People always like to talk about money, especially when it’s not their own.

Even tales of snow woes this week have often included the cost of accidents, insurance claims, loss of trade and the like.

Money has been an especially hot topic over the past couple of months in MLB, namely how teams are not spending it.

That came to a head this week with the MLB Players Association filing a grievance against the Miami Marlins, Oakland A’s, Pittsburgh Pirates and Tampa Bay Rays for failing to spend the revenue-sharing dollars they receive appropriately.

Revenue sharing essentially involves a pooled pot of money being shared out to the smaller market teams to help them be competitive and, in theory, creating a more exciting MLB for the good of all.  The money has to be used by the clubs that receive it “in an effort to improve its performance on the field”, so that it can’t just be siphoned off to cover other debts or to line the owners’ pockets.

MLB and the respective clubs have dismissed the claims and are adamant all is above board.

For the A’s, having the finger pointed at them brings into sharp focus that such accusations will soon be a thing of the past.  Not necessarily because they’ll be spending more money, but that they won’t have revenue-sharing funds to spend at all.

The 2011-2016 Collective Bargaining Agreement changed revenue-sharing by gradually eliminating such payments to the top 15 teams based on their market size.  The A’s technically should have been among them, yet it was recognised that the Coliseum situation (an old multi-purpose stadium) restricted their ability to generate more revenue themselves (especially via corporate/higher-priced seating etc) and so they were temporarily taken out of the equation.

It was temporary in the sense that the 2011 CBA stated that the A’s would no longer be exempt once they opened a new ballpark.  Without wishing to be too cynical, that the A’s went through the period of that CBA without building a new ballpark would seem more than a mere coincidence. Revenue sharing was reportedly worth $35m to the A’s in 2016 and, even in MLB’s landscape, that’s a fair chunk of money to give up.  It’s also no coincidence that the A’s took that stance at a time when other MLB owners were thwarting former part-owner Lew Wolff’s plan to move the team to San Jose.

Don’t let us go and we’ll keep pocketing the dough.

The rest of the MLB owners cottoned on to this and the result was the A’s being singled out in the 2017-2022 CBA to be stripped gradually of their revenue sharing funds.  That’s one of the reasons why the A’s President Dave Kaval – who has been hugely impressive with his openness and attitude since being appointed in November 2016 – has continued to stress the target of moving into a new ballpark by 2023.

In short, the A’s will be stuffed if they don’t.

Things were finally looking positive when the A’s announced Laney College as their preferred site last September, only for that to hit a seemingly terminal blow in December. It seems more and more like the most practical answer ultimately will be to build a new ballpark on the existing site, with the Oakland Raiders heading to Las Vegas within 2 years and no longer being a factor.

The new stadium saga has rumbled on for so long that in many ways the revenue-sharing cliff edge is welcome; it’s forcing everyone involved to quicken their pace.  However, there are lots of challenges ahead in getting a new privately-financed ballpark built.  We can only hope there is good progress over the next year. Otherwise the young core the A’s are building could coincide with a 2021-2022 period in which revenue-sharing is significantly reducing amid planning for the prospect that 2023 will arrive with no revenue-sharing funds and no new ballpark to generate additional revenue to replace it.

Representing the A’s in the UK

A new baseball season is a good excuse to freshen up your wardrobe, so I picked up a couple of discounted A’s t-shirts recently.

It won’t make much of a dent in the A’s revenue plans, but every little helps, I guess.

Spring Training in snow

It’s definitely not been t-shirt weather in the UK this week.  On Wednesday evening I was wrapped up in a blanket listening to part of the A’s Spring Training game against the Chicago Cubs with a good 6-7 inches of snow outside. Julian McWilliams, the new A’s beat writer at The Athletic, summed up the encounter by stating “It’s cold”.

https://twitter.com/JulianMack105/status/968976752855851008

Even colder than you thought for some A’s fans, Julian.

Prospects looking up

MLB.com published their Top 10 Farm System rankings on Friday and the A’s were listed at number 7.

Five of the A’s top 11 prospects on MLB.com’s list were acquired last summer when trading away Sonny Gray to the Yankees and Sean Doolittle and Ryan Madson to the Nationals.

Sheldon Neuse, at number 11 on the A’s list, was drafted in the second round in 2016 by Washington and has garnered plenty of praise in the first week of Spring Training games.  He’s been getting playing time at third base due to the injuries to Matt Chapman and Renato Nunez and, whilst he’s still on course to head to the Minor Leagues this season, he’s done exactly what a young player wants to do: make a good impression.

It’s been tough on Nunez as he was the main name heading into Spring Training that there was a question mark against, as he is out of Minor League options so either must make the A’s Opening Day roster or be made available to other teams by being placed on waivers.  Even if there didn’t turn out to be a place for him with the A’s, a good spring might have given him some better opportunities elsewhere.  His hamstring injury has put him on the sidelines at an inopportune time, although Melissa Lockard explained previously that this might give the A’s more time to make a decision on his future:

If Renato Nunez’s hamstrung strain keeps him out for much of the spring, the A’s could DL him to start the year and that would give him at least a month of rehab games in Triple-A before they’d have to 25-man roster him.

