2014 Quarry Unlimited - #14 Oakland Athletics Part 2

YELLOW

RED

ORANGE

ROOKIE PROSPECTS

My Top 5 Athletics Cards
1. Craig Gentry (purple)
2. Andy Parrino (orange)
3. Adam Dunn (purple)
4. Stephen Vogt (red)
5. Josh Reddick (blue)

The ad behind Gentry couple with the purple background of the card really makes that card pop.  It's a nice example of each individual piece of that card just adding something different to make that card really work well.  The Parrino is fantastic as well.  The fact that his entire body is basically floating two inches off the ground seems to defy gravity.  I love it.  I realize I had a complete subset of Adam Dunn and I honestly was going to make that his base card like Reggie in 1988, but once I saw the celebration shot I had to go a different route.  I guess that card would have to be Rated R or at least PG-13. The shadowing effect on the Vogt card just make him look funny.  He looks like he has no teeth, but still really happy.  I can see from that image why Oakland fans really love this guy.  Finally the Reddick works just because of the background ad.  I look at the photo and see the Sprint ad while Reddick is sprinting.  It makes me chuckle.  And sometimes that's all a card needs to do.



Coming tomorrow - #15 Toronto Blue Jays

Thanx for reading.

2014 Quarry Unlimited - #14 Oakland Athletics Part 1

Coming in at #14 is the Oakland Athletics.  It's been a while since a team has fallen so far, so fast.  At the All Star Break this team was the best team in the league, by far.  Then Billy Beane, the Greatest GM that never actually won anything, proceeded to royally (no pun intended) screw up the team.  I have no problem with the first Samardzija trade.  Good teams are supposed to trade prospects (no matter how good they are) for players that can help them win now.  Bad teams are supposed to collect prospects to possibly be better next year and in the future.  However, the Jon Lester trade was just silly.  Even if Cespedes was overrated, when you don't have a lot of offense you don't trade your best power hitter to improve an already solid rotation.  Of course that's what happens when you build a team only to beat Detroit in the playoffs.  The incredibly savvy Billy Beane just somehow forgot that you need to win in order to get to that Detroit series. 

Now that the offseason has started and the A's are having a Marlins-type fire sale, everyone truly see the consequences of the hubris of this general manager.  Even with trading all of their good players for questionable returns over the past month, I am still not going to doubt that Oakland will win next year.  In 2012, they traded away Trevor Cahill, Gio Gonzalez, and Andrew Bailey and then proceeded to win the division the next season.  Although this time I think Billy Beane has made Moneyball 2 a horror movie for A's fans.

ATHLETICS TEAM TRIVIA

Total # of Athletics in 2014 - 48

# of new Athletics in 2014 - 23

Best score in 2014 - July 24 vs. Astros 13-1

Worst score in 2014 - June 24 at Mets 10-1

Border color that worked best with this team - Purple

Border color that worked least with this team - Yellow (surprisingly)

Position on last year's list - #15 = UP 1

Let's take a look at the first half of the 2014 Oakland Athletics with the manager's card leading the way.

PURPLE

GREEN

BLUE

I'll be back tomorrow with Part 2.  As usual, your thoughts are always welcome and encouraged.

Thanx for reading.