This is the first time this season I’ve taken a look at the team’s VORP standings on Baseball Prospectus. If you don’t know what VORP is, it stands for Value Over Replacement Player and you can read more about it here.
Offense
Top three performers:
Daric Barton – 14.3
Kurt Suzuki – 8.8
Adam Rosales – 8.7
Barton at the top [...]

Teams don’t usually win games in which their pitchers give up five home runs to the other team.
Such was the case last night as the Rangers chased Gio Gonzalez after only 4 innings pitched and then proceeded to tee off on Chad Gaudin and Henry Rodriguez.
I turned it on right after Gio’s balk resulted in [...]

The A’s made their final roster moves as we head into Opening Day on Monday. And there were definitely a few surprises.
Designated Hitter
This was the biggest surprise move as the A’s designated Jack Cust for assignment, passing over him in favor of Eric Chavez as the team’s left-handed DH.
Cust will have to clear waivers (he [...]

Let me remind you that in the past two weeks, the A’s haven’ t traded a single hitter. Sure, they’ve traded away three pitchers, but all the position players that were on those “contending” Oakland A’s of April and May 2008 are still in green and gold.
OK, so some of them are on the DL. [...]

Well, so much for my blowing off the Harden-to-the-Cubs rumors yesterday, because today, it happened. And the A’s threw in Chad Gaudin as well, getting four players in return.
I tend to like trades made by William Lamar Beane. Blindly? Maybe a little, but usally, I can see the upside in them.
And in this one, well, [...]