— Melissa Lockard (@melissalockard) February 25, 2018

Fosse on the warpath

A’s broadcaster Ray Fosse – fully paid-up member of the catchers’ union – is not a fan of the new rules that limit the number of pitching mound visits in a game to six (excluding pitching changes and injuries).

Kendall Graveman struggled in his start against the Cubs on Saturday and Fosse picked up the uncertainty as to whether catch Bruce Maxwell should go out to the mound or not.

I have a feeling it will be a hobby horse for Fosse all season long.

The road to Thursday 29th March and the Oakland A’s regular season opener against the LA Angels begins on Friday with a Spring Training game against the Angels.

We’ve not heard yet who will be playing in the opener, but in some respects that doesn’t really matter.

What matters is the A’s will be back out on the field and we can officially say goodbye to the winter and get back into the baseball swing of things.

Things to look out for in Spring

Given where the A’s are in their rebuilding plans, it’s no surprise that exciting new recruits are thin on the ground.

Stephen Piscotty is the most prominent off-season addition and I’m looking forward to seeing him in the green and gold.  Much as I’m trying to temper my ethusiasm, I have this hunch that he’s going to prove to be an inspired pick-up and quickly become a fan favourite.  This time last year he was one of the more intriguing young players in the Majors, not primed to be an MVP candidate or anything but someone who looked like being a core player with the Cardinals for years to come.

We all know 2017 was a tough year for Piscotty, both on and off the field, and the 2018 season will show us if that was a blip or if teams have made adjustments to him that he can’t find a way to adjust back to. I’m betting that he’ll settle in quickly and be just fine.

Other than that, we’ve got some new relievers to take a look at and some of the youngsters, especially early on this spring.

Dustin Fowler’s progress from knee surgery all sounds positive and fingers are firmly crossed that he comes through spring with no issues, as I suspect he’ll be the Opening Day start in centre field if so.  Jorge Mateo – another of the Sonny Gray return from the Yankees – has a slight knee injury but it wasn’t expected that he would head to Oakland with the club at the end of spring anyway.  He will get some work in, hopefully impressive Bob Melvin and the coaching staff along the way, then head to Nashville with Franklin Barreto to start the season in Triple-A.

The main performances to look out for concern the gaggle of arms that are competing for spots in the starting rotation.

MLB.com A’s beat writer Jane Lee wrote a piece on Nick Blackburn last weekend that included a telling quote from Melvin:

“Typically we’re not that big on Spring Training performances because they can fool you some,” A’s manager Bob Melvin said. “I even had great springs. I hit .300. Then there are other times when that’s all you have to go on.”

Whilst Kendall Graveman and Sean Manaea look certainties to be in the rotation, the oher three spots are all up for grabs and currently there doesn’t seem much to separate most of them other than how they look in spring.  Regardless, we’ll likely see all of the current contenders pitching in Oakland at some point this season.

Spring schedule

Click to see the full schedule

From Friday there are only two days, 2 and 14 March, on which the A’s are not playing a game until the day before the MLB season begins.

The A’s have 29 Spring Training games, plus the traditional three-game series against the Giants, and the vast majority of them are a 20:05 UK time first pitch.

Currently nine of the A’s Cactus League games, and the three Giants games, are scheduled to be broadcast on MLB.TV.  All of the rest will be available to listen to via radio coverage on MLB.TV or MLB At Bat.

A full schedule can be found by clicking on the image above.

A difference in 2019

We found out yesterday that the A’s 2019 Spring Training will be a bit different as Susan Slusser reported that the team will be opening the MLB season in Japan with the Seattle Mariners.

The @sfchronicle has learned the A’s will open 2019 season in Tokyo against Seattle, third opener in Japan in 12 years for Oakland: https://t.co/R24JXSBYlH via @sfchronicle

— Susan Slusser (@susanslusser) February 21, 2018

In the previous two times the A’s started in Japan, the games were at the end of March (28th and 29th in 2012) and so the team’s Spring Training was shortened to accomodate the travel.

The slightly disappointing part to the news is that it confirms that the A’s will not be one of the teams heading to London next year for the eagerly anticipated UK series; however, that was always likely to involve east division teams so it wasn’t expected that Oakland would be heading across the pond anyway.

The good news is that the games in Japan played by the A’s previously took place at 10 or 11 am in the morning UK time, so although you need to plan to be off work those days, it does mean the games are at a very convenient time for us.

And it gives US-based fans a chance to live the UK experience by watching games in the early hours of the morning!

No dates have been announced as yet, in fact no details are official at this point although you can count on Susan to have the facts, but it will be something else to look forward to for March 2019.

But let’s not wish away 2018 just yet.  We may not be expecting a play-off push this year, but there’s still going to be plenty to enjoy, not least watching and listening to our A’s simply being back out on the field again on Friday.

Whilst heading back to work after the Christmas break isn’t so much fun for many, moving into a new year at least brings the next MLB season that little bit closer.

Although we’re still the best part of three months away from the regular season starting, it won’t be too long before pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training.

Realistic expectations

What should we expect from the Oakland A’s in 2018?  It’s difficult to say and that’s part of what makes this season an interesting one for A’s fans.

