A’s Are Changing Their Second Half Identity… Again

Like so many other years, last year’s Oakland A’s team was built for the AL West crown. They had a couple of young pitchers in Gio Gonzalez and Brett Anderson anchoring a veteran rotation that included former All-Star Justin Ducscherer, Dallas Braden and Ben Sheets. Eric Chavez was healthy, Kevin Kouzmanoff was on board, Daric Barton and Ryan Sweeney were coming into their own as well. The A’s were made for on-base percentage and then the big bomb. Well, the only big bombs on the team were Ben Sheets, Eric Chavez and Kevin Kouzmanoff. While we did see the emergence of Trevor Cahill, the A’s were out of the race by the All-Star break. So the second half of the season was a complete shift of team concept. The A’s brought up young pitchers Vin Mazarro to go along with Gonzalez, Anderson, Cahill and Braden and the young core looked solid. Then the A’s started playing small ball featuring the speed of Rajai Davis, Coco Crisp and Cliff Pennington. They ...