Show Me The Money: The A's are putting their spending on hold until a stadium decision is made (Photo Credit: www.jimvesting.com)

The title above shouldn’t surprise anyone. The A’s head into the offseason with some serious, and I mean serious, questions regarding the team’s spending on free agents this winter. A’s fans shouldn’t expect a repeat of last winter, where the A’s went all crazy and made several attempts at landing 3B Adrian Beltre. Spending money, so it seems, is not on Oakland’s agenda this winter.

General manager Billy Beane and team co-owner Lew Wolff will be busy waiting around for a decision from MLB and Commissioner Bud Selig regarding the team’s request to build a stadium in San Jose. No one is holding their breath, though. Beane and Wolff have been waiting nearly three years for a decision that, in mind, won’t benefit the A’s organization. I just don’t see MLB or Selig being gutsy enough to allow the A’s into San Jose, which falls within San Francisco’s “territorial” rights.

All of this waiting, as most of you can probably imagine, is not doing Beane or the rest of the A’s front office any good. The longer the A’s sit around and wait for a decision that’s never going to come, the more and more they fall behind the rest of the teams actually taking part in this year’s free agent market. Oakland have not made any offers to its five free agents, and now guys like Josh Willingham and Coco Crisp are free to chat with other teams.

The A’s simply took a “pass” on their five free agents, as Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle so eloquently puts it in a recent article about team’s failure to offer contract extensions. In the article, Slusser notes that the A’s missed out on their window of exclusivity with their five free agents and that it now appears highly unlikely that Willingham and Crisp will return to the team next year. (more…)

Oakland had some lofty expectations to meet heading into the season, but the team’s early struggles and injuries derailed the team’s playoff hopes. The Athletics had several players experience a free fall of sorts, en route to subpar 2011 performances. One of those players was catcher Kurt Suzuki.

Suzuki, 28, is largely seen as one of the leaders in Oakland’s clubhouse. While that may be true, Suzuki’s 2011 season wasn’t very aspiring. Oakland’s catcher handled the pitching staff well, but the team isn’t paying him just to play defense.  (more…)

Entering the season, the A’s had hoped their defense would be a reliable source of support for the team’s young starting pitching. While the Athletics boasted one of the better pitching staffs in the American League, the team’s defense, to say politely, wasn’t up to par.

All politeness aside, the A’s defense proved to be downright atrocious in 2011. In addition to the numerous injuries the team sustained and the inconsistencies on offense, the A’s had to deal with the defense’s miscues. In the early goings of the season, the team’s young pitching kept the team in contention, but after the injuries to Dallas Braden, Brett Anderson, Tyson Ross, and a few others, the A’s quickly sank to the bottom.

The struggles on offense and defense ultimately proved to be too much for the A’s this season. Over the course of the season, the Athletics committed an AL-leading 124 errors (2nd in MLB) and posted a team .979 fielding percentage.

The inconsistencies on defense is just another example of how 2011 proved to be a Jekyll and Hyde season for Oakland. In 2010, the team prided itself on its strong defense. The A’s committed just 99 errors and posted a .984 fielding percentage that season. When you typically think of the A’s, you usually associate the team with having a strong pitching staff and a strong defense. (more…)