We have to start by acknowledging the presence of the reigning World Series champions, the Houston Astros, in the AL West and the likelihood that, even with a World Series hangover, they’re still going to be a strong club.

Then we have the team that has ‘won the off-season’ so far in the LA Angels. We’ve seen plenty of examples over the years of teams that make a lot of moves over an off-season that vaults them up the prediction lists, only for things to not quite come together. Naturally I hope that goes for the Angels in 2018 because on paper it looks like they’ve done a great job of improving their team in several different areas.

The Seattle Mariners and Texas Rangers are more of an unknown quantity.

Seattle looked like a team that might push forward in 2017 and finally end their play-off appearance drought, but that didn’t materialise.  Dee Gordon should be a good pick-up for them, albeit having to factor in how he’ll take to centre field, and it will be interesting to see if Ryon Healy can develop for the Mariners having moved from the A’s, yet all things considered the Mariners don’t obviously look significantly improved from the 2017, yet at least.

As for the Rangers, they’ve added some useful arms to their rotation in Matt Moore, Mike Minor and Doug Fister and it’s expected they’ll try to add another too, possibly reuniting with Yu Darvish. Like the M’s, you wouldn’t say they’re significantly better on paper, but at the same time they don’t look worse either.

Which brings us to the A’s and a team that has finished last in the AL West in each of the past three seasons after an enjoyable run of three consecutive play-off appearances.

The 75-87 win-loss record in 2017 was an improvement on 2015-2016 and it came with Matt Olson and Matt Chapman really impressing in their rookie seasons.  We got a glimpse of top prospect Franklin Barreto too and you can genuinely see the makings of a contender-worthy infield with that group.

The pitching didn’t really come along as hoped despite some good showings here and there, Sean Manaea being the pick of the bunch. I’m not sure we’re any the wiser as to quite what Kendall Graveman, Andrew Triggs, Jesse Hahn, Jharel Cotton and others will become and watching how they develop – or not – will be a key part of the 2018 season.

What we do now have is an encouraging farm system (John Sickels’ recent review of the A’s Top 20 prospects being a good indicator) and, with the likes of Olson and Chapman already making a mark, that’s something to hold on to.

The trade for Stephen Piscotty looks like a positive move as, away from the heart-warming personal aspect, he’s a much-needed right-handed outfielder who offers quite a bit of potential that includes being an affordable part of the team for years to come.  Although his dip in performance in 2017 reduced his stock somewhat, he’s young enough that this could have just been a bump in the road and I’m optimistic that Piscotty could prove to a productive and popular addition.

Put it all together and you’d still peg getting out of the AL West cellar and pushing towards a winning record as a realistic season that we could call a success.  The Astros and Angels look like being the top two in the AL West and when you consider the quality of the Cleveland Indians, New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox (the latter surely will add a significant player or two in the coming weeks), the A’s will be far from the only team that sees a play-off spot as a tall order.

That doesn’t mean we can’t have an enjoyable season though, especially given the emerging young talent on the roster and in the Minors.

Key A’s dates

Let’s look ahead to when the games start up again. Don’t forget to join in the fun by following along on the Oakland A’s UK Twitter account.

Friday 23rd February

The A’s Cactus League Spring Training starts at home against the LA Angels on Friday 23rd February. First pitch is scheduled for 20.05 GMT so it’s a perfect chance to catch some A’s baseball right from the off.

Pretty much all Spring Training games are covered at least on radio so can be listened to with an MLB.TV/At Bat subscription (details of 2018’s offering should be published by MLB.com in early February), with a more limited number of games being televised and therefore available to watch via MLB.TV. We’ll have to wait and see nearer the time as to whether there will be TV coverage, but even so there’s nothing more relaxing than listening to a radio broadcast from a Spring Training game and they’re a great way to keep on top of all of the news from Spring Training camp too.

The usual A’s broadcast crew should be on hand and it’s always great to hear from the team again who will take us through the season ahead. In 2017 we also had A’s radio’s Vince Cotroneo’s son Dominic providing play-by-play for some Spring Training games, which made for a fun dynamic when father and son joined up.  Hopefully we’ll get more of the same this year.

Sunday 25th March

The traditional pre-season series against the San Francisco Giants takes place over 25-27 March with the first game being a 21.05 BST first pitch from the Coliseum on the Sunday.  The other two games take place at AT&T Park and are night games, so less convenient for us to follow live, but it’s good that at least one of the games from that series will be UK-friendly.

Thursday 29th March

The A’s regular season opener is a 21.05 BST home game against the LA Angels, possibly including Shohei Ohtani’s Major League debut for the Halos depending on how they set up their starting rotation.

It’s an earlier than usual start to the MLB regular season and they’ve made a welcome change for 2018 by having every team start on the same day, with many playing day-games. That will create a feast of baseball for us to enjoy during the British evening on the Thursday and it lines up perfectly with the Easter bank holiday (Good Friday being the following day) so that you really couldn’t wish for a better start to the baseball season.

Having an early start for the A’s opener will make a welcome change as it’s the first time since 2007 that the A’s have started the regular season with a day-game (although the two games from Japan against Seattle in 2012, and two against Boston in 2008, were day-games for us, but night-games locally).

