[Willie Bee]

A's face battle in AL West

Armed with a new staff ace (they hope), a new bat at DH and a new manager, Oakland looks to defend their AL West title in 2007.

It’s been an impressive eight year run for the Athletics: Five playoff appearances, four AL West titles, four 90-win seasons, a pair of 100-win campaigns and an average of almost 94 wins per year since the beginning of the 1999 season. And they’ve done it all while keeping their payroll down and managing to find replacements for the stars they’ve groomed that moved on to more lucrative contracts.

And last season Oakland was able to get past the first round of the playoffs after being stymied in the LDS their previous four trips to the postseason. Granted, they were swept in the ALCS by Detroit, but at least they got there.

Back when their string of eight winning seasons started in 1999, the A’s were in the process of bringing three young pitchers into their fold. Tim Hudson made a big rookie splash in ‘99, with left-handers Barry Zito and Mark Mulder following Hudson into the rotation as rooks in 2000. They were supposed to be the next Maddux-Smoltz-Glavine triumvirate that pitched Atlanta to many a postseason contest through the 90s and into the new millennium. The only question was would Oakland be able to hold onto all three of the young arms?

That question has been answered the past few years as all three made their way to other clubs. Hudson moved to the Braves in a trade after the 2004 season, Mulder was dealt to the Cardinals about the same time, and now Zito has taken the free agent path across the bay to Oakland.

Despite losing all three, as well as working with their third field manager, Bob Geren, in that span, the A’s front office led by general manager Billy Beane has managed to plug in the holes, either through players picked up in trades or with some excellent draft picks. And now the Athletics are poised to go for their ninth consecutive winning season and hopefully extend their play well into October.

OFFENSE
With a couple of exceptions, the same regulars who filled the Oakland batting order last season are back for 2007. One of the changes is Mike Piazza, signed to a free agent deal this winter, at DH where Frank Thomas, now with Toronto, performed so admirably in 2006. Piazza has some big shoes to fill as the Big Hurt banged 39 round trippers in ’06 during an MVP-type season.

The other change is in the outfield after center fielder Mark Kotsay underwent recent back surgery and will miss most if not all of the first half of the season. Milton Bradley will now slide to center and flanked by Nick Swisher in right and Shannon Stewart in left. Kotsay’s injury leaves Bobby Kielty as the only real backup at the moment, with non-roster invitees Ricky Ledee and Charles Thomas battling Rule V pick Ryan Goleski for the final OF reserve.

The infield will have Dan Johnson at first, Mark Ellis at second, Eric Chavez at third and Bobby Crosby at short. Crosby, hampered by a bad back that cut his 2006 season short, is only now starting to get into some game action. Chavez is also battling back woes as well as trouble in both forearms. Ellis, after seeing his batting average plummet nearly 70 points a year ago, was batting just .219 this spring (through Mar 19) and Johnson is just now starting to hit. So to say there are question marks on the dirt presently would be an understatement.

Erubiel Durazo was re-signed to a minor league deal in the offseason to provide some backup at first and possibly spell Piazza at that grueling DH slot on occasion. Marco Scutaro and Lou Merloni are decent backups on the infield, thought it’s not clear that both will make the big league roster just yet. Oakland is also taking a look at Antonio Perez and Donnie Murphy as possible infield reserves, with Perez getting in some center field time as well this spring.

Jason Kendall will once again be south of the dish and under the mask the vast majority of the time this year. His 143 games last year were the fewest Kendall has played since 1999 in Pittsburgh, a season cut short by a nasty ankle injury. Adam Melhuse is the official backup at catcher, though if Kendall was sidelined for a lengthy time it is likely that Piazza would don the tools of ignorance in front of Melhuse.

PITCHING
Rich Harden is showing no ill effects from the elbow injury that limited him to just nine starts last year. So far this spring, the Canadian-born right-hander has struck out 25 and walked just three in an out shy of 14 innings of work. Injuries have dogged this talented arm the past couple of seasons, and keeping Harden healthy for 30+ starts is a must if Oakland hopes to compete in 2007.

