Given the vast amount of variance in baseball, most teams enter spring training with at least the gift of hope, along with the spectre that fortunes could fall apart quickly. Sure if you’re the Astros, mostly you just have to show up and stay somewhat healthy and if you’re the Marlins you’re saying, “Well, you know if...yeah, no.”
Then there are the rest of us, hoping this is the year “everything breaks right” and wondering how far that can get us. Realistically, not everything will. In the case of the rebuilding A’s, with much raw talent in Oakland and on the way, how much has to fall into place for Oakland to be competitive.