I’ve always thought it a bit heartless that MLB publishes the provisional schedule for the following season in mid-September.

Some teams can merrily ignore it, smug in the knowledge that they’ve still got plenty to focus on this year.

For others, it’s yet another reminder that ‘next year’ is already on the mind.

And, yes, the Oakland A’s are in the latter camp.

We’ve known for a long time that 2017 wasn’t going to be our year, to the point that I didn’t even notice when our division Elimination Number on the MLB.com standings changed from a number to a letter (it happened on 4 September, courtesy of the A’s losing to Angels and the Astros beating Seattle).

The provisional MLB schedules for 2018 were published on Tuesday and whilst I feel a bit guilty to look ahead that far, a quick glance is surely okay.

The A’s are not starting against Seattle

It’s four years since we started against the Mariners, but the four-year run from 2010 to 2013 when we did host them every time (albeit in 2012 the first two were played in Japan) has it stuck in my mind that we always start against Seattle. Not so, once again, in 2018.

2017 Opening Series repeat

We start at home against the Angels instead. It’s a repeat of the 2017 opening series and the ninth consecutive season in which the A’s have started at home.

No need to wait for April

The season begins on 29 March as the new Collective Bargaining Agreement has stretched out the season slightly to increase the number of off-days. Baseball beginning earlier is always a good thing and everyone will start on the same day as opposed to the staggered start we’ve had for many years.

Starting right at the end of March may also work nicely for some if your annual leave pattern at your work goes from April to March and you can plan to use two days at the end, rather than dipping into your 2018/19 allocation straight away.

Day-game!!!

The biggest news of all: the first game of the season is a day-game! You don’t need me to tell you how great that is for us in the UK. Getting up for a 3.05 am Opening ‘Night’ start has become something of a tradition, but one I’ll gladly forsake in favour of a 21.05 UK first pitch.

Free game

The headline on the 2018 schedule announcement for the A’s is that their home game against the Chicago White Sox on 17 April will be free to attend. The date marks the 50th anniversary of the A’s first game in Oakland and will be part of many festivities over the course of the year to honour this half-century.

(Comments from fans of opposing teams about the A’s needing to give away tickets to a game against the White Sox are uncalled for, thank you!).

Other News: Laney College here we come?

Tuesday was a day of even more important news for the A’s future plans in the form of the San Francisco Chronicle reporting that the team has chosen its preferred site on which to build a new ballpark in Oakland.

Excitement is tempered by the many obstacles that need to be navigated before permission is granted and work can begin. Even with things going smoothly, it would be 2023 before the A’s home opener took place somewhere other than the Coliseum, so it’s a bit early to booking hotels for a visit just yet.

However, after so many years of uncertainty about the team’s future in Oakland, it does feel that this is an important step and one that is hugely encouraging.

The appointment of Dave Kaval as the A’s President in November last year has led to a sea-change both in terms of how the A’s have approached the search for a new site in Oakland and, just as importantly, relations between the club and the fans.  There’s a long way to go as yet, but the early signs are good.

A new ballpark will be great news for fans in the East Bay and another great excuse for fans based elsewhere in the world to pay a visit.

Nearer to now

There are still games to be played in 2017 and even in a losing season it’s easy to enjoy a four-game sweep over a division rival, as we dished out to the Astros over the past weekend. Last night’s shellacking by the Red Sox wasn’t so much fun, but if there’s one (sort of) good thing about a losing season it’s that another one on the pile really doesn’t matter all that much.

Matt Olson has been in fine form of late, with FanGraphs’ Dave Cameron writing a positive piece about him on Monday to follow up on his article about Matt Chapman from August.

The seven runs Sean Manaea gave up on Tuesday were another point of concern about whether the young arms (Kendall Graveman, Jharel Cotton et al) will ever come around in the end or not, but there’s definitely the makings of a good line-up taking shape and also turning around what has been a pretty dismal showing in the field for much of this season.

In fact, thinking about the future doesn’t have to mean writing off the present. If anything it’s what makes it worthwhile following the action the rest of the way.

The baseball gods can be unkind at times, but on Monday night (or early hours of Tuesday morning for us) it felt like they took pity on us A’s fans.

If ever we needed a win against the Giants – including a Marcus Semien grand slam – to boost the spirits, it was yesterday.

We all knew Sonny Gray was on his way and we all knew that it was likely to end with him in a photo smiling with pinstripes on and an interlocking NY on his cap.

That doesn’t making it any easier though.

Sonny was ours, simple as that. In my final act of getting nothing done yesterday evening, I hunted out one of my old notebooks and found a page from 2011 when I first watched him pitch. The A’s had recently used their first round draft pick to sign him and he happened to be pitching for Vanderbilt in the College World Series in a game being shown on ESPN America (as it was known then).

He looked impressive, especially with his curveball, and but even then I knew not to get too attached. There were no guarantees he would make the Majors, at least not with the A’s anyway. I remember reading about Andre Ethier at the end of the 2005 season and being excited at the prospect of him making our Major League team in 2006. He never did because we traded him to the Dodgers in December for Milton Bradley.

