Play ball!
The A’s agreed to contracts with six players on one-year deals for the
2008 season: catchers Bowen and Powell; infielders Kevin Melillo,
Donnie Murphy and Gregorio Petit; and pitcher Dan Meyer.

The Oakland Athletics kick off their spring training games in the Arizona Cactus League today with a game against the Chicago Cubs at 1:05pm Milwaukee Brewers at 12:05pm (curse you, non-updated 2007 spring training websites!).

The line-up for today’s game (with year played in Vancouver, if applicable):

RF Travis Buck (’05)
2B Mark Ellis
1B Daric Barton
LF Jack Cust
DH Dan
Johnson (’01)
SS Bobby Crosby
C Kurt Suzuki (’04)
3B Jack Hannahan
CF Chris
Denorfia

Joe Blanton (’02) will be on the mound, and Andrew Brown, Jeff Gray (’05), Fernando Hernandez, Jay Marshall, Dan Meyer, Kirk Saarloos, Ryan Wing and Brad Ziegler are expected to throw, either in the game or the bullpen.

In attendance, alongside the A’s major-leaguers, will be former Vancouver Canadians catcher Anthony Recker (’05), third baseman Jeff Baisley (’05) and outfielder Danny ‘The Grape’ Putnam (’04).

None of the three look likely to start the season in the majors, no matter how well they hit in the spring, but all of  them have a shot at making the big club at some stage in 2008.

Baisley will be looking to impress as former Gold Glove 3B, Eric Chavez, is rehabbing from a series of off-season surgeries and may struggle to play every day (though if tradition is anything to go by, it will take a decapitation to get the bat out of his hand). Jack Hannahan would likely be first choice to replace Chavez at the hot corner, but such a move could see Baisley brought up for depth at the position.

Putnam is also a chance of getting another cup of coffee later in the season, though with all the AAAA outfielders and prospects the A’s have brought in recently, it’s unlikely to be due to injury, as was the case in 2007, when Putnam was just about the last outfielder in the system above the AA level when he was called up to The Show.

Finally, though Recker isn’t projected to get beyond Triple-A this season (perhaps even AA), the sudden retirement of Jeremy Brown may open some chances for him to move quickly - especially if he can do well before Landon Powell comes back from his blown knee. The A’s picked up a bunch of bullpen warm-up-standard catchers to slug it out for the #3 spot in the depth chart behind Rob Bowen and 2004 Vancouver catcher Kurt Suzuki, but the club has invested time and money in Recker’s progress, and may just give him a push upwards if he can unleash his Hulkasized pythons on spring training pitchers.

UPDATE: While the A’s lost 7-1, and Joe Blanton got crushed, former Vancouver Canadians Gregorio Petit, Anthony Recker, and Dan Johnson had good days. Petit went 1-1 pinch-hitting for Jack Hannahan, Recker went 1-3 as catcher, and DJ knocked out spring trainings first A’s home run in a 1-4 day.

MAGNANTE VS GEREN 
Those who don’t pay much attention to spring training might want to keep an eye on one of Saturday’s games, where a split squad of the A’s will take on the South African national team. Vancouver manager Rick Magnante has been associated with the South African squad since the 2006 World Baseball Classic, so you can guarantee the Springboks will be firing on all cylinders, whether they’re facing the best the A’s have to offer or a hodge podge of minor leaguers and non-roster invitees.

While on the WBC front, it seems the 2009 Classic is likely to be played all around the world, with group stages taking place in Tokyo, San Juan, Mexico City and Toronto, before the main games head to the US.

Kind of makes it hard to plan a trip, don’t it?

FORMER C’S RE-UP FOR ANOTHER YEAR
2004 C’s stars Kevin Melillo, Landon Powell, and Gregorio Petit were among six players who signed one year deals this week with the A’s. Though none were likely to say no to another year, it’s important for all three to make a significant impact quickly, lest they find the team under pressure to make room for the next batch of draftees later in the season. 

Of the three, Powell looks most vulnerable, as Petit is quietly looked at as a future Major League defensive star, and Melillo has trade potential even if the team decides to stick with 2B star Mark Ellis. Powell, on the other hand, has blown out his knee twice now (not a good move for a catcher with weight issues), and doesn’t have the build to change positions to anything but DH without a ton of work.

Recently he told MLB.com, "Every day I miss is one day shorter my career will be [...] Almost having my career ended two separate times, I definitely learned
to value the game."

Which is kind of spooky, because after Powell sleepwalked through the 2004 NWL Championship Series, I wrote on NFTN v1.0 (in one of this blog’s first ever posts), "If there’s justice to be meted out by the baseball gods, Landon Powell will one day blow out a knee and realize that this series, that he clearly couldn’t have cared less about, might have actually been his one shot at a ring."

Sure, it probably wasn’t a nice thing to say about a guy, that he should blow out a knee, but when you wear the jersey with my city’s name on it, I expect you not to be sitting on the team bus, on the phone to your buddies on the other team with the series at 1-0 in their favour, asking "are you guys going to dogpile when you win?"

VISA BLUES
Former 2002 Vancouver Canadians pitcher, Jairo Garcia (who is now known as Santiago Casilla, since fessing up that he used a buddy’s name so the A’s would think he was younger when they signed him) is struggling to get back into the US to turn out for spring training this season.

It’s not the first time Casilla/Garcia has been late getting back to the A’s, but this time around it’s looking less like tardiness and more like the border folks are not too happy about the major league reliever’s papers.

Hardly surprising, since he lied to them as well during the Jairo Garcia charade.