2009 MLB season in review: Oakland A’s

It seemed that the 2009 season was going to be a season of rebirth for the Oakland A’s. Their money ball wizard General Manager, Billy Beane, spent the off season as one of the most aggressive clubs in the Major Leagues. They added Jason Giambi, Matt Holiday, and Orlando Cabrera, but as the season headed south all those acquisitions were traded away at the trading deadline. While this has been the M.O. of the A’s in recent years, it really seemed that this team had turned a corner. In the end they were the small market team looking to be big market player, of course that didn’t work out so well for them.

Their final record was 75-87. At their lowest point, they were 17 games under .500 and ended up 12 games under .500. All those off season acquisitions never got this team into first place, and after they were traded away the season really tanked for this club. In the last month of the season they fell 22 games behind in the American League West, and that is where the finished, in last place.

This was, supposed to be good and they did complete two seven game winning streaks, but after dealing away their talent they also suffered, a 7 game losing streak. As a team they hit just .264, with 135 home runs, and drove in 723 runs. Their Pitching staff featured two pitchers with double digit victories and two more with nine wins each. Their team ERA was 4.23 and they ranked sixth in the American League with 1,124 strike outs. However they also ranked fourth in the AL issuing 523 walks.

The A’s ranked last in MLB attendance with just 1,408,783 fans making the trip to McAffe Coliseum to see them play. For their 81 home games they averaged just 17,392 fans and were only able to sell 39.8% of their 2009 ticket inventory.