Dan Haren, Esteban Loaiza and Joe Blanton, like Harden all right-handers, will follow in the rotation. Haren has done ok this spring, Loaiza has been slowed by some shoulder tightness and allowed 12 hits, three of the long ball variety, in his eight innings of action, and Blanton has just flat-out stunk it up. At least two of those arms have to come through once the bell sounds.

As bad as Blanton has been, he’s in no danger of losing a rotation spot since the three arms battling for the fifth and final job have been horrible. Joe Kennedy was penciled in as the fifth arm before Spring Training started as the A’s wanted at least one southpaw in the mix. But Kennedy’s line this spring - - 31 hits, six walks and a 20.48 ERA in 9.2 IP - - suggests that Oakland find an eraser for that pencil work real quick. If one of the other two arms vying for the slot, lefty Brad Halsey and righty Jason Windsor, were having just so-so springs, one of them would’ve already claimed the job.

Down in the bullpen, Huston Street will be the closer once again. The right-hander out of the University of Texas saw his ERA balloon from 1.72 in his Rookie of the Year 2005 season to 3.31 last year. But as long as he stays healthy, he should be fine.

The pen might be a little thinner to start the season as Justin Duchscherer has battled some elbow and triceps troubles and has yet to get into any game action. It’s not known at this time if he will be with the club Opening Day.

If Duchscherer can’t answer the opening bell, Kiko Calero figures to be Street’s primary setup arm. Jay Witasick and Chad Guadin also figure into seventh and eighth inning action out of the pen.

Southpaw Alan Embree, inked away from San Diego in the offseason, will see some middle or setup relief work, with fellow left-handers Ron Flores, Lenny DiNardo and Jay Marshall, a Rule V pick from the White Sox, likely fighting for two relief slots.

Key Player(s): With all of the injuries the club has faced this spring, team physician Dr. Allan Pont and head trainer Larry Davis might be the most important positions for Oakland in 2007. Certainly they need to keep staff ace Rich Harden active the entire year, but the infield also concerns me, especially Crosby at short and Chavez over at third.

Futures: Bodog lists the A’s at 5:2 in the AL West, 10:1 in the AL and 20:1to win the franchise’s 10th World Championship, and fifth since moving to Oakland. Pinnacle has them at +217 in their division, +1498 in the Junior Circuit and +2678 to go all the way, while The Greek lists Oakland at +2550 to win The Series. Win totals range from 84½ at both The Greek and Bodog to 85½ at Pinnacle.

The Athletics did not fare too well in my sims, with numbers that project out on average to 82 wins.

[bigboydan]

I don't know how many years I've actually counted the A's out of the race, and I'll be damn if they didn't keep making that strong second half surge. I think there talent levels have really dropped off somewhat this year, and I don't think there going to win the Division this year at all.

My projection on the A's this year is that they will win roughly 82 (.500) games. So needless to say I like the under 85.5 games for them this year.

[Willie Bee]

I don't know how many years I've actually counted the A's out of the race, and I'll be damn if they didn't keep making that strong second half surge.

Al mismo aqui, compadre. They have confounded me several times in the last few years. But I think both LA and Texas finish ahead of them this year.

[bigboydan]

You and your Rangers Willie

I actually think the A's will finish a head of the Rangers.

[bigboydan]

PHOENIX -- They are just three little words, and placed together they comprise the most heartening, scary, exciting, worrisome, optimistic and jolting sentence to emerge from Oakland's camp -- maybe from any camp -- all spring:

"I feel great," right-hander Rich Harden says.

The A's are 21-7 when Rich Harden has started the past two seasons. (Getty Images)
The A's are 21-7 when Rich Harden has started the past two seasons. (Getty Images)
He's smiling when he says them. It's no trick. There's no mirage. If the other shoe is waiting to drop -- and in the past, it has dropped with the force of a wrecking ball -- it is nowhere in sight when you look around.

"I'm ready to get the season started," Harden continues, and now it's almost just too much.

In one flip of the calendar year, the Swingin' A's move from the Big Hurt to the Big Tease, from Frank Thomas' thoroughly unexpected monster year at the plate to a kid with Cy Young potential and Cy Buzzard's luck.

What's tantalizing is how healthy and, yes, how thoroughly dominant Harden, 25, has been all spring.

