The Oakland Athletics won their first game of the season at home last night facing a tough opponent in the Kansas City Royals. This time it wasn’t Cuban defector Yoenis Cespedes who stole the show, the honor went to starting pitcher Tom Milone instead.

Milone pitched an eight-inning shutout against the Royals, helping the team to a 1-0 victory in their fifth game of the 2012 season. Their lone win had come across the Pacific when they defeated the Seattle Mariners in Tokyo. With their record now at 2-3, the A’s are still at the bottom of the American League West a half game behind the L.A. Angels, but we can hope that the victory in Oakland will help the team build some momentum and enable them to improve throughout the course of the season.

It looks like Milone will be another one of the A’s better decisions over the winter, in addition to their budding star, Cespedes. He came to Oakland in an exchange with the Washington Nationals, one of the key trades for the Athletics and a one of the better steps to taking the team to where they need to be.

In 2011, in Milone’s five starts with the Nationals he went 1-0 with a 3.81 ERA. In the spring, he was 2-1 with a 4.91 ERA and in the exhibition game against Triple-A Sacramento on March 31 he impressed again with six perfect innings before the game was rained out.

Milone may turn out to be one of the Athletics’ most reliable solid pitchers of 2012. In his debut with the A’s in Sacramento, he was compared to Dallas Braden, who pitched baseball’s 1 9th perfect game in 2010 by relying on his control and his defense to get the outs. Milone gave up just three hits, all doubles and three walks in the Saturday night outing.

In Oakland on Monday night, Milone allowed just three hits over eight innings. With the A’s offense stymied by the Royals’ stellar pitcher, Luis Mendoza, the victory really belongs to Milone. Mendoza allowed just one earned run on five hits, struck out two and walked four, and was able to hold off Cespedes, striking the center fielder out twice.

A’s fans needed a little more good news to go along with the impressive rookie’s exceptional performances, and there is no doubt that Milone gave us that in the team’s first win at home this season.

K.C. Dermody grew up in the Bay Area of California, following the Oakland Athletics since the days of Billy Ball, and attending hundreds of games over the past three decades. Follow her at www.facebook.com/KCDermodyWriter, Twitter @kcdermody, or www.kcdermodywriter.com.

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Not only am I a longtime fantasy baseball manager, I’m also a lifelong Oakland Athletics fan, so I was pleased to hear that A’s manager Bob Melvin has finally decided on a closer for the start of the season: Grant Balfour.

Balfour beat out Brian Fuentes for the job of closing out games for Oakland–a team that is likely to struggle mightily in 2012 as it rebuilds for the future. Nevertheless, Balfour is not a relief pitcher that you want to leave sitting in free agency in your league.

I’d have picked him up myself, but while I was feeding the poor, visiting orphanages, and otherwise being philanthropic this afternoon when the news broke, my evil brother-in-law who resides on the Death Star swooped in and stole Balfour right out from under me, no doubt kicking puppies and stealing candy from babies all the while. In retrospect, naming my team the Athletics Supporter may have been a mistake, tipping my evil brother-in-law off to my affinity for Oakland players.

There really shouldn’t be any MLB closers sitting there in free agency in your fantasy baseball league if you’re scoring saves. If there are, you’ve got too few teams in your league and/or too small of rosters. For that reason alone, Balfour should be picked up.

Just don’t think that he’s going to single-handedly lead your team to glory in the saves category. Remember that he plays for a team that is likely to lose a lot of games. The right-hander also doesn’t have much experience in save situations, converting only 10 saves in 24 career opportunities with the Minnesota Twins, the Tampa Bay Rays, and the A’s.

His career ERA of 3.57 and career WHIP of 1.24 might make the weak-stomached queasy, but in the past two seasons, he’s been pretty darned good (2.28 ERA and 1.08 WHIP in 2010, 2.47 and 1.03 last season). He has maintained a pace of about one strikeout per inning pitched throughout his career, including the past two seasons, so you could do worse for a second or third closer on your fantasy baseball team.

Balfour does not need to be backed up by Fuentes, however. Sometimes it pays to grab the next-in-line if you’ve invested heavily in a closer, but if Fuentes isn’t closing, he’s not worth owning. He’ll be lights out for three or four outings and then, out of nowhere, he’ll cough up 119 runs in a third of an inning, setting your fantasy baseball team back about five decades. For a team as bad as the A’s will likely be, it’s not worth setting yourself up for that kind of damage by rostering Fuentes.

Add Fautino de los Santos to your watch list, though. That kid has the potential to turn into something quite good if and when he gets the opportunity to close.

The author is a longtime fantasy baseball manager and a Featured Contributor in Sports for the Yahoo! Contributor Network. You can follow him on Twitter at @RedZoneWriting and on Facebook.

