Bye Bye Willingham: The A's lost free agent OF Josh Willingham to the Twins (Photo Credit: AP)

Free agent outfielder Josh Willingham won’t be sporting green-and-gold colors next year. He signed a three-year, $21 million deal with the Minnesota Twins on Thursday after passing on Oakland’s arbitration offer.

He leaves an A’s team that will likely enter 2012 with a completely different starting outfield and joins a Twins team coming off a down year. Willingham, 32, played just one season in Oakland, but he injected the A’s lineup this year with some much needed power.

He led the team with career highs in both home runs (29) and RBIs (98), and was easily the team’s best player offensively. He was reminiscent of the 2006 version of Frank Thomas, who helped guide the A’s to the playoffs that season.

The A’s will receive a supplemental pick as a result of losing Willingham during the first round of the amateur draft. The A’s will also get a pick in front of Minnesota during the second round of the draft. (more…)

Will Jai Miller Power His Way Into Oakland's 2012 Outfield? (Photo Credit: Chris Lockard/Scout.com)

The offseason is officially underway, but the A’s haven’t been making much noise when it comes to making a splash in this year’s free agent market.

While the Marlins go fishing for the services of Albert Pujols and Jose Reyes, the penny-pinching A’s sit around waiting for an answer to their current stadium situation.

Rumor has it, however, that MLB is pushing to reach a decision regarding Oakland’s request to move to San Jose. Ken Rosenthal, of FOXSports.com, writes that a new push is being made in Oakland’s quest to become residents of San Jose.

Until a decision is reached, however, Oakland will likely sit around this offseason with only one goal: rebuild for the future. In fact, the A’s are expected, given their financial limitations, to begin building towards the future.

As a result of this pursuit to go “young,” the A’s are likely to let their veteran free agents explore greener pastures. That means no Josh Willingham, Coco Crisp, or David DeJesus next season. Oakland’s outfield, as a result, projects to be much different next year.

Next year, the Willingham-less A’s will likely roll out with an outfield corps that includes the likes of Ryan Sweeney, Jai Miller, and Michael Taylor. (more…)

What's an A's fan to do this winter? House has a few answers to your winter ailments (Photo Credit: Universal/NBC)

For teams like the New York Yankees, or any other professional team not named the Oakland Athletics, the offseason is a time filled some degree of excitement. From free agent signings to those grueling, yet equally intriguing trade rumors, the offseason for most teams, at least, is a time to upgrade and fine tune things before the start of the season.

For the A’s, however, this offseason is going to be filled with anxiety, anger, and most likely, disappointment. Last offseason, many A’s fans, including myself, were surprised by General manager Billy Beane and the rest of the A’s front office for being so aggressive in the early goings of the offseason. The A’s, if you can remember, went after Adrian Beltre with a very, very aggressive approach. For the penny-pinching A’s, the heavy pursuit of Beltre seemed a bit out of character.

The A’s were also rumored to be interested in free agents Lance Berkman and Adam Dunn. Oh, and there was that whole situation with Japanese pitcher Hisashi Iwakuma. The A’s were scared off by Iwakuma’s price tag, which was rumored to be in the Barry Zito range of ridiculousness. Still, the A’s made a conscious effort to upgrade the team last winter in more ways than none.

In the end, the A’s added Josh Willingham, Hideki Matsui, and David DeJesus to the offense. Oakland also beefed up their bullpen with the likes of Grant Balfour and Brian Fuentes. Beane’s efforts, in my mind, to upgrade his team last winter were met with mixed results.

The additions to the anemic offense did not pay off this year. The A’s best addition was Willingham, who set career highs in home runs (29) and RBIs (98) this year, but other than Willingham’s efforts the A’s didn’t get much help from Matsui or DeJesus. (more…)