Elephant Rumblings: Spring Training takeaways

MLB news roundup

Happy Wednesday, Athletics Nation!

Tomorrow is Opening Day! The A’s will open their 2023 regular season at The Oakland Coliseum against Shohei Ohtani and the Angels. Big lefty Kyle Muller will be on the bump for the A’s; first pitch is scheduled for 7:07 PDT.

Spring Training wrapped up on Monday night, and so too did the A’s decisions on the team’s opening day roster. Yesterday, Melissa Lockard at The Athletic shared her Spring Training takeaways and how they might inform our expectations for the 2023 season, the second year of the A’s current rebuild cycle.

Lockard leads off by noting that “Even in a rebuild, the A’s are chasing wins.” Like so many of us here at AN, Melissa finds the decisions around Cristian Pache and Nick Allen “curious” and “surprising.” Both Pache and Allen are elite defenders who struggled at the plate in 2022.

Lockard also expects that “Walks will be up, on both sides of the ball,” as the A’s led all teams in walks during Spring Training—both at the plate and on the mound.

Another point of discussion involves the abundance of pitching talent the A’s have acquired, yet how injuries have left the rotation looking a bit thin heading into Opening Day. Perhaps it would be nice to have held onto Cole Irvin and A.J. Puk for a bit longer.

Be sure to check out Lockard’s full piece at The Athletic. As someone who sadly can’t get to the Coliseum tomorrow, I look forward to swapping hot takes on AN tomorrow during the season opener. Let’s go, Oakland!

A’s Coverage:

• Lockard: What we learned about the Oakland A’s this spring ($)
• Kawahara: Outfielder Cristian Pache, out of minor-league options, will not make A’s roster ($)
• Espinoza: Cristian Pache’s DFA is an indictment of the Matt Olson trade
• Kroichick: Giants and A’s fans embrace baseball’s new rules as games move crisply along ($)

MLB News & Interest:

• Bowden: MLB award predictions for 2023: Ronald Acuña Jr., Shane McClanahan among Bowden’s picks ($)
• The Athletic: One MLB season, 30 MVPs: Our writers predict who’ll lead the way for each team ($)
• McDonald: Guardians, Andrés Giménez Finalizing Seven-Year, $106.5MM Extension
• Johnson: Big Hype Prospects: Burleson, Ortiz, Rodriguez, Miller, Tovar
• MLB.com: 1 important thing we learned from each team this spring
• Today in Baseball History

Best of Twitter:

The kid has a big future, but since the A’s are in “win now” mode they can’t keep Pache. Wait—what?

Roster moves.

Kawahara talks to Espinoza about Pache.