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By Jeff Sullivan

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Mar 20, 2012 – Perhaps you’d forgotten, but for two teams – the Seattle Mariners and the Oakland Athletics – the 2012 regular season begins on Wednesday, March 28. Except they’re playing in Japan, so I guess that’s Thursday, March 29. Or Tuesday, March 27. I didn’t major in time zones. Whenever they start, the point is they’re starting before everyone else, which means they need to make roster decisions before everyone else. Things need to be more or less set within the next few days.

Tuesday, the A’s have made their latest roster decision. Over the winter, the team traded closer Andrew Bailey to the Boston Red Sox and didn’t receive a closer in return. That meant the closer role in 2012 was up for grabs. Coming to camp, it looked like there would be a competition between Grant Balfour, Brian Fuentes, and maybe Fautino de los Santos. Now we have a winner:

Because I can’t help myself, this was tweeted 23 minutes before the above:

Anyway. Nothing was really “won” in camp. In six spring appearances, Balfour has five runs, four walks, and four strikeouts to his name. In six spring appearances, Fuentes has five runs, three walks, and four strikeouts to his name. In six spring appearances, de los Santos has three runs, three walks, and four strikeouts to his name. What mattered, according to Susan Slusser, was Balfour’s performance in 2011. Last year, Balfour was good. Fuentes was not as good, and de los Santos was pretty good and pretty wild.

Now, it’s important that we not make too much of this. Grant Balfour has been named Oakland’s closer, but he hasn’t been named Oakland’s permanent closer. He’ll last only as long as he’s getting the job done. If that’s all season, that’s all season. If he struggles out of the gate, he could be demoted. He has ten career saves, and his strikeout rate keeps dropping. This does set Balfour up well to amass value, though. Fuentes probably isn’t closer material anymore, and de los Santos is young enough to be a possible closer of the future.

One wonders if Balfour’s contract was in any way a consideration here. He’s due $4 million in 2012, with a $4.5 million club option for 2013. If he closes and closes well, the A’s could probably trade him at the deadline. But then, Fuentes is due even more in 2012, and contracts are the kinds of things that front offices have to worry about. Managers like Bob Melvin care less about contracts, and more about doing what they think is best for the team at the moment.

God knows Balfour seems to have the personality of a closer. He throws hard and conveys this intensity that Brian Fuentes doesn’t. I don’t know what that’s worth, and it’s probably worth next to nothing, but Balfour won’t look out of place protecting a late lead.

The obvious joke is “why would the A’s need a closer at all, because they’ll be bad.” Every team needs a closer, and the A’s won’t be that bad, probably. Balfour should do a good-enough job. If he does, he’ll be traded, or he’ll be kept around for 2013. If he doesn’t, he’ll be removed, and somebody else will slide in. This matters more to fantasy baseball players than to the average fan, but at least now you know a little more about the 2012 Oakland A’s. It’s never bad to be better informed.

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Read More: Coco Crisp (LF – OAK), Josh Reddick (RF – OAK), Yoenis Cespedes (CF – OAK), Oakland Athletics

When the Oakland Athletics re-signed Coco Crisp during the offseason, it seemed like business as usual for the team that had struggled in recent years. When the A’s stunned the world a short time later by signing Cuban free agent Yoenis Cespedes to a four-year deal, it created an apparent logjam in the outfield. Both Crisp and Cespedes are natural center fielders.

There was a lot of speculation swirling about which of the two players would play in center, with Crisp in particular adamantly insisting he would retain his position. According to Joe Stiglich of the Mercury News, A’s manager Bob Melvin has announced that it will be Cespedes patrolling center field on Opening Day in Japan, with Crisp shifting to left field … for now.

Melvin stressed that the outfield isn’t set in stone past Japan — the A’s will keep evaluating Cespedes in center once the team returns to the Bay Area and plays four exhibitions before resuming the regular season April 6.

But there’s no reason to believe Cespedes won’t stay in center if he plays capably and adjusts well to major league pitching.

Josh Reddick will complete the outfield as the everyday player in right.

For more on the A’s and to discuss their outfield alignment, head on over to Athletics Nation.

OAKLAND, Calif. — The Oakland Athletics said Wednesday that their attempt to relocate some 40 miles away to San Jose is not “a move that seeks to alter or in any manner disturb MLB territorial rights.”

The San Francisco Giants clearly see it the other way. They cherish their hold on technology-rich Silicon Valley, with Santa Clara County making up 43 percent of the club’s territory and generating a significant number of fans, corporate sponsors and other supporters.

The A’s released a statement Wednesday saying they hope Commissioner Bud Selig, his special committee appointed to evaluate the Bay Area issue and a vote of baseball’s owners will allow the club to leave its current venue in the aging Oakland Coliseum and build a new ballpark in San Jose.

