A’s starter Henderson Alvarez is unlikely to pitch for the team before May, according the GM David Forst (via ESPN). The 25-year-old is recovering from shoulder surgery. Oakland signed the right-hander to a one-year, $4.25MM guarantee with up to $1.6MM in incentives back in December. The Marlins had previously non-tendered Alvarez.
Here’s more injury-related notes out of Oakland:
- A’s closer Sean Doolittle says he’s healthy and ready for the 2016 season, writes John Shea of the San Francisco Chronicle. Doolittle missed most of the 2015 with a shoulder injury. In his absence, the A’s had one of the worst bullpens in the league. Doolittle is pleased with the additions the club has made – particularly Ryan Madson, John Axford, Lian Hendriks, and Marc Rzepczynski.
- Coco Crisp’s availability in 2016 is unknown, per Shea. Injuries limited him to 44 games last season, and he’s only just now beginning to hit. The club will learn more about his availability in Spring Training.
- Also from Shea, manager Bob Melvin expects Jarrod Parker to be ready for spring action. Parker, once a prominent pitching prospect, has missed most of the last two seasons due to Tommy John surgery. He’s experienced success in the majors, including a career 3.68 ERA, 6.45 K/9, and 2.98 BB/9 in 384 innings.
- Two more starting pitchers who ended the season on the disabled list – Jesse Hahn and Kendall Graveman – are fully healthy, writes Joe Stiglich of CSN Bay Area. Hahn and Graveman were acquired in trades prior to the 2015 season. They will join a competitive battle for a rotation role behind ace Sonny Gray and free agent import Rich Hill.
This A’s franchise man, they sneak up on you. Almost always good (yep, 4th most postseason appearances since 1998:
* 1st, New York Yankees: 14
• 2nd, Atlanta Braves: 11
• 2nd, STL Cards: 11
• 3rd, Boston Red Sox: 9
• 4th, Oakland A’s: 8
not to mention 3rd most World Championships All-Time not to mention 3 playoffs in the past 4 seasons) Yet nearly always counted out (and understandably so, they have no business being as good as they are year in and year out with their annual bottom 5 payroll, stadium issues, SF territorial greed, etc.).
Billy Beane, after his first season winning less than 74 games since taking over as the proud Oakland A’s GM (only the Cards and Yanks were among the A’s contemporaries in that consistent success since 1998), has quietly built a competitive team with an excellent bullpen and deep starting pitching on a shoestring budget all the while rebuilding the farm system to arguably one of the 10 best in the game. Amazing, and he did this all while the A’s missed the playoffs for the first time since 2011 — yep, despite people’s short term memories, not to hard to remember that the Oakland A’s just recently finished leading the AL in WINS from 2012-2014 while adding two more division titles to their crowded trophy case.
So excited for some Oakland A’s baseball in 2016 and can’t wait to get to Arizona to watch all of these stud young prospects who are all close to ready to MLB ready, it is going to be a fun year and the A’s don’t have to make the playoffs in 2016 for it to be a successful one. Develop this young talent, we can take two years off from the postseason. Can’t wait to watch Sean Manaea try to make the squad out of Spring Training.
Good post, how the hell they manage is is beyond anyone, only the Maestro Billy Beane Knows what the hell is going on. And he sells the high and buys the low.
Rich Harden is the perfect example of this, truly amazing in OAK, horrendous everywhere else and then All Star calibre again in OAK.
How about josh donaldson?? Billy beane is a hollywood star. Texas, laa, and sea, will be better for years. But blame it on the giants restricting their income. Baseball minds will beat out “analytics”. Its cute and a good story for heyman and schoenfield to write about, but to win you must know baseball. Ask farhan and anthopolous
Manaea has a bad hip. Hope for a good 140 ip. But his fastball is flat and will get smashed regularly
Haha are you scout? Or just a mad KC fan….
34th pick for a reason….
Dont blow your load on a few good starts. “The maestro” bought high.
Meh. They had a good, lucky run. But they stunk before that and will most likely be among the worst teams in the AL for the net five years or so. They have lost most of their good players and currently have one of the weakest farms in baseball. It was great while it lasted, but they gave up too much to “go for it” and are now going to pay the price.
Their farm system us easily in the top half if the league. Nowhere near one if the worst.
haha! 8 playoffs in 16 seasons is a lucky run? There have literally ONLY been 4 more successful teams than Oakland over that stretch, and they all play by different rules (Top 10 payrolls annually.) Or, winning more than 74+ games every year from 1998 to 2014 (only the CARDS and the Yanks among the A’s there), was a lucky run? I say after 3 or 4 years it stops being “luck,’ and it is safe to say after 16 years there is NO DOUBT. Oh, then throw in the small fact that the Oakland A’s, historically, are also the winningest team on the WEST COAST since the day they landed in Oakland in 1968 (4 World Championships and 16 Division Titles in 48 seasons). WOW!
And have you seen the most recent Baseball America, John Sickles and MLB Pipeline rankings? The A’s farm system got loaded in a very short time, amazingly. From Franklin Barreto to Sean Manaea at the upper echelon to Matt Olson, Matt Chapman, Jacob Nottingham, Chad Pinder, Yairo Munoz, Renato Nunez, etc etc! And now, finally, after 18 years, Billy Beane will have a Top 8 DRAFT PICK (you know, the way the Rays, Royals, Pirates, Cubs, etc. etc. even SF Giants all built their cores, horrible season after horrible season rewarded by top draft picks after top draft picks to build their core) to work with in 2016 after his first season winning less than 74 games. Study up man.
Is farhan zaidi the next rat for al jazeera? Might make the dodgers look bad…orhis old team
CoCo should retire and let the A’s buy out his remaining years. This has been going on for the last 2 years if he can play or not. He hardly played last year and when he did he was not the same. His injury will never be 100% healed so why not just let the team buy out his last couple of years.
They don’t have another left fielder. Just sayin’
He has one year left on his contract. Why would he be interested in being bought out? Even if he has a relatively productive year, he’s old and will have a hard time seeing eight figures again. This is his last payday.
His injury is very bad. His neck injury can go out any time. It will be very hard for him to be productive again. He has had 4 months off and still not able to play that is a very bad sign.
Rooting for Parker but not many can come back from an injury like that, it was not as bad but seemed close to what happened to Saunders.