A Graphic Look at the Window to Win: Oakland Athletics

Just in time for prospect season, we take a look at the idea of "windows" and a team's prime time to win. Inspired by what seems to be a once every three years rebuild for the Oakland Athletics, is there going to be a time where all their premier prospects hit and they'll have the best chance to win? Here we present the pleasures of trying to maximize production during one's service time.

Second in this series, we look at another team in the AL West, the A's. From when I started this graphic, I've changed this 3 or 4 times just based on the flurry of moves this offseason. It's obvious to everyone that the A's are rebuilding, AGAIN, but are they best aligned to win hopefully by 2014-2015? Let's see what the A's are dealing with in terms of their current roster and their farm.

They certainly did a good job replenishing a sagging farm system with the combo of prospects from the Gio Gonzalez, Trevor Cahill, and Andrew Bailey hauls. The joke around Twitter this last month was that once again, we'll have trouble recognizing some of the newbies on the roster.

"Who are you? RT BMcCarthy32: Day 1 of Spring Training is going to be a meet and greet party with all of us in name tags it seems." From Brett Anderson's Twitter

*New acquisition, Current roster info from MLB Depth Charts

Starting Lineup
1 2B Jemile Weeks
2 CF Coco Crisp
3 RF Josh Reddick*
4 LF Seth Smith*
5 DH Brandon Allen
6 C Kurt Suzuki
7 1B Daric Barton
8 3B Scott Sizemore
9 SS Cliff Pennington

Bench
C Anthony Recker
1B/OF Chris Carter
IF Adam Rosales
OF Collin Cowgill*

Starting Rotation
1 RHP Brandon McCarthy
2 RHP Bartolo Colon*
3 RHP Brad Peacock*
4 LHP Tom Milone*
5 RHP Jarrod Parker*

LHP Dallas Braden (recovering from injury)
LHP Brett Anderson (recovering from injury)

Bullpen
CL LHP Brian Fuentes
SU RHP Grant Balfour
SU RHP Fautino De Los Santos
MID RHP Joey Devine
MID RHP Ryan Cook*
MID LHP Jerry Blevins
LR RHP Graham Godfrey

John Sickels has 3 of the new A's prospects in the organization's top 5 (Parker, Cole, Peacock). In terms of service time, as mentioned in Athletics Nation last nite, if Jarrod Parker, Brad Peacock, and Tom Milone (the three closest to the majors) come up this season, their service time still takes them into the 2017 season.

Hard to predict their philosophy if and when the A's get the approval to move to San Jose, but hopefully they'll be able to re-sign a homegrown prospect like Jemile Weeks (last arbitration year is 2016). The 2014-2015 many are predicting holds up, 2015 specifically, as a good amount of players go into their first year of arbitration.

See the previous graphics in this series: Mariners

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