Oakland team officials insist that could help the low-budget club become a big spender that wouldn’t have to be so heavily reliant on the rest of the major-league organizations.

“We simply seek an approval to create a new venue that our organization and MLB fully recognizes is needed to eliminate our dependence on revenue sharing, to offer our fans and players a modern ballpark, to move over 35 miles further away from the Giants’ great venue and to establish an exciting competition between the Giants and A’s,” Oakland’s release said, adding it would, “enable us to join the fine array of modern and fun baseball parks that are now commonplace in Major League Baseball.”

At the January owners meetings, Selig said the situation was on the “front burner.” He appointed a committee in March 2009 to study the issues facing the teams, but there is no indication a ruling is imminent.

“The committee is still at work,” MLB spokesman Pat Courtney said Wednesday night. “No decisions have been made.”

Selig, who was a fraternity brother with Oakland managing partner Lew Wolff at Wisconsin, has repeatedly said the A’s can’t survive in their current ballpark.

The City of Oakland still believes it has several suitable locations to build a new ballpark for the A’s. Yet Wolff has his sights on San Jose and has repeatedly said his franchise has exhausted its options in Oakland after years of trying.

Giants CEO and president Larry Baer indicated at spring training Feb. 25 there might not be a swift resolution to the situation.

While Selig has asked the two franchises not to publicly debate the issue, the Giants on Wednesday refuted the statement by the A’s earlier in the day with the intent of “setting the record straight on the history of territorial rights.”

Late Oakland owner Walter Haas gave the Giants the OK to assume rights to San Jose in a favor of sorts to former San Francisco owner Bob Lurie when his team was considering moving to Florida. The deal basically happened with a handshake – and “without compensation,” the A’s wrote – and then was approved by baseball’s owners.

The A’s said that “MLB-recorded minutes clearly indicate that the Giants were granted Santa Clara, subject to relocating to the city of Santa Clara.”

Said the Giants: “The Giants’ territorial rights were not granted ‘subject to’ moving to Santa Clara County.”

The territorial rights have been “explicitly reaffirmed by Major League Baseball on four separate occasions,” according to the Giants, beginning when former Giants managing partner Peter Magowan bought the team before the 1993 season.

“Upon purchasing the team 20 years ago, our plan to revive the franchise relied heavily on targeting and solidifying our fan base in the largest and fastest growing county within our territory,” the Giants said. “Based on these Constitutionally-recognized territorial rights, the Giants invested hundreds of millions of dollars to save and stabilize the team for the Bay Area, built AT&T Park privately and has operated the franchise so that it can compete at the highest levels.”

The Giants have faced their own tough financial times. They lost $115 million from 1993-99 at Candlestick Park after Magowan’s group bought the team for $100 million and took over before moving into AT&T Park – and drawing Oakland-like crowds of about 9,000 fans a night when things were especially dire.

Baer said San Francisco, the 2010 World Series champion, has a chance to sell out every game again in 2012 like it did last year.

Bob Melvin had just finished throwing batting practice Monday when a familiar face approached him and extended his hand.

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Spring Training: Diamondbacks | Cactus League | Fans

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Melvin knew who Rollie Fingers was, of course. Every kid who grew up in the Bay Area in the 1970s was familiar with Fingers, his handlebar mustache and the flourish with which he closed games for the Oakland Athletics during their three-year (1972-74) championship run.

Somehow, though, this was the first time the two men had met. They exchanged pleasantries for a couple of minutes before Melvin got back to the business of managing the A’s.

“I grew up watching him,” said the 50-year-old Melvin, who was born in Palo Alto, Calif. “I knew everybody on those A’s teams.”

Yes, these are good times for Melvin. Less than three years after he was unceremoniously fired by the Diamondbacks, he’s back in the dugout, managing the team he adored as a kid and wearing No.6 in honor of his favorite player, former A’s third baseman and captain Sal Bando.

“It’s awesome. It really is,” Melvin said. “It’s one thing to be able to do this and have a third opportunity (Melvin was the Seattle Mariners’ manager in 2003 and 2004) but to be able to do this at home, for a team I watched growing up, it’s special for me, no question about it.”

Melvin will admit now that he was hurt and angry when then-Diamondbacks General Manager Josh Byrnes fired him in May 2009 and replaced him with A.J. Hinch, the vice president of player development. (Chalk that up under moves that didn’t work out too well.)

But the time away from the dugout — Melvin was a scout for the New York Mets in 2010 before being rehired by the Diamondbacks last summer as a special adviser — refreshed his spirit and recharged his batteries.

