2010 Oakland A's Team Preview and Predictions

With Major League Baseball's opening day officially one week away, I wanted to do an Oakland A's 2010 team preview. We've already gotten in our San Francisco Giants Team Preview over at The Giants Baseball Blog, so today we'll take a look at how the 2010 A's Roster projects to look and how I expect each player to perform in 2010:

2010 Oakland A's

Lineup:

1. Coco Crisp CF - .278 avg, 8 hr, 54 RBI, 76 runs, 21 sb
2. Rajai Davis LF - .290, 4 hr, 43 RBI, 80 r, 54 sb
3. Kurt Suzuki C - .298, 17 hr, 72 RBI, 75 r, 14 sb
4. Kevin Kouzmanoff 3B - .258, 22 hr, 85 RBI, 62 r, 0 sb
5. Jack Cust DH - .250, 23 hr, 79 RBI, 68 r, 5 sb
6. Eric Chavez 1B - .286, 16 hr, 57 RBI, 59 r, 1 sb
7. Ryan Sweeney RF - .303, 10 hr, 62 RBI, 71 r, 11 sb
8. Mark Ellis 2B - .267, 15 hr, 70 RBI, 63 r, 12 sb
9. Cliff Pennington SS - .262, 7 hr, 45 RBI, 49 r, 13 sb

Bench:

C Landon Powell - .237, 9 hr, 37 RBI, 21 r, 0 sb
IF Eric Patterson - .259, 1 hr, 14 RBI, 22 r, 11 sb
OF Gabe Gross - .246, 10 hr, 34 RBI, 36 r, 5 sb
OF/IF Jake Fox - .272, 19 hr, 71 RBI, 43 r, 0 sb

The A's don't have a bunch of power in their lineup, and they aren't going to throw out the best scoring bunch in the AL, but they do have some strengths. Crisp and Davis bring huge speed to the top of the order, and Kurt Suzuki is one of the better young catchers in the league, in my opinion the A's best all-around ballplayer. The A's are also hoping for a nice comeback year from Eric Chavez. I'm looking for Ryan Sweeney to kind of break out this year and hit over.300 with 10+ homers while providing solid defense in the outfield. I was anticipating Jake Fox to play his way into the starting lineup this spring, but he's had a bad one. Still, he's got 30 homer pop and should be in the lineup more often than not.

Pitching:

1. Ben Sheets RHP - 11-8, 4.02 era, 157 IP, 131 K's
2. Brett Anderson LHP - 13-8, 3.65 era, 192 IP, 176 K's
3. Justin Duchscherer RHP - 10-7, 3.92 era, 141 IP, 109 K's
4. Dallas Braden LHP - 10-12, 4.26 era, 178 IP, 126 K's
5. Trevor Cahill RHP - 13-10, 4.10 era, 203 IP, 149 K's

Bullpen:

CL Andrew Bailey - 5-2, 2.72 era, 36 saves, 76 games
SU Joey Devine - 3-1, 2.89 era, 23 holds, 60 games
RH Michael Wuertz - 3-4, 3.23 era, 25 holds, 83 games
RH Brad Zieglar - 3-5, 4.14 era, 6 saves, 78 games
LH Josh Outman - 4-6, 4.46 era, 11 starts, 52 games
RH Jason Jennings - 2-2, 5.10 era, 63 games
LH Craig Breslow - 2-3, 3.99 era, 68 games

The A's pitching staff should be a strength if they can stay healthy. Ben Sheets is a legit ace when he's right, but he hasn't thrown a pitching since 2008. Also, Duchscherer has shown ace-like capabilities when he's been right, but he's been battling some physical and mental obstacles over the last 12-15 months. Right now, it looks like both vets will be ready to start the year in the rotation and join up-and-coming youngsters Brett Anderson, Dallas Braden and Trevor Cahill. Their bullpen also is facing some injury issues at the start of the year as their top-3 relievers (Bailey, Wuertz and Devine) could miss the first couple weeks of the regular season. All in all though, I think the A's pitching staff should be just fine and should help make up for there mediocre at best offense. I say they finish the year at 80 wins and 82 losses, in third place behind the Angels and Mariners but in front of Texas.