eastender said:
Talent wise there are many similarities between the Rays and the early 1970's Oakland A's that won three consecutive World Series. Power, Upton,Pena, Longaria compare favourably with Jackson, Bando and Tenace. Pitching has not matured to the same level as the A's(Catfish Hunter was in his 8th season in 1972) and lacks a Rollie Fingers reliever but the potential is there. Team speed and defence are better than the A's.
Also they have the start of a finacial plan in place to keep the team together something that Charles Finley lacked.
Personally, I can think of few teams with fewer similarities than these Rays and those A's. The only thing they have in common is that they're winners.
The A's of that period had a primarily veteran pitching staff. Though their pitching staff was young, it was a veteran staff. In 1972, Odom was a six year veteran, Hunter an eight year veteran, Holtzman aa seven year veteran. The A's had a dominant closer, which the Rays do not.
The Rays feature a ton of team speed: Bartlett, Upton, and Crawford all steal bases. Even Hinske stole 10. The team stole 142. In an era when speed figured more than it does today, the A's were quite a slow team other than Bert Campaneris, swiping just 87 bases; of these, only 33 were stolen by guys other than Campaneris.
The A's hit a lot of home runs, but didn't draw walks, 10th in the league of 12. The Rays also hit home runs, but were 2nd in the league in walks.
The Rays won despite running 13th in the league in batting average, while the A's were in the middle of the pack. The A's were second in the league in both runs scored and runs allowed. The Rays were also second in the league in runs allowed while only ninth in runs scored.
Taking nothing away from this extremely talented club which will only get better, the Rays were lucky this year, winning 5 more games than their run differential suggests they should have. The 1972 A's won 4 fewer games than their run differential suggests they should have.
Again, the Rays are a fabulous young team, but if not for four injuries (Percival, Lowell, Beckett, and Ortiz), they'd likely be watching baseball tomorrow night rather than playing it.) (And yes, I include Percival in the injuries that helped the Rays. Were he healthy, he'd have been on the roster lighting fires rather than Price, who put them out.)