"Cy Young stuff, without a doubt," says veteran one National League scout who has been watching the Athletics. "Fastball, slider, split, and you'd better swing at the first 95-mph fastball you see.

"Because if he gets ahead of you in the count, good luck."

What's scary is the thought of not only how dominant the kid could be if he could rack up a full season's worth of 33 or 34 starts ... but also the thought of how, with him, there is a muscle strain or sore elbow lurking around every dark corner.

"Unbelievable, unbelievable stuff. Even Huddy and Mulder used to say that as good a stuff as they had, he had better stuff than all of them," Oakland Gold Glove third baseman Eric Chavez says of one-time A's aces Tim Hudson and Mark Mulder. "He's been sharp this spring.

"But him looking sharp has never been the problem. Him staying healthy has been the problem."

Oakland's 17th-round pick in the 2000 draft, Harden has made only 28 starts over the past two seasons combined. There were two strains -- left oblique and right lat -- and a sore elbow that limited him to nine starts last summer. There was the left shoulder subluxation that held him to 22 appearances -- 19 starts -- in 2005.

The aches and pains didn't start stacking up on him until 2005. Throughout his high school, community college and minor league career, he was fine.

"Funny thing is, in the minor leagues, I was a max effort guy every pitch," says Harden, a native of British Columbia. "If I threw 100 pitches, I'd throw every one of them as hard as I could. I didn't know what I was doing.
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"Now, I'm changing speeds and I've learned how to pitch."

And yet, zap!

When he's on the mound, there's lightning in his pitches. How important is Harden to this team -- especially after the offseason departure of Barry Zito, the last of Oakland's one-time Big Three (Hudson and Mulder were the others)?

Oakland last season was 9-0 in Harden's nine starts. When his rotation turn came up and he was shelved, his replacements combined to go 8-11.

Over the past two seasons, the A's have gone 21-7 in Harden's starts -- and 11-22 in games started by his replacements.

The scout who has watched the Cy Young stuff this spring has plenty of company right here in Oakland's clubhouse. It not surprising, being that, since the 2004 All-Star break, Harden is 22-7 in 46 games (43 starts) with a 3.17 ERA and a .210 opponents batting average.

How much would it mean to the A's if they can get 33 or 34 starts from the kid this season?

"It would be a tremendous boost to us," first-year manager Bob Geren says. "I honestly feel if he's 100 percent healthy every start, he's a legitimate Cy Young candidate. His quality pitches, they're that good."

Failing to figure out a way to protect Harden in a bank safe or under a jeweler's case with the diamond rings and watches, the A's will be left to the whims of fate once they break camp. He threw 95 pitches in a minor-league game Sunday, hitting his usual 95 mph on the radar gun.

The only reason he didn't throw in the Cactus League game that day was because the A's have a jumbled fifth-starter situation, and they needed the major-league innings Sunday to try to sort that out.

They know what they have in Harden.

"You watch him and you have your own evaluations, but when you hear other players on opposing teams making comments, your peers," Geren says. "I remember late September last year when we were hoping to get him back on track for the playoffs, talking to Sandy Alomar Jr.

"He asked, 'What are you doing with Harden?' and I said, 'Trying to get him ready.' And Sandy said, 'That's one of the toughest guys I've ever seen in my career.'

"You think of a 17-year career and all the pitchers he's faced, that tells you what kind of talent we're dealing with here."

The A's finally did get Harden prepared late in the season. He made two starts in September and, though he sat out the first round of the playoffs, he did return to make one start against Detroit in the ALCS. Though it wasn't much at the time, the one start on a cold day in Michigan was beneficial because it allowed him to test his elbow in imperfect conditions and "get it out of my mind."

Now, Harden says, the only times he thinks about his injuries over the past two seasons are when people bring it up to him. Says he's throwing free and easy this spring, his mechanics are smooth, everything is working properly.

Three little words. I feel great.

Blessing, or curse?

"He's been very good," Athletics catcher Jason Kendall says. "He has the type of stuff to win a Cy Young award, or go throw a no-hitter any time. He needs to stay healthy ..."

So we've heard.