Disclaimer: I am unabashedly optimistic in March, as I feel ‘tis the season. That being said, there is a difference between optimism and pure delusion. You can’t draw blood from a stone, but you can squint and see Oakland’s rotation emerging to be more than we thought and feared.
Two things we knew gave us tepid comfort going into the 2019 season. One was the A’s had plenty of candidates to provide some value at the back of the rotation, and the other was that thanks to a robust offense, defense, and bullpen the team does not need to get ace performances from its starters in order to win games.