Baseball is a funny sport in that you never really know for sure if a player will ever live up to their promise. Guys like Todd Van Poppel and Brien Taylor were phenoms that never amounted to much as professional pitchers. On the flip side, you have players like Mike Piazza, who was famously drafted in the 62nd round in 1988 as a favor from his godfather, then-Los Angeles Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda. All he did was become the best offensive catcher in the game's history and a surefire Hall of Famer. There's also the best active hitter in the game, ...
After guiding the Oakland Athletics to a startling American League West Division Championship and pushing the eventual A.L. Champion Detroit Tigers to the deciding game of the division series, Bob Melvin was given a two-year extension by the team, according to The San Jose Mercury News.Melvin was named interim manager on June 9, 2011 after the Athletics let Bob Geren go after five and a half disappointing seasons. The team was gutted of many of their established major league pitchers between the 2011 and 2012 seasons and had a losing record through much of the first half of 2012.On June 10th, ...
The Oakland Raiders have the third overall pick in the NFL draft this year, and they can't afford to miss. They already didn't have a first-round pick last year and don't have a second-round pick this year. After watching Manti Te'o against the Alabama Crimson Tide, that's no longer the direction I want to see the Raiders go in. Te'o looks more like a second- to third-round pick these days, but that isn't the end of the world for the Raiders. There are plenty of things the Raiders can do with the No. 3 pick as well as throughout the draft. There are also some ...
Heading into the 2013 NFL offseason, GM Reggie McKenzie and the Oakland Raiders will once again have a lot of work to do in regards to the salary cap. As the San Francisco Chronicle’s Vic Tafur writes, the Raiders are once again expected to be right up against that cap. Outside of the voiding Richard Seymour deal, the Raiders' five biggest contracts, belonging to Carson Palmer, Darrius Heyward-Bey, Tommy Kelly, Tyvon Branch and Michael Huff, are projected to account for a staggering $59,055,684 against the salary cap in 2013. That total equates to 48.8 percent of the projected NFL salary ...
For the Oakland Raiders, the 2012 NFL season was a rough step backwards from the previous two seasons and largely a disappointment to players, fans and team management. The reality though was, with the volume of talent lost and the injuries suffered, it was probably something that should have been expected.No one wanted to go 4-12, but it allowed general manager Reggie McKenzie and owner Mark Davis a chance to get a hard look at the roster as it begins to turn over and assess who will stay, who will go and most of all, what the Raiders need to ...
One of the most unstable positions for the Oakland Raiders over the last few years has been the tight end position, where they have had a different starter each of the past three seasons.In 2010, it was 2007 second-round draft pick from Zach Miller starting in Oakland for the fourth straight year.In 2011, it was free agent acquisition Kevin Boss, who signed a four-year, $16 million contract before being released a year later as a part of Reggie McKenzie's cost-cutting roster overhaul.In 2012, it was Brandon Myers--who had been a back up to the likes of Miller and Boss since ...
Finally there is news on the Oakland Raiders' search to fill the offensive coordinator vacancy left from the firing of Greg Knapp on December 31. After 13 days of silence, the Raiders reportedly interviewed Mike Martz, who has been out of football since 2011, when he was the offensive coordinator of the Chicago Bears.Martz was at his best as a coach when he led the St.Louis Rams offense, which appeared in two Super Bowls (one win) and was dubbed as the greatest show on turf. In the last decade, Martz has had stops in Detroit, San Francisco and Chicago before he ...
With a quarter of the head coaches in the NFL fired at the end of the season, the NFL coaching landscape has been significantly stirred. The Oakland Raiders fired Greg Knapp and have been searching for an offensive coordinator to replace him. It didn’t take long for teams to start hiring with the goal of having a complete staff before the college all-star games. Finding a position coach or two isn’t a problem, but most teams would like to have their head coach and coordinators hired so their scouting staff know what schemes they are running before finishing the year-long ...
After a very disappointing 4-12 season, the Oakland Raiders will turn their attention to the Senior Bowl (Coaching the North) and the NFL draft.The Senior Bowl should give them a chance to evaluate a lot of prospects on a personal level. Finding players with the right locker-room presence is just as important as playing ability. The Raiders have the No. 3 overall pick and will need to move down for extra picks. They have a lot of holes to fill and Reggie McKenzie and Co. know this. They find a trade partner (Bills) when the top signal caller slides to ...
The newest member of the Oakland Athletics is engaging, quick with a smile and has charmed the East Bay. Yes, Hiroyuki Nakajima brings a personality that already has the fans won over and appears to be the type of player that will fit right in with Oakland's fun and free-spirited clubhouse.However, there is also an enigmatic nature to the man known as "Hiro." Who is he? What are his credentials? Nakajima won't be the key to the A's duplicating the success of 2012, but he's definitely an important factor. The following is what I hope will be a bridge to ...