It's Always Sonny In Oakland

The running joke of ‘and Billy Beane trades the whole team’ has been a meme amongst A’s fans since his start in Oakland, and a national one since Moneyball let everyone else know what was going on in the Bright Side of the Bay. Clearly, this is a meme based in fact.

Okay, more like submerged in a quagmire of truth, but that’s another story for another post.

Yes, we have reason to moan. Most recently, the biggest reason for this continued moaning has picked up an AL MVP Award… in Toronto. Happy trails, Josh Donaldson.

We learn to cope by trading jokes and not letting ourselves get attached. It’s like watching a minor league team and knowing than any of the guys you’re watching could get sucked up to the majors or lumped in with a trade package at any time.

While it provides for comfortable post-season bar chatter, it does have a negative effect: clouding our (A's fans) vision of what we actually hold on our roster.

It’s hard to truly understand greatness when it’s still active, young and the punchline of most ‘wonder who he’s gonna get traded for’ jokes.

Obviously, I’m talking about Sonny Gray. And here’s why he needs to be left out of the jokes and seen for what he really is; the Ace we’ve been craving for the past ten years.

We haven’t seen talent on the mound as young as Gray since the glory days of the Big Three (Zito, Mulder and Hudson). We also haven’t seen such a cool name since Vida Blue and Catfish Hunter, but that’s besides the point. (no it is not)

Now that he’s settled in, let’s look at his third-season stats versus some other big name A’s (of recent times).

And how about some all-time pitchers? (And for the heck of it, I included Catfish Hunter’s first season with the Athletics, which was his fourth season overall.) If you’re sick of stats at this point, please skip this portion.

While, of course, stats aren’t everything, they’re a nice tool to put things into perspective. Gray is heading into his fourth season in green and yellow, and has plenty of time left. Could he tank? Of course, but anyone can. He hasn’t shown himself to be injury-prone and has only beefed up his statistics every season.

And with the mass-rebuilding of the A’s bullpen this year as well as some added talent in the rotation (and more to come, as is being promised us from the front office), Gray will have more freedom to focus on himself. A’s management has already stated they’re looking at building a team now that will be solid for years to come, and Gray is going to be the headliner of that train.

Though even with all this, Gray remains the punchline of the off-season “imagine who we could get for him” talk. Well, let me tell you, the A’s already have the best they’re going to get for Gray: himself.

It’s not Sonny’s fault he’s starting to shine (insert pun here) in a mass of gray (oops). With his third season filled with one of the worst second-half performances in club history to date and endless talk of the Donaldson trade, Sonny’s gifts raised some eyebrows, but have not been appreciated and coveted for what they really are.

He only has room to grow, and if all goes according to plan, he’ll have a team around him that’s set up to do the same.

So here’s to a great 2016 for Sonny. And maybe he can actually reel in the Cy Young this time around.