Memorial Day is a significant day around baseball, that unofficial 1⁄3 marker in the season where teