Before We Go: The Oakland Athletics

[purpandgold]

It's time. The dynasty you've all been waiting for: the Oakland Athletics.

My lifelong favorite team has hit rock bottom. They've never won a World Series in my lifetime, and it looks like I'm never going to see them do it in Oakland. So, I've got to do it here.

I just installed the game today. I'll be playing through spring training on dynamic difficulty to get my wits about me, but the season will be played on Legend difficulty pitching and Hall of Fame difficulty hitting.

The only big thing of note for this franchise is that I'll be turning trading off since trading logic in these video games will always be absolute trash. Organizations will be built through the draft and free agency. Another thing of note is that I will be playing all games at all three levels of the organization.

I'll be posting 40 man roster updates as I play through spring training.

Wish me luck.

[purpandgold]

Woah,

Just played a game, and this is going to be a battle. Didn't realize dynamic difficulty would start me off on legend-legend. So the offense was non-existent, but the offense isn't my main concern right now.

I want to sure-up the pitching the best I can right now. Shintaro Fujinami made the start and struck out 8 batters over 4 innings. So the stuff is there, but he was tired after just 4 innings. That's going to be brutal over the course of a season. So I'm going to raid the free agent pool for anybody that could help the pitching staff. There's a couple 18-year-old starters in there that could give me something to focus on in the minor, but I'll be bringing on some familiar names for the bullpen. I'll hit y'all with the names in the next post.

At the moment, I feel like I'm trying to build an organization like the San Francisco Giants. I need to maximize what I can get from all my pitchers and scratch together whatever offense I can. My goal is to compete for a Wild Card spot this year, and at the very least, be able to convince myself that I'm playing meaningful baseball games in September.

[purpandgold]

February 25, 2023

We got a win! A 1-0 win over the Arizona Diamondbacks. Aledmys Diaz got the clutch 2-out RBI single, but is was Paul Blackburn that stole the show in this game. He went 7.2 innings and struck out 13 batters while scattering just 3 hits. Obviously I'm not managing in a traditional Spring Training way. I gotta see how I can win games with this team. Trevor May came in and got the last 4 outs with ease.

Athletics Signings:

CP Steve Prior
CP Anthony Ortiz
CP Ken Giles
RP Zack Britton
SP Eddy Nunez
SP Terell George

Both starting pitchers are 18 years old and already rated top 5 starters in the organization. So let's see what kind of careers they can have.

[purpandgold]

We're going to update you on something that you will only ever see in a video game. Kyle Muller threw a complete game shutout in spring training! He dominated the Colorado Rockies. Nine inning, six strikeouts and three hits with zero walks. This happened on Legend+ difficulty too. I guess I'm a wizard on the mound. We're going to try to put together a historically great pitching season with this squad that can get us to the playoffs. Let's go!