There’s a name to avoid thinking of too much.

Not keeping Ethier, chucking away Carlos Gonzalez in the Matt Holliday deal, trading away Addison Russell in 2014: all these thoughts kept swimming around my head last night.

However, whilst the A’s seem to go through this more than most, it happens to every team and every fan. We all have tales of prospects who made it elsewhere, or favourite players that were traded away. When it comes down to it, all the transactions don’t really add up to much, despite the instant grades some people seem intent on dishing out. It’s whether you win a World Series or two along the way that matters and, despite our financial disadvantage to nearly all of our competitors, we’ve had our chances over the last 15 years or so.

If the 2014 Wild Card game hadn’t turned from a dream to a nightmare, it could all feel so different.

But let’s not dwell on all the negatives.

With a bit of time to reflect, I can understand the trade and I like the direction they took in getting three players who could all turn into good (maybe better than good) regulars. They may all fail to live up to their promise and if so then we can look back in five years and lament the loss of Sonny all the more, but no one really knows how such deals will turn out.

Another much-missed former A’s pitcher Gio Gonzalez nearly pitched a no-hitter last night for the Nationals. Beyond the Boxscore covered his December 2011 trade to Washington in one of their excellent Trade Retrospective pieces earlier this year and noted that whilst the haul we got for him looked really impressive at the time, the returns amounted to a “disappointing outcome considering the apparent immediate advantage”. You just never know.

What I do know is that I’m going to ignore any Sonny starts for the timebeing (small mercy that we’ve completed our season series against the Yankees).

Click to see the full A’s August schedule

I’m also going to hold onto the hope that Dustin Fowler, Jorge Mateo and James Kaprielian all become fan favourites for the A’s and that – hope of all hopes – we might even be able to sign one or two of them to contract extensions once we get to that point rather than go through the long goodbye process once again.

The August schedule of A’s games can be found by clicking the thumbnail on the right. Other than the current Giants series and the month-ending series in Anaheim, at least one game from all the other series will be played at a convenient time for us to watch live.

It would be great if we weren’t all well-skilled in finding bright spots at the end of a loss-filled season, yet that we are and I’ll be glad of every gasp-inducing fielding play by Matt Chapman and Yonder Alonso re-discovering his home run stroke.

Nevermind what anyone else says: we all know he only slowed down because he didn’t want to be traded from Oakland.

The Oakland A’s had one pre-midnight UK time game this week and it came on Wednesday against the Tampa Bay Rays.

The big story around the game concerned the A’s Sonny Gray. He is the leading starting pitcher on the potential trade candidates list and, as I noted on Monday, coming into the week there were no guarantees that he would still be wearing the Green and Gold by the time of his next scheduled start, let alone by the end of July.

He did face the Rays on Wednesday, and once again pitched well, but the ovation given to him by the Coliseum crowd showed that many expect him to be moving on very soon.

He’ll be following relievers Ryan Madson and Sean Doolittle out of the door after they were traded to the Washington Nationals a week ago. That trade prompted Billy Beane to finally use the ‘rebuild’ word after years of the team avoiding a full new start and to acknowledge the frustration many fans feel. In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, Beane said:

“Really, what’s been missing the last 20 years is keeping these players … The frustration isn’t that we’ve had success; the frustration is that after success, we haven’t kept them. And we need to change that narrative by creating a good team and ultimately committing to keeping them around, so that when people buy a ticket, they’ll know that the team is going to be there for a few years … This is my 20th year on the job. There are only so many cycles that I can go through before I get as exasperated as everybody else”.

The crucial change for the A’s is that, at last, a clear plan to getting a new stadium built is becoming clear after years of talk, talk that has often threatened the team’s future in Oakland. The organisation is now committed to Oakland – until they’re not, at least – and aim to have a proposed site announced by the end of the year.

The promised new ballpark has long been a factor in the A’s transactions. The ideal scenario is to have a good young team lined up with the opening of a new home and the uncertainty over where and when that will be has meant that Oakland have been looking at the short-term, keeping a certain amount of talent around so that they can take advantage if there is a chance to contend for a couple of seasons.

Now it seems a full rebuild is on the cards, which is not a great deal of fun to go through but A’s fans only have to look at the high-flying AL West rival Houston Astros to see how such a move can transform a club.

However, the pessimistic part of me has always been concerned by the way some talk of a new ballpark as something that will vastly change the A’s fortunes. It will help, unquestionably, but I’m not so sure it’s suddenly going to mean that we’ll have significant enough increases in revenue to bridge much of a gap.

Off-Target Field

The Minnesota Twins have been in a similar bracket to the A’s over the past 20 years. Baseball fans in Minnesota had to put up with the threat of their team being voluntarily terminated by their owners, as MLB considered ‘contracting’ down to a smaller number of teams, before hope was finally found in a new open-air ballfield to replace the Metrodome.

As with the Coliseum, the Metrodome was a dual-purpose facility, thought by many to be an ugly child that was only loved by its family.

Minnesota government officials and tax-payers were promised that a new ballfield would transform the fortunes of the Twins from a small-market team that couldn’t keep hold of its best players to one could that contend more often than not.

