the A’s, who led [...]

I know I already addressed this issue in a previous piece earlier this month, but the San Francisco Giants are really starting to drive me nuts. The Giants have the Philadelphia Phillies within one game of elimination, and that’s really disturbing to me for some reason. While I can’t discredit the Giants’ stellar pitching staff, the team was not a big pre-season favorite to make it the World Series. While they have yet to do so, the team is pretty much on the verge of sending Philly home packing. But my argument has nothing to do with the Giants-Phillies, but [...]

The Oakland Athletics have made a few announces regarding their staff for the 2011 season. The A’s, as reported by the SFGate, will not be bringing back head trainer, Steve Sayles. This news is not particularly surprising, since the A’s had injury problems all season-long. In fact, the A’s have been one of the most ‘fragile’ teams in all of baseball: the A’s lost an inexcusable 1,426 player games to injuries during the course of the season. Now, not all the blame can be placed on the A’s training/conditioning staff, but I mean c’mon. Are the players not shown proper [...]

The A’s suffered a ton of injuries this past season, and while the A’s are merely idle spectators right now, the team does have a couple of players on the mend. The A’s have received some good news on pitchers Joey Devine and Josh Outman. If you can remember far back enough, Devine was the A’s impressive reliever who went 6-1 with a 0.59 ERA in 45.2 innings in 2008. Unfortunately, Devine was injured in 2009 and underwent Tommy John Surgery last year. Devine, 27, is still talented enough to make a big difference in the bullpen next season. Adding [...]

Before the start of this season, the Athletics had tried to bring 3B Adrian Beltre and IF Marco Scutaro to Oakland. Unfortunately, the A’s front office could not persuade either player in joining the team for the 2010 season. Despite having a young rotation full of promise, the A’s Coliseum, which they share with the NFL’s Oakland Raiders, is not particularly appealing to most free agents. The field is really depleted once football season starts. Also, what player would want to come to a coliseum that fails to attract more than 10,000 fans a night? With the A’s looking to [...]

When A’s GM/VP Billy Beane signed Ben Sheets and Coco Crisp this past off-season, I was particularly excited about what role Crisp would play in the A’s offense. While the Sheets deal was a big $10 million flop, the Crisp deal wasn’t that bad. For just about $5 million, the A’s got 75 games of work out of the oft-injured Crisp. Crisp, 30, did however, put on quite a show when he was healthy enough to make it to the field. In 290 at-bats, the veteran outfielder hit .279/.342/.438 with 8 home runs and 38 RBIs. When you compare those [...]

Heading into this season, many figured that the A’s primary strength was going to be their  starting pitching. The A’s rotation at the beginning of the season included pitchers Ben Sheets, Justin Duchscherer, Dallas Braden, Brett Anderson and Gio Gonzalez. Ben Sheets, who signed with the team during the off-season for $10 million, was supposed to be the team’s ace, but the deal never panned out according to plan. The A’s took a gamble on Sheets, and lost miserably. A’s GM/VP Billy Beane also took a ton of heat as well, as many baseball analysts criticized the deal. In return [...]

With the regular season coming to a close for the Oakland A’s, it seems like an ideal time to look ahead at the 2011 campaign and what this off-season holds in store for the A’s. This season, while filled with its opportunities, was not Oakland’s year. The Texas Rangers, a team with a great offense and a surprisingly effective rotation, played exceptional baseball in the second-half of the season. The A’s, while they displayed incredible growth and maturation, did not get much production out of their offense this season. The A’s, who spent money on players like Coco Crisp and [...]