count me among the A's fans very pleasantly surprised at how this has turned out at the beginning of 2012 you could tell he had the ability because he would make the great plays and just looked uncomfortable and impatient at the plate, but even so most guys at that level just never put it together the dude 'backed off it' and relaxed and the results have spoken for themselves

that is for this portion of the season completed so far only

cutoff jean shorts? those things were out 25 years ago....

count me among those blown away that Detroit brought him back although this seems to be fodder that closing is primarily a mental thing and there are always 2nd, 3rd and 4th chances for those who have succeeded in the role just once before liked this line: 'Falling back into old habits with familiar faces is easy.' personal experience here Ben?

A's on top? wow better frame this one even when they deserve it no one gives them the credit good job BP

Been reading SuSlus daily since the very beginning. As a fan of the A's and the SF Chronicle I tell people with pride how far she's come since that journey started. She went from a below average beat writer (took over for David King) to literally the Pinnacle of baseball writers a decade and a half later. We A's fans are blessed to have her daily covering our team. Hope she sticks around for awhile longer

he has never been the A's beat writer at any time

overall your takes are exactly right though - EVERY break went the Giants way tough to win anywhere when that is the case

as an A's die hard, we spoof and ridicule these mules at every chance, 15% texting seems like a generously low estimate, and wait till the ball gets hit in the air and they start cheering like Bonds just ripped one.... you too will learn to laugh at these fools

heck, you even made the O.co sound romantic here, nice work man vegasRyan nailed it: 'three of the most exciting days of baseball I've ever experienced' the Oakland fans really didn't want it to end either and the sheer emotion of it reduced me to tears a few times in the next 24 hours following the conclusion

heck 10% carryover for two teams combined after 6 seasons is actually pretty good - out here in Oakland we keep 10% after just 3 years!

who are the most likely candidates and why?

we sat directly behind home plate on the final day of the 2011 season at the O.Co in our Diamond Level season ticket holder location behind the umps head and watched Verlander kill the A's for the crowning glory final start of his MVP campaign if you had told me that one year later we'd be in the same exact spot watching this go down in Game 5 of the ALDS i'd have told you to pass the bong this way.... this A's team has given us way more than anybody expected keep this ship going

Korach deserves a pass for his frequent invokations, Fosse on the other hand, needs to be DFA'd.....

notwithstanding the sweep they're about to incur in Detroit, this A's team has been probably the most Unlikely and most Entertaining in the 31 yrs that I've been following the team Susan Slusser always says that 'almost every guy on this roster is a story in his own right' true words

wow, that was pretty impressive Dodgers were in Oakland last week, heard a Ray Fosse interview with Vin where he explained how he actually accumulates all of these stories over the years in the oldest of 'old school' fashion, Vinny has a massive system of 3x5 cards from the last 50+ yrs that have notes on each player that he makes after 'any' conversation or research that he deems worthy he will review the relevant ones before each series that he is going to be at, and the stories just come right off his tongue like he heard them yesterday never would have guessed the adnauseum of repeating the same stories..... was intrigued at his diligence, sounds like he needs a little cleaning up of the file

A's ponying up $36 mil for an unknown Cuban commodity?

oh man, canseco's inquiry is classic....

thanks for the dignified discussion of Lackey's pathetic behavior that was about as civil as one could make it its always disturbing when people that have gifts the rest of us don't make further light of that fact by acting like a first class low life in public on a regular basis Lackey's always been one of those guys, we just tolerated it because he was winning game over D Bag

saw this title on a dishelved shelf at a 30's-ish chick's housewarming party recently, asked her if she was a baseball fan she said one of her ex-boyfriends was a big fan and she tried to learn something about it a few years ago the next sentence was about how her entire bookshelf basically represented different people she had dated at different times, so we never really got to the part if Joe had actually helped her out or not....

whew, wasn't sure if that was supposed to be a studious essay, glad fawcettb pointed out the humor aspect....

good suggestion on CJ Wilson voodoo doll night - i'll forward it over (with appropriate credit/citation) to Jim Leahey the A's marketing director, who may just have the toughest job in MLB as Goldman noted, rare is the old slugger who makes a mark - let alone on the O.Co outfield fences - but does Damon really fit that same profile? he's on par with Manny defensively (nice arm buddy...) yet has almost no chance of poking one out of right field in Oakland and Billy's not big on the Second Chance Sweepstakes as Johnny roamed CF in oakland once before and come on guys, who really thinks this signing has any impact on attendance? by the time he gets there in June the A's will already be trenched 10 games under .500 and the only folks spreading out in the stands actually care about the team anyway i guess if you're looking at it like 100 extra tickets = 5% of 2000 then maybe.....

jhardman what is there possibly to 'despise' about the a's (unless you're a Giants fan, in which case you would not want them getting a new stadium....)?