Which sounds familiar to this A’s fan.

The reality can be seen in the table below.

The 2006 to 2008 Twins had a 40-man roster spend in the lower-third of all MLB teams and a home attendance of the same level. That amounted to an average of $67m and a combined attendance of approximately 2.29m.

There was an increase in attendance in 2009 in the final year of the Metrodome and then there was the big leap when Target Field opened in 2010. The leap wasn’t just in attendance, but also in 40-man roster spend. The supposedly small-market Twins were now in the top-third.

Unfortunately the impressive team built to launch Target Field only lasted one season before the losses kept piling up again.  Not only has 40-man roster spend gone back down into the bottom third of MLB in the past four seasons, attendance has fallen with it. Last year was the first time since 2004 that the Twins fell below the 2 million attendance mark.

The new ballpark bounce hasn’t lasted long in the Twin Cities.

Quite simply, you can have as many great viewing spots, food-outlet options and jumbo HD screens as you like, but if the team isn’t any good then the casual fans will find somewhere else to spend their time and something else to spend their money on.

Back to the A’s

The Twins’ team plans haven’t worked out over the past five years and they’ve reduced their payroll accordingly as they look to get younger and bring through talent like Miguel Sano, Jose Berrios, Byron Buxton and Germany’s Max Kepler. That’s understandable, yet it goes to show that putting up with several years of terrible teams in the hope of building a great one isn’t always going to work out.

None of this is to say that I’m against rebuilding. The A’s are never going to be big spenders and so having a medium term plan to develop a group does make sense. What I don’t like is the idea that we should punt even more seasons for a future that may never come.

The full-on rebuilds undertaken by the Cubs and Astros in recent years are a model people point to and you can see why, but it’s not the only way to go and, frankly, I don’t want the A’s to take that route.

Quite how the Astros not only got away without penalties for spending just $30m on their roster in 2013, but were actually rewarded for it with the number one draft pick in 2014(*) was scandalous. If we’re going to trade away Sonny Gray to them, the least they could do is share a few of their top prospects to make up for it!

Anyway, there is already some promising young talent now emerging in Oakland. Maybe the likes of Ryon Healy, Matt Chapman, Matt Olson, Jaycob Brugman, Franklin Barreto, Sean Manaea, Daniel Gossett, Jharel Cotton and others won’t quite make it, but I want to see the A’s give them the best chance to do so rather than let them go to waste.

Why not spend?

The full-on rebuild idea is to get rid of pretty much anyone earning more than the MLB minimum – other than a few one-year veterans who you might be able to trade on at the deadline – so as not to spend any more money than is needed.

But don’t let anyone tell you that’s necessary, not when you see the revenues that are being generated in MLB.

The current A’s ownership group bought the team in 2005 for $180m. Forbes valued the team at $880m in April this year and whilst MLB likes to dismiss such valuations, the recent talk around the Miami Marlins impending sale, for around the $1.2bn mark, shows just how much these franchises are now worth. Add a new ballpark to that (just like the Marlins did) and the A’s value in five years’ time could be in the same region.

Not a bad return on their investment, and that’s before considering that the A’s majority owner John Fisher, son of the owner of GAP, is reportedly worth $2.2bn already. He can more than afford it.

So, when you put all that together, and account for the A’s presumably investing money into the new ballpark, why can’t the A’s keep the payroll at a reasonable level before they move into their new home? If that means Fisher sticking his hand in his pocket and putting an extra $25m into the payroll for each of the next five seasons, so be it.

That will still put Oakland at the lower end when it comes to spending, but it would give us more of a chance to have a watchable team on the field. Crucially, it would give the young talent we currently have a chance of keeping some ready-now talent around them over the next couple of seasons so that they’re not trying to develop in a team losing 90+ every year.

Needless to say, you don’t get rich like Fisher by throwing money around and he’s not going to care less what fans like me think. Still, the idea that you have to strip everything down and put up with several years of misery isn’t as true as the billionaire MLB owners like to make you believe.

You can build for the future – and, yes, trade away some talented players you would otherwise like to keep – and still put a decent team on the field. Who knows, you might even get into a Wild Card race or two along the way (the bar isn’t all that high in the AL this year, for example).

I’ll be able to put up with Sonny in an Astros uniform, or Alonso in a Yankee uniform, if I still believe the A’s are trying to win games in the here and now too. It will be great to finally have a new ballpark, but every game left before then still counts to us fans. Let’s hope the ownership and front office feel the same.

* The Astros’ selection Brady Aiken didn’t sign with them and they ended up getting Alex Bregman with the second pick in 2015 as compensation. Not a bad consolation prize.

Let’s be honest, it’s not been a good few weeks for Oakland.

If ever a run of four games should lead to better things, a four-game sweep over the New York Yankees should be it.

Not for these A’s, though.

We win four games, then get swept in four by the Houston Astros, then win four games in a row (sweeping the White Sox and then a rare win against the Astros) before losing six on the spin (and counting). Three of those losses being swept at home by the Atlanta Braves, during which we were very nearly on the wrong end of a no-hitter.

The best you can say is that we’re consistent with our inconsistency.

