What a wild day it was for the Oakland Athletics as they traded Rich Harden and Chad Gaudin to the Chicago Cubs and then went out and shut out the Seattle Mariners for a 2-0 victory.  First I will blog about the game where Justin Duchscherer threw a complete game two hitter and the A’s beat the Mariners 2-0.  Duchscherer was amazing all game long and improved to 10-5 on the season.

The A’s jumped on the scoreboard with single runs in the first and second innings and that was all the runs that they ended up needing.  Emil Brown had a rbi single in the first that scored Ryan Sweeney and then Donnie Murphy had a rbi sac fly that scored Kurt Suzuki in the second inning.  That was all the scoring the A’s could come up with but it was enough the way Duchscherer threw the ball.

Now onto the trade that happened.  Billy Beane sent Rich Harden and Chad Gaudin to the Chicago Cubs for Matt Murton, Eric Patterson, Sean Gallagher, and Josh Donaldson.  Gallagher is the prize of this trade in my opinion as he can be thrown right into the rotation and start pitching.  Murton is a decent corner outfield that just didn’t have a spot on the Cubs roster to get full playing time.  Patterson is an iffy player while Donaldson was the Cubs second round pick last year and plays at the catching position.

We will see how the A’s do without Harden, but so far so good.  Athletics Blog

Frank Thomas is back with the Oakland Athletics.  Thomas and the Athletics have agreed on a contract as Thomas will mostly be the A’s designated hitter.  Jack Cust will now see more action in left field while Emil Brown will get some at bats against left-handed pitchers.

The Athletics also placed Travis Buck on the 15-day disabled list and moved Eric Chavez to the 60-day disabled list.

The Oakland Athletics reassigned Jay Marshall, Arnold Leon, Ryan Wing and Brad Ziegler to minor league camp on Thursday.  The Athletics also optioned Landon Powell to Triple-A Sacramento.

This was just the first moves of many as the Atheltics start to cut players from the big league spring training camp.  They will have some harder decisions in the next few weeks, including the first basemen and dh positions.

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The Oakland Athletics have signed veteran first basemen / designated hitter Mike Sweeney to a minor league contract.  Sweeney will also be invited to spring training, where he will work at getting a spot on the major league roster.  Sweeney will be taking a huge pay decrease after earning $11 million dollars each of the last 5 seasons in Kansas City. 

Sweeney will be battling for at bats against Dan Johnson, Jack Cust, and Daric Barton.  Sweeney should be able to get some at bats against left handed pitchers atleast. 

On Thursday evening, the Oakland Athletics signed closer Huston Street to a one year contract to what is believed to be worth $3.3 million dollars.  Good money for Street who is a pretty damn good closer.

I would have liked to see the A’s lock up Street with a longterm deal, say in the three to four year range but I think it came down to a money issue between both people.  The A’s as we all know don’t like giving out big pay raises to their players and Street is the next big A’s pitcher that you could possibly see get traded down the road.

Athletics Blog

Billy Beane continues to rebuild the Oakland Athletics as he traded away Nick Swisher today to the Chicago White Sox.  In return, the Athletics will receive three minor league players from the White Sox.

Pitchers Gio Gonzalez, Fautino De Los Santos and outfielder Ryan Sweeney are all headed to the Athletics.  Gonzalez is a pretty good pitcher who should be be up in the big leagues in a few years as long as he stays healthy.  De Los Santos will be a littler farther away as he mostly pitched in class A last year before getting called up to double and posted a 9-7 combined record.  Sweeny on the other hand I can see coming in and making the roster in 2008.  He batted .270 with 10 home runs and 47 RBI in 105 games at Class AAA Charlotte in 2007 and has some major league experience as well.

Athletics Blog