Having Harden healthy is huge; he's an ace if he's healthy but over the past two years combined he's only thrown about 160 innings.

Piazza could show to be a great replacement for Thomas (especially getting out of Petco Park), but there always seems to be an adjustment period for career-NL hitters moving to the AL.

I'm not sold on Bobby Crosby, Milton Bradley, Esteban Loaiza, or Huston Street. Bradley has never hit more than 20 hr, or had more than 70 RBI, and has only played 160 games over the last two seasons combined. Similar with Crosby.

However, you also have to take into consideration that year after year I pick the A's to miss the playoffs and they never seem to. Maybe I'm just biased against Oakland and I look for statistics to support what I say. Unless they come out of the gate like gangbusters, it'll probably be June or July before I put them in the top ten, and I'm sure you'll bust my chops the whole way.

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