Vogt-ed out

In among it all was the somewhat surprising departure of team leader Stephen Vogt.

Whether those in the Coliseum bleachers still did believe in Stephen Vogt like they sang is up for debate. Bruce Maxwell looked like he should be given a shot and carrying three catchers always seems a waste of a roster spot, so something had to give and that something was the 32-year-old struggling to hit above .200 whilst earning a shade under $3m, rather than the 29-year-old Josh Phegley struggling to hit .200 whilst earning the Major League minimum.

Leadership is an intangible that is easy to overstate, so whether Vogt would really have been a big help to the new wave of young talent is difficult to judge. All you can say is that if the A’s wanted to go with Phegley and Maxwell then it’s fair to conclude they need plate appearances to develop more than they need another good teammate taking playing time away from them.

Still, if Vogt was going to leave the Green and Gold, at least he’s landed with a team that’s difficult to dislike in the Milwaukee Brewers and it was hard not to enjoy watching him launch two homers in one game with his new team.

Three over the wall

Another good moment – clasping hold of anything that resembles such a thing – came on 24 June when Franklin Barreto made his Major League debut against the White Sox and hit a home run in the same game that fellow rookies Jaycob Brugman and Matt Olson went deep for the first time in the Big Leagues.

The Oakland Youth Movement is in full effect and that does make the losses a little easier to take. Even on Saturday, losing the second game against Atlanta, we could enjoy Paul Blackburn’s solid six innings on his Major League debut. Sean Manaea also pitched well in the series finale to add to what’s been a very encouraging season so far for the left-hander.

His name was met with modest enthusiasm from most prospect writers that I saw when he was acquired from the Royals a couple of years ago and he doesn’t look like someone who will develop into a true front-line starter, but if he can build on his first-half of the season then he has the makings of a dependable number three starter and those guys get plenty of money when they hit free agency.

Alonso to be A’s All-Star (if he’s not traded this week)

As for free agency, Yonder Alonso’s days with the A’s seem numbered as the days on his current contract tick down. Much as he has raised the possibility of signing an extension with the A’s, you can’t help but feel that’s unlikely given Oakland’s track record and the presence of prospective first basemen Ryon Healy and Matt Olson.

A potential scene for Moneyball Two is ready to be written with Alonso turning up to the All-Star Game as the A’s representative only to be told he’d been traded during the flight to Miami.

That’s unlikely to happen in real life – although we know better than to put anything past Billy Beane – and we should at least be able to enjoy seeing him in the Green and Gold at the event. It will feel a bit like watching a player from your football team at the World Cup knowing that they’re going to scarper before pre-season training begins, but I guess we have to take what we can get.

Truth be told, Alonso has come back down to earth after his power surge in May and if he wants to build on his first half ahead of a free agent contract then a change of scenery to a play-off contender would do him good. As someone who wouldn’t have been fussed if he had been cut over the winter, there will certainly be no hard feelings on my side when he departs.

Who else?

Who else will join Alonso in the ‘Roll Up, Roll Up, A’s for sale’ cattle market remains to be seen.

Oakland do have a player option for 2018 with Jed Lowrie so technically he’s not a pending free agent, yet that’s more likely to be used as another reason to trade him than to keep hold of him for the remainder of the season.

San Francisco Chronicle A’s beat writer Susan Slusser has relievers Ryan Madson and Sean Doolittle on the trade block as well as the annual rumours about Sonny Gray.

There is talk of Gray potentially heading to the AL West-leading Houston Astros. In the recent two series against them (A’s record 1-6) David Paulino faced the A’s and he was discussed as a potential part of a deal by the commentators. He didn’t pitch particularly well against the A’s in either game and the announcement a few days ago that he’s been banned for 80 games for a drug suspension has nixed that one, although – as we know to our cost – the Astros have plenty more young talent available that could be packaged up.

It’s a tough one with Gray. I remember watching him pitch for Vanderbilt in the College World Series a short while after he was our first round pick in the 2011 draft and being excited at his potential. Last year’s injury and performance struggles were all the more frustrating because of how brilliantly he had pitched in 2015, when he took a step up from promising young starter to one of the best in the American League.

The harsh truth is that 2018 may well be another development year for Oakland and Gray will then only have one more year before he becomes a free agent. So if we can get a good haul for him now then it would be difficult to turn down, regardless if that means seeing him in a rival’s uniform.

Oakland A’s UK

Click for the full image

As I’ve reached the point where I’m not only writing off this season, but also next year as well (I’ll caveat that by saying that there’s potential for a few players to really jump forward and – with a bit of luck – an outside Wild Card run isn’t out of the question), the launch of the new UK Oakland A’s Twitter account deserves a mention.

Think of it as an online therapy group to support each other through the hard times.

A UK version of the July schedule of games can be found by clicking on the image above. You can then download and print it out.

Something tells me that All-Star break will feel particularly welcome once we get there this time next week.

As we come to the end of May, the AL West standings are a disappointing, if not surprising, sight for fans of the Oakland A’s.

This was a season entered into in a spirit of ‘let’s see what we get’ rather than any great expectations of success.