“I was a little bitter about it,” he said. “But you have to get over that to move forward. There’s no longer any bitterness. I’m happy as heck for what’s gone on over there. It made me realize how much I love doing this and how lucky I am to do this.”

Managing the perpetually rebuilding A’s might seem like anything but lucky. Oakland has had five consecutive losing seasons, plays in an rundown ballpark — little progress has been made on the team’s hopeful move to San Jose — and is so desperate for box-office buzz it recently signed Manny Ramirez, a two-time offender of Major League Baseball’s drug policy.

Melvin, however, didn’t hesitate when General Manager Billy Beane offered him the interim job last summer or when Beane put a three-year contract in front of him in September. Nor did he have second thoughts after the A’s gutted their pitching staff in the off-season, trading closer Andrew Bailey and starters Gio Gonzalez and Trevor Cahill.

To Melvin, Oakland is a blank canvas, and he’s holding the paintbrush.

“As a coaching staff, you should be excited about putting your potential handprint on a team moving forward, especially with as many good, young players as we have here,” he said.

OK, but just how does Melvin approach a season in which his top two starters are Brandon McCarthy and Bartolo Colon, and the team might overachieve if it wins 70 games?

What does he tell his team? Because “Wait until 2015″ doesn’t play well in the clubhouse.

“I know we’re in a certain mode,” Melvin said, “but if I as the manager start talking about rebuilding, it means winning isn’t important, and winning at the big-league level is the most-important thing.

“I don’t care who you are or what you are … it’s no different for us than the Rangers, Angels or whatever. They expect to win, and so do we. Now, they may have long-term goals and we’re not going to get that far out there. We know with all our young players we’re not the best we can be right now. We’re going to strive to be better every single day. That’s the message. And I do have conviction about that.”

Let’s hope the A’s are as patient with Melvin as he’ll be with his team. He’s a good man, a good manager, and there’s nothing he’d rather do than turn the A’s into winners again.

That would be a save Fingers could appreciate.

Reach Bordow at scott.bordow@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-7996. Follow him on Twitter at Twitter.com/sBordow.

The Oakland Athletics seem to be caught in a whirlwind of rumors, not to mention an unknown future when it comes to their home. While owner Lew Wolff continues to insist the A’s will be moving to San Jose, yesterday the New York Daily News reported that the team will be “stuck” in Oakland.

Bay Bridge, Oakland
Wikimedia Commons

It’s difficult for me to be objective when it comes to the team I’ve followed for so many decades. I have strong attachments to the Oakland Coliseum, or O.co Coliseum, as it’s currently called. While realizing it’s very run down and no longer suitable for either the Oakland Athletics, or the Oakland Raiders, I love it nonetheless.

The New York Daily News alleges that ” for a variety of reasons, MLB is going to uphold the San Francisco Giants’ territorial rights in San Jose,” leaving the A’s without a new home, at least in San Jose.

Writer Bill Madden states that “e ven if (Bud) Selig did invoke his ‘best interests of baseball’ powers and allowed the A’s to move to San Jose, he probably doesn’t have the votes.” Madden did not site any sources to back his revelation up.

Wolff, on the other hand completely dismissed his report, according the the Mercury News . He told the newspaper on Saturday night, “I spoke to Bud today on another matter, he didn’t bring it up, I think he would have told me if that’s the case. We talked about something else. I think he would have alerted me or the Giants if he had made a decision.”

With much of the A’s decision making based on a future move to San Jose, it could spell big trouble for the team, with general manager Billy Beane trading three All-Star pitchers for new young prospects in hopes of building up a strong core by the time the move is made 40 miles south.

My heart wants to be happy that there is a possibility the A’s will stay in Oakland, but my brain says otherwise if the future of the team is jeopardized by staying there. At this point, it’s hard to know who to believe when it comes to rumors and sports, of all types.

Just last week, KTVU.com , the local Oakland news station, reported that the City of Oakland is “spending $3.5 million on a development team in order to keep the Raiders, the Athletics and the Golden State Warriors from leaving the city searches for respective new homes.”

While the report noted that the baseball team would be the most difficult to keep, they say a new group may be able to pull it off. Chris Dobbins is the leader of the newly formed organization, Save Oakland Sports, ” a collection of community and business leaders who are aiming to lobby the city and county to not give up on what some might think is a lost cause.”

The unfortunate picture that’s painted is the A’s in the middle of a rough game of tug o’ war, and it could be the fans and the team who are the ultimate losers. One can only hope that is not the end result.

K.C. Dermody grew up in the Bay Area of California, following the Oakland Athletics since the days of Billy Ball, and attending hundreds of games over the past three decades. Follow her at www.facebook.com/KCDermodyWriter, Twitter @kcdermody, or www.kcdermodywriter.com.

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