Countdown to Opening Day: #15 Oakland Athletics

By Andrew Marcus

Sportswriter for Montgomery Media

Follow me on Twitter @amarcus515

To help pass the time between now and the start of the 2011 Major League Baseball season I am going to be examining a different team every day. Starting with the Pirates, working toward the Phillies. I will give you my projected starters, breakout and bust players, biggest spring training question and top prospect

PROJECTED LINEUP

CF Coco Crisp
RF David DeJesus
C Kurt Suzuki
DH Hideki Matsui
LF Josh Willingham
3B Kevin Kouzmanoff
1B Daric Barton
2B Mark Ellis
SS Cliff Pennington

PROJECTED ROTATION

Brett Anderson
Trevor Cahill
Gio Gonzalez
Dallas Braden
Rich Harden

PROJECTED BULLPEN
Closer - Andrew Bailey
Set-up - Brian Fuentes

Top Prospect - Chris Carter (1B/OF)

Breakout

Brett Anderson - Brett Anderson has already gave us glimpses in his future and the quick takes have been bright. If he can stay healthy he could emerge as an ace of a very talented staff. I'm looking at Anderson having an all-star season with 180-plus strikeouts.

Bust

Trevor Cahill - I'm not saying Cahill will find his way back to the minors, but 18 wins and an ERA under 3.00 may be hard to reach again. Look for teams to have a better idea of what they want to do against the 22 year old, which will result in around 14 wins and 3.70 ERA.

Biggest Spring Training Question

No offense, but where's the run support - I've seen a lot of people jumping on the Oakland bandwagon this spring training. I agree, the young starters are impressive, but I'm not still not sold that Dejesus, Matsui and Willingham will be enough to give the starters solid run support. Oakland will probably spend March looking for run producers and I'm not sure they will ever find them.

LAST YEAR'S RECORD: 81-81

PROJECTED FINISH: 3rd in the American League West

***THANKS FOR READING MY TEAM BY TEAM OUTLOOKS TO HELP PASS THE TIME
 

Check back tomorrow for the Colorado Rockies