Encouraging to hear the continued manlove round here for billy, even as a diamond level season ticket holder I'm a wee bit suspicious he didn't 'punt' the 2012 campaign to cut in line for better draft position as he needs a Strassberg or Harper-type to make up for the assorted poor returns of late. Everything pointed out here is right on, but there was not enough delineation between the two eras of the just last nine years - which was the sample used. The first four were the ones he gets credit for, not the past five of matching middling lineups. The distinct shift that happened kind of got missed here... Even with the sub 500 campaigns he leveraged payroll well with multiuser deals on young guys - subsequently trading some - but the fact remains the Rays have seen October 3 of the last 4 yrs with a similar set of circumstances while Billy's going to the oscars

i'm no Lew Wolff fanatic, but THEY ARE willing to pay for their own stadium - MLB won't let them move to San Jose and Oakland's politicians and special interests have held it up for the last ten years...

there's two Cliff Lee's and zero Cole Hamels?

we still love you Christina!

As a 15 yr old A's season ticket holder that season, I will never forget thinking 'doesn't matter - the A's will come right back and win the next four games' we all know how that one turned out....

Jeter has credited some of his late career re-surgence (heck - he's still at the SS position at 36...) to an extensive 'flexibility program' - code for 'I do yoga but won't use that word in case people think I'm weird'

its only a matter of time before we hear more of this kind of stuff from big leaguers smart guys like Jeter know the secret but just don't tell anybody....

3 yrs $18mil/per

you still need a backup AL 2B because Wiggington is incorrectly listed here - he is 1B. whether he's an AllStar or not is another story...

wow what a terrible response for one of the most inspiring sports stories and people of the year... this guy has come a hell of a long way since his very poor 2007 performance. give him some credit at least for beating both the Yanks and the Rays this season so far - has any other pitcher done that?

you're not kidding - regular people are getting raped by MLB, it doesn't effect me personally as i have premium seats for yanks and A's, but i worry about the sustaining exposure to young kids when the endeavor just costs a family way too much

Sean, you reluctantly had me until the end, when you stated that the Pirates have a higher earning potential than the A's (among others) the same Forbes report that you just spent a page questioning shows that the A's are the only team in a two team market 'not' in the top ten in overall value. Notwithstanding their potential to 'just' rise up in these rankings because they are the clear outlier in this franchise valuation trend, would not they be also the solid favorite to ascend to the Top 10 in MLB (as they once were in the early 90's)?

hey josh, just keep in mind who's reading this stuff - we're on the site because we're detail oriented nit-pickers you've got a lot of balls from my perspective even writing this stuff as a salesperson also dealing with large amounts of money, families and careers/companies, i understand the importance of forming that spiritual bond with a client. otherwise it is way too easy to let the mechanics of the job take over your heart. your articles have been interesting to me, and more importantly, have brought a heartfelt approach often lacking in this website's writing

well said, completely agreed, this system isn't measuring the 'inputs' for the players into the teams' systems unless they happened during the same decade or under the same GM

prove that enhancement was greater than the enhancement other players received from Tommy John surgery, contact lenses AND ALSO laser eye surgery, depression drugs (these are used as painkillers or performance enhancers), beta blockers, caffeine, etc THANK YOU i don't think there's ONE of us in here who's been alive long enough (or who would have the time...)to be able to ascertain the process by which any of these drugs or 'unnatural' procedures came to be viewed as 'legal' or 'illegal' - there's a long story around every one of these issues, and all anybody ever says is 'its wrong' or 'its illegal' when they haven't thought one lick about the process by which any of these determinations are made a drug is a drug is a drug some are more powerful than others, some the government says are OK, and some kill you (a lot of the same ones the govt says are OK) goldman's point is that methods that we decry as 'unfair' and 'illegal' may have been viewed in a very different sense years ago and may yet be viewed in a very different sense in the future

lets face it, its easy to 'pick on the Orioles' when (as the author pointed out) they've finished with a losing record for the past 12 years and the last three AL winners are different teams from their own division....

Selig still has the ultimate call on whether to revoke the territory rights that the Giants magically inherited back in the 90's when they were trying to get a stadium of their own built down there. The same way that he took it away from the A's back then, he could take it away from the Giants right now and then 'poof' - no more 'indemnification'!

Zito won 23 games in 2002, not 1999 (wasn\'t even in the league yet....)