Although Josh Willingham only donned the green and gold for a season, he was one of my favorite A’s players in recent memory, and it appears he’s heading to the Twins. Even if he doesn’t end up going there it doesn’t look like he’s going to be with the A’s either way. Whoever ends up with him, they got one of the most underrated guys in the league. Sure, Josh might miss a game here and there, he doesn’t play the best defense in the world, but he does give you consistency whether you have someone good hitting in front/behind of him or not at all he puts up production. He might be the first guys that came to Oakland, and didn’t bitch once about the hitting in the spacious coliseum. He didn’t bitch about switching to the AL for the first time in his career after being in the NL for five years (looking at you Holliday). He even wanted to stay in Oakland for one of those “hometown discounts” us A’s fans hear other players willing to take to stay with other franchises. While 29 homers and 98 RBI’s isn’t a monster season, in this Oakland offense, it was. I honestly can’t understand why more teams weren’t interested in him or making a push for him when he’s putting up solid numbers in the worst hitting park in baseball. I mean, didn’t Jayson Werth get a kings ransom last year for doing less than what Willingham did this past season? Why aren’t teams trying to offer him what he’s worth? There’s tons of defensive deficient outfielders out there that produce far less (see the entire overpaid Anaheim outfield). At least the A’s will get a couple compensation picks out of it or some money to bid on Yu Darvish with, since that’s all we really seem to value these days…
By
cali4dre
chappy81
dyslecix
mceezy
Doin Work 
December 14th, 2011 at 3:16 pm
“While 29 homers and 98 RBI’s isn’t a monster season…”
In a ballpark the size of an airport, with no protection around him in the order, and with just the general curse of the A’s in place…pretty damn good at least.
But at least he won’t come back to haunt you…he’s not enough to fix what’s wrong in Minnesota.
December 14th, 2011 at 5:32 pm
Yeah, there’s almost a zero percent chance he comes back to haunt us. By the time the A’s are done trading away everyone on last years roster, they might not be competitive until Josh is well into his retirement…
December 15th, 2011 at 8:41 am
chappy
And you thought that the NBA moves were somewhat crazy ? It looks as the MLB now has its own issues to worry about . Boras wants Pujols’ type money for his client Prince Fielder . What are your thoughts on that ?
So the Clippers finally get their man but did they give up too much in return for Chris Paul ?
tophatal ….
December 15th, 2011 at 11:29 am
Meh, Boras can ask for whatever he wants, all I know is, he’s not going to be on the A’s… I do hope he goes to the NL though, I’d hate to see him in a Rangers jersey 19 times a season…
The only guy they really gave up was Gordon, and if you want to keep Blake around, you gotta do something like get CP3. If you don’t there’s no chance Blake stays much longer than his contract…
December 16th, 2011 at 9:28 am
chappy
I know what you’d like to do to Boras ! So I won’t broach the subject further !
It was worth it with regard to the move made by the Clippers but I can’t help but wonder how Gordon might now be feeling about the trade !
So what was Bears’ WR Sam Hurd thinking when he approached an undercover federal agent about buying and distributing not only a large amount of cocaine but also marijuana …. (click on link to read ) ? What a couple of grams of each couldn’t have sufficed ?
Bears’ Hurd facing federal drug charges
tophatal …..
December 15th, 2011 at 12:40 pm
It WAS a monster season from where this franchise sits and it is unfortunate he will not remain with the A’s. I don’t know what the deal is with the apparent lack of interest…saw a lot of him in the NL East and impressed.
December 16th, 2011 at 8:34 am
No divisional futures out yet for Major League Baseball but I would imagine the Rangers and Angels would be HUGE favorites to win the AL West, meaning, if you think the A’s have even a remote shot of winning that division, you can probably get a pretty nice number on them.
December 28th, 2011 at 12:42 pm
[…] they had control over these pitchers for a long time before they even hit their arbitration years. Not signing Willingham or Matsui also put the writing on the wall that this team isn’t going to compete for awhile […]