With two games already in the books for the Oakland Athletics and 160 more to go, there’s one thing already certain for the upcoming 2012 campaign: Yoenis Cespedes is going to be the American League Rookie of the Year. That’s right. That Yoenis Cespedes. True, he’s only played in a couple of games in the MLB. And, yes, he’s only been exposed to roughly five weeks of big league baseball, including spring training. But in that short time, one thing has been verified for sure—Cespedes is the real deal. Which, for the A’s, is a big deal. It’s not often ...
Dennis Allen and Reggie McKenzie spent the winter locked in a cold, dark film room analyzing college draft prospects, free agents and the Raiders roster. Spring is draft season, and new life will be added to the roster to compete with the veterans.Before anyone realizes it, the summer will be here and the fight for starting jobs will be hotter than the central valley heat in July.The work Allen and McKenzie put in during the winter and spring will determine what happens this summer. Will a position of weakness be one of strength by June? Did the Raiders make the ...
It's Opening Day—or it was last week in Japan, or was yesterday, or it is on Friday or Saturday for some teams—but regardless, baseball season has finally begun. Kind of. The Cardinals and the Marlins kicked off the 2012 season on this continent on Wednesday, ending months of hypothesizing about whether this year will be different from the last for teams that had less than ideal 2011s. Now, it's time to see, for real, what this season has in store. It may be early—very early—but many teams already have great expectations to live up to, even in the first week ...
Welcome to the second match of my Oakland Raiders MVP series. In the last matchup, left tackle Jared Veldheer faced off against fullback Marcel Reece. Despite all of the things Reece does, Veldheer came out victorious. With almost 1,000 votes on the poll, Veldheer won with 66.6 percent of the votes opposed to Reece's 33.4 percent. The comment section also contributed a lot of insight as well. It was a general consensus that left tackle was a more important position than fullback.Unfortunately, this matchup is a bit more challenging. This matchup displays two speedy receivers in Darrius Heyward-Bey and Jacoby ...
Much of the Oakland Raiders of the past will be changing in the coming years, following the death of owner and icon Al Davis.His son, Mark, brought in Reggie McKenzie, who fired coach Hue Jackson and hired former Denver Broncos defensive coordinator Dennis Allen. But that was just the beginning.McKenzie made a number of moves this offseason. First, he released players such as Stanford Routt and Kameron Wimbley, much needed moves since the Raiders were so far over the salary cap.Next, he went on a flurry of contract restructures, from Carson Palmer to Michael Huff to Richard Seymour.Then, he signed economically signed several ...
With the 2012 NFL Draft fast approaching, the Bleacher Report community came together to mock the entire draft. The Raiders have five selections:Third Round, 97th Overall (Compensatory)Fourth Round, 131st Overall (Compensatory)Fifth Round, 150th OverallFifth Round, 170th Overall (Compensatory)Sixth Round, 191st OverallAmong the selections were a cornerback, two linebackers, a quarterback and a tight end. On the surface, the right positions were addressed, but were the needs addressed in the right order?Begin Slideshow
In today’s media-driven world, there are often situations where the hype is much greater than the event that it’s hyping—the unveiling of Nike’s new NFL uniforms is one of those situations.Considering the amount of secrecy Nike has employed in this whole process, I half expected the uniforms to each come with a hand-cuffed silver briefcase containing nuclear launch codes. Should we really allow ourselves to get so excited about the revealing of dyed patches of threads? For Raiders fans, this event is more useless than watching the first night of the 2012 NFL draft—for the last 40 years, the Raiders’ ...
With the draft quickly approaching, Raiders GM Reggie McKenzie has done everything he can to fill the holes of the Oakland defense. Clearly, from McKenzie's actions, cornerback was a big hole. In the past two seasons, the Raiders have let former starters Nnamdi Asomugha, Stanford Routt and Chris Johnson walk.To fill those holes, McKenzie went out and signed Ron Bartell and Shawntae Spencer to short-term deals. Many expect these signings to be temporary band-aids while the younger Demarcus Van Dyke and Chimdi Chekwa develop. Both Van Dyke and Chekwa can be great cornerbacks, I believe this next cornerback I'm going ...
With the draft rapidly approaching, more and more mock drafts are flying around, predicting who the Raiders will pick and why. While it's impossible to tell what will happen, there are some solid players who could be available late that the Raiders could grab, with little risk and big upside.#1) Terrance Ganaway (RB) [Round 5]In an earlier article, I had the Raiders potentially drafting Vick Ballard out of Mississippi State.While that is possible, I'm starting to think the Raiders will wait until later in the draft to take a RB, as there are needs at LB and on the DL. ...
Just because Tom Milone doesn’t have the velocity of Brad Peacock, A.J. Cole or Jarrod Parker does not mean that the left-hander wasn’t a key offseason acquisition for the Oakland A’s. Milone, a 6’1”, 205-pound southpaw, was part of the highly-publicized trade that sent Gio Gonzalez to the Nationals in exchange for an impressive crop of prospects. Drafted in the 10th round of the 2008 draft out of USC, Milone—the A’s No. 10 prospect—has been impressive over four minor league seasons. In 2010, the left-hander started 27 games for Double-A Harrisburg and was 12-5 with a 2.85 ERA. Even more ...