ESPN Chalk's Joe Peta is sharing his season win total projections for every MLB team, including a reason for optimism and pessimism.
Plus, he recommends an over/under play, or a pass. This is the entry for the Oakland Athletics.
Oakland Athletics
Reason for optimism: The A's were a lot better than their ending record last year, so marginal decreases in the lineup won't drop them as much as observers believe.
Reason for pessimism: They gave away the second-best player in the American League of the past two years.
Poker analogies tend to be overused, but if you think of poker as an exercise in critical reasoning, then the comparison of A's general manager Billy Beane to a poker player is apt. Overseeing a team with the best record in the majors at the midway point (51-30), and sporting an eye-popping plus-135 run differential that confirmed the quality of play underlying the 100 plus-win pace, Beane went "all-in," putting a significant amount of his team's future at risk in an effort to exploit the current advantage he held over the rest of the league. The trades for Jeff Samardzija and Jon Lester appeared to lock the A's into a position to win 100-plus games, hold home field for the playoffs, and, for the first time in three years, have starting pitching ammo to rival the Detroit Tigers.
Clearly, process trumped results, because as sound as the plan looked, it turned out miserably. Following the trades for Samardzija and Lester, the A's went 37-44, didn't go "over" their preseason win total of 88.5, and barely slipped into the American League playoffs as a wild card.