A's Brand Baseball: Opening Day 2006
You still the man, Rick . . . You still the man.
A bold prediction from A's Brand Baseball: By the time "One Shining Moment" ends on Monday night, Barry Zito will have thrown the first pitch of the Oakland Athletics' 2006 season to Johnny Damon, who will still be an idiot. Unless it's raining--we don't predict that boldly.
When we came to you before Opening Day last season, the home nine were in disarray, having traded Tim Hudson and Mark Mulder in December. It was a rebuilding year, and everyone knew it, even for those glorious September days when they led the AL West. Welcome to the season in which the master's master plan expects the team to be rebuilt. The A's spent this offseason adding to the team through (wait for it) addition, an unfamiliar mode for them: they acquired some high-profile players through free agency, and didn't lose their best pitcher or position player for the first time in too long. They're a popular pick, in the sports media both mainstream and not, to win 95 games, the division, the American League, and/or the World Series.
If any of that happens--especially if the A's win a playoff series this time around--we have another bold prediction: that A's fans will end up, against our better judgement, listening to or reading about how whatever success they enjoy is a product of their having repudiated some book by Michael Lewis and reconstructed their team around guys who do the little things. They'll have learned this, we'll be told, from the dual lessons of the White Sox winning the World Series and Team Japan winning the World Baseball Classic. A's Brand Baseball does not have the time or the patience for this particular argument, though, so we'll just say: it is dumb, and it won't be true.
Rather, as usual, if the A's win, it will be because their pitchers have pitched well, their hitters have hit well, and their fielders have caught the ball. After the jump, we'll explore those possibilities in a little more detail.
Barry Zito, Rich Harden, Danny Haren, Esteban Loaiza and Joe Blanton will make up what may very well be baseball's best starting rotation. In his contract year (don't say it), Zito will throw baseball's prettiest curveball, make good hitters look bad, swear under his breath on the mound, say something goofy to a reporter, and sustain his status as the Official Boy-Crush of A's Brand Baseball for another season. If he's healthy--and his strong Cactus League performance suggests he is--Kid Canada can own AL hitters. He throws really, really hard. We spent all last season in awe of Danny Haren, who kicks ass. He outpitched his trade counterpart, Mark Mulder, and struck out 163 batters (good for second place on the A's, behind Zito). Loaiza did have that one really good year in Chicago, and his 173 strikeouts would have led the A's last season, but mostly we like the idea of him: he was the first of the high-profile, high-priced free agents the A's added. And Country Joe? Here's Buck Showalter, in the Chronicle Friday morning: "Joe Blanton is their fifth starter? Wow." We tend to disagree with Buck Showalter, but he's right about that.
Bridging the late-inning gaps between the starters and 2005 AL Rookie of the Year Huston Street, about whose steadiness, dominance and precocious, preternatural closerly calm on the mound we can't say enough, will be a rather ordinary gaggle of middle relievers--Justin Duchscherer is particularly good, Jay Witasick is particularly not, Kiko Calero is all right, and it is nice of new addition Brad Halsey to not be named Juan Cruz.
Behind the plate, we imagine that Jason Kendall could not possibly be worse than he was in 2005. Seriously, for all our complaints about him last season, he's the same guy who had Hall of Fame stats going into 2005 and a .302 career BA (.382 OBP) coming out. He had no business batting leadoff, or third, for the love of all that is green and gold, but we have more faith in the 4606 ABs that came before 2005 than in the 601 in 2005. Hope springs eternal, and all that. But it sure would be nice if he'd hit a home run, or throw out a runner, or do something good, every once in a while.
DH Frank Thomas, the Big Hurt, is still a Big If. If he's healthy, he's dangerous and has something to prove. If he's not, he's still pretty good: he transforms into Dan Johnson, who will play first base if Thomas plays the whole season. DJ had an impressive rookie campaign, and seems to always have good at-bats (an impression borne out by his .355 OBP, second on the team to Mark Ellis). He did display a weird tendency to take bad routes to fly balls and then slide spectacularly for them, but whatever--he was a rookie first baseman.
Mark Ellis and Bobby Crosby are back in the middle infield, healthy and ready to bat first and third, respectively; to wear high socks; and to be one of baseball's best double-play combinations.
Get this: this is the first year that it's occurred to Eric Chavez, who famously struggles at the plate until June or so, to use his regular-season swing in spring training. That is to say, for 7 years now, Chavez has changed his swing on Opening Day and then not been able to hit the ball for two months. And neither he nor any member of the A's coaching staff has thought that these things might be related. Now, in a down year in 2005, Chavvy hit .269/.329/.466 with 27 HR, so it's all relative, but he's finally made the change. He's still a perennial Gold Glove third baseman and badass lefthanded bat--we expect big things from him this year.
The outfield is loaded--Mark Kotsay figures to get as many innings in center as his back can take, and Little Nicky Swisher, Milton "insert board game-related nickname here" Bradley, Jay Payton, and Bobby Kielty will rotate through the corner spots. In any of its permutations and combinations, that's an excellent defensive outfield, and, although Payton won't be as good as he was in the second half of 2005, Little Nicky (who figures to get some time at first base, too) will improve, and MB is a huge upgrade, provided his psyche and soma can last the season.
That leaves the manager, who was named on this very website as a likely reason for the A's to come up short in the playoffs. Now, if the walls at A's Brand Baseball HQ could talk, they would have learned some curses for Ken Macha, but at the end of the day, we'll remind ourselves of what Billy Beane said after sending Macha away and then hiring him back: Ken Macha is "good enough."
On Monday night, of course, none of this matters. The A's will unveil "Holy Toledo" uniform patches that pay tribute to Bill King, and rename the broadcast booth after him. Eric Chaves will receive his Gold Glove, and Huston Street his Rookie of the Year trophy. Zito (0-0, 0.00) takes the mound at 7:05 PT, against Randy Johnson (0-0, 0.00) and the New York Yankees. Who suck. Go A's.