The A's in Rebuild Limbo

 

Here's how you know the A's have achieved a new level of badness: I haven't heard many of their pieces being talked about in trades. Like, who can you pilfer at this point? Trevor May? Paul Blackburn? Rooker I guess but would that just be kicking a team when they're down?

The A's, as the worst team in baseball, are trying to rebuild, but are doing so at a gradual enough pace that it's not clear if this current wave of it is going to amount to anything. The rebuild going into this year involved a lot of prospects from other teams, like J.J. Bleday, Esteury Ruiz, Kyle Muller, Ken Waldichuk and Freddy Tarnok, and I honestly don't know if they're gonna be here long enough for the team to compete. It's why I call this 'rebuild limbo', like the period in between the actual rebuild, where they just sort of get by with what they have and hope it's enough. 

And the fact that even established guys like Jace Peterson and Aledmys Diaz can't help lift this especially much just proves how unsuccessful a lot of this mid-rebuild has been. Ruiz at the very least can steal bases, but that's all he can do. Bleday was supposed to be big for Miami, but I think they knew he wasn't all that great, because all he's done for the A's is hit .213 and occasionally hit for power. The ex-Yanks aren't great rotation guys, save for J.P. Sears, who's just proven how ready he was last year, and how ill-advised that Montas trade was. It just seems like a dumping ground for people that couldn't work in other markets, and ironically feels more like an expansion team than the A's probably will in a few years.

The decent enough news is that you can begin to see the next wave of rebuilding start to figure things out. Of the two guys the A's brought up recently, Zack Gelof is doing the best right now, with 2 home runs in his past two games [I wrote this Sunday morning], 6 RBIs and 12 hits in 13 games. He seems like a useful young piece, a decent infielder with a nice contact bat. Tyler Soderstrom is coming a bit slower, hitting only .200 in his first 11 games, but something may happen over time with this guy, considering how highly ranked he was as a prospect. And then you also have to remember that Mason Miller was playing really well before he got injured, Cody Thomas is beginning to figure things out, and you still have Darell Hernaiz and Lawrence Butler in triple-A.

You can see the next stage of this team waiting to take over, but it does involve a lot of this stage standing aside, which they may not realize needs to happen for another year or so. And by that point, who knows how many fans will still want to go to games.

Coming Tonight: A Rockies outfielder that may or may not have been traded by the time I have to write this post, so if he has, a Rockies reliever.