The baseball season can be divided into three stages.

First, everybody comes out of spring training raring to go. Pitching rotations are set. Optimism abounds. Everyone is with striking distance of the leaders.

It takes about two months for the flawed teams to be fully exposed. In the meantime the lesser squads are healthy enough to sneak up on the better teams, winning games they won’t win later in the year. [Read more →]

Rick Kaplan
Staff Writer

OAKLAND – The King is dead. Long live the King.

We all remember when Hudson, Mulder, and Zito were synonymous with annual trips to the post-season. But the Big Three was also synonymous with annual trips home in time for Halloween following the ALDS.

Now Huddy and Mulder are gone, having joined perennial NL bridesmaids Atlanta and St.Louis, respectively.

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Even before opening night for the ’06 A’s I’d said that I really won’t miss Barry Zito next year when he’s gone.

I’d be willing to bet that the A’s front office won’t either.

Of course they’ll miss Barry Zito, the good guy. But they won’t miss Barry Zito the pitcher. People with more than “fan-typical” baseball knowledge know that Zito, the pitcher, is overrated.

He’s a charismatic, eccentric baseball player. Combine that with a Cy Young award (100 years ago)…and you’re going to see some serious “overration”.

The fact is, in professional sports, one recipe for superstardom is awesome production. However, there’s another way to become a “star”…

Eccentricity and a little bit of success. And I do mean “a little bit”.

And that’s specifically why Zito will get $14 mil per year after this season from some over zelous owner. Not because he’s worth that, but because a lot of MLB general managers/owners have “fan-typical” knowledge as well. And thats a sad, sad thing.

If you look at Zito’s stats since his Cy Young year he’s been simply…average. Yet he still has all that respect. Boggles my mind why people can’t get past the name on the baseball card and just turn it over and look at the stats on the back.

And thats why I won’t miss Barry Zito next year when he’s pitching for a different team.

Simply put, he’s not that good.

Sure he has his stretches where he still shows flashes of that past dominance. But a lot of pitchers have good stretches. What really gets me is that, like Eric Chavez, you can count on Zito to take half the season to get warmed up.

I’ve heard rumors that the Rangers are already intersted (what pitcher aren’t they interested in). To be honest…fine with me.

Having Zito pitch against the A’s in their division doesn’t worry me at all.

–Ned
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Rick Kaplan
Staff Writer

OAKLAND – Nobody likes A.J. Pierzynski, the in-your-face, gets-under-your-skin backstop.

Except the White Sox and me.

Pierzynski is a ‘throwback’ player. Throwbacks are walking baseball cliches. They would look normal walking out of a cornfield in a woolen baseball uniform. They crash into walls. Most wear their pants fashionably ‘high,’ socks exposed to the knee.They run ’em all out, including everything from game-changing dropped third strikes in the 2005 ACLS (Thank-you, A.J.) to routine grounders in a 14-1 laugher. They get on base anyway they can, they move runners up, and they rise to the occasion with clutch hits.

They beat you.

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THERE’S NOTHING more distasteful to most sportswriters than a new idea. The latest one is teams using computer models as part of their talent evaluation, and never mind that NFL teams were doing it more than 40 years ago and the A’s have been doing it for a quarter-century. It still counts as a new idea for writers. I mean, Connie Mack never used computers, did he?

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Opening Day: Who’s On First?

Rick Kaplan
Staff Writer

OAKLAND – Nomar Garciaparra is playing first now? For the Dodgers? Am I crazy? I thought the Cubs just got the former all-star shortstop from the Red Sox, and to play third base at that.

It doesn’t seem very long ago that the Red Sox brought in Cabrera to replace him at short.

But Cabrera plays third for the Marlins now. Oh, wait, that’s Orlando Cabrera. Miguel Cabrera plays short for the Angels. Doesn’t he?

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Choosing which teams will make the playoffs in 2006 is a very risky proposition.

As I analyze the opening day rosters all the teams look better. Starting pitching has been upgraded throughout all of baseball.

Teams with deep starting rotations and balanced bullpens must be feared over the course of the taxing 162 game season.

Now the “if” factor comes into play.

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Rick Kaplan
Staff Writer

OAKLAND – Roger Maris, Reggie Jackson, Catfish Hunter. World Series champions. Yankee gods.

And former A’s.

Nobody in New York even remembers that Maris was an Athletic first. Or that the “invincible” Yankees of 1927-28 were utterly destroyed by the A’s of 1929.

Our Reggie wears a Yankee cap in Cooperstown. That hurts. (At least Catfish stuck with us. He would.) And there was the Berkeley Brawler, Billy Martin. Wanting to be a Yankee for life, he was demoted to the A’s (the Kansas City version). For a New York loyalist, it was the equivalent of a degrading banishment to baseball Siberia.

Sounds like some bad blood, or maybe even a rivalry, doesn’t it?

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At least here in the Bay Area the 2006 Major
League Baseball season will be welcomed.
The San Francisco 49ers were bad, like bad,
before the kids meant to call bad=good.
The Oakland Raiders were also very bad, the
Warriors have not made it to a playoff since
the Korean War, the San José Earthquakes
moved out of San José into Houston, Texas
and the San José Sharks playoff hopes are
hanging in the rafters of the HP Pavillion.

By Amaury Pi-González [Read more →]