The division didn’t look formidable, despite the potential of the Houston Astros that has been realised quickly, so there was an outside chance of everything coming together and the A’s hanging in the race for a while before settling around a .500 record.

When you put to one side the 12 game deficit to the division-leading Astros, you could say this modest target is still within reach. The A’s trail the Rangers and Angels by two games and both of them are one game below .500.

However, we all know that as the season progresses, several of the players that are currently giving us a chance to win games and gain some ground will instead become trade chips to cash in.

Frankly, being able to get some talent back for Jed Lowrie and Yonder Alonso in a mid-season trade looked almost fanciful after their 2016 seasons, so their potential departures do not hang heavy over the team as normally is the case. We can enjoy their performances in the short term, especially Alonso’s unexpected power surge, and then wish them well when they inevitably move on.

You always hope for more as a fan, though, and the past nine games are a good example of that.

The A’s had been swept over three games in Texas and then lost two of three in Seattle before heading home for a four-game series against the Boston Red Sox.

It was a tough series in prospect but the A’s rose to the challenge, with Sonny Gray pitching well in Game One, Mark Canha hitting a walk-off homer in Game Two and Chad Pinder hitting an unlikely monster home run (460 feet) in Game Three. Taking three from four against the Red Sox was a very good return, but losing the finale when a sweep was in the offing was a slight let-down.

After splitting an odd two-game inter-league series against the Miami Marlins, the A’s then travelled to New York and took the opener in the Bronx. Sean Manaea took the start after shoulder soreness hit the scheduled starter Kendall Graveman and the lefty got the better of Masahiro Tanaka in a fun pitching duel. Having won that game, dropping the next two was a shame and particularly in the manner that they did.

Game Two couldn’t have been going much better as Jharel Cotton, called up that day from the Minors to replace the injured Jesse Hahn, was pitching a no-hitter until Matt Holliday brought a conclusive end to that with a two-run home run with two outs in the sixth inning. That game went begging and then Sunday’s early game similary started well – an early two run lead thanks to Khris Davis’s 15th long-ball of the season – before going south. Aaron Judge hit a grand slam and the A’s committed two more errors in yet another sloppy display in the field.

Errors are a subjective scoring decision, so only provide a partial insight into fielding performance, but the figures are hard to ignore. The A’s have made 49 errors in 49 games, their total being 11 more than the next worst team, Tampa Bay. Getting beat is tough to take, but so much worse when you feel you’re beating yourself.

Still, there’s always hope that things may turn around. Oakland now head into a four-game series in Cleveland – the opener today a 21:10 Memorial Day start – before heading back home where an inter-league series against the Washington Nationals will await. The latter will provide a particularly tough test for the A’s, not least with Stephen Strasburg on schedule to pitch the opener.

Fingers crossed he used up some of his strike-outs in his 15K performance against the Padres on Saturday.

“More fun when you win” was the title of my last Oakland A’s column.

I should have known I was tempting fate with that.

I wrote that at the apex of a five-game winning streak and it was immediately followed by a five-game losing streak.

The A’s have lost 9 of their last 11 games heading into their Saturday night game against the Detroit Tigers.

And that’s the opposite of fun.

The MLB season can be a grind for fans as much as it is for the players when things are not going well. The A’s have been playing in the early hours, UK time, most days over the past two weeks and I always feel this adds to the disappointment. If you’re watching live you can at least come to terms with another loss as it happens. When checking the score is the first thing you do in the morning, well, it starts getting a bit demoralising when your day starts with yet another L.

This past week I reverted into self-protection mode, preparing myself for another loss as MLB At Bat updated rather than see hopes of an upturn dashed.

Losing the first two games of our series against the Minnesota Twins was especially disappointing, setting up a day-game on Thursday with the potential of the A’s being swept. That’s never a good sign, but particularly against a team that’s unlikely to be in the play-off hunt later in the season.

The game started at 18.10 and I got home from work at just before 19.00 so it was with some trepidation that I logged onto MLB.TV. Thankfully the A’s were 4-2 up at that point and went onto win 8-5, with Jharel Cotton’s change-up in mind-boggling form and Ryon Healy poking his fourth home run of 2017 into the seats.

Hopes that this win might set up a morale-boosting six-game homestand started badly last night as Michael Fulmer shut the A’s down and Andrew Triggs took the loss. That still leaves two games left to win the series though and then a chance to avenge the Angels’ recent three-game sweep of us at the start of next week.

Wins on the field feel all the more important, whilst all the harder to obtain, with A’s players dropping like flies.

The baseball gods decided that if you were a left-handed pitcher for the A’s called Sean then you needed a stint on the Disabled List. Manaea and Doolittle are the latest two A’s on the shelf, joined by catcher Josh Phegley after another concussion, but we did at least have Sonny days back again as Sonny Gray finally made his season debut on Tuesday night. He gave up three home runs in a loss, but looked sharp otherwise in what was a very encouraging performance.

The ‘Sonny with Strike-outs’ sign will be out on full view at the Coliseum on Sunday when he starts the day-game series finale. Hopefully Jesse Hahn can help the A’s win tonight so that Gray has the opportunity to pitch us to a series win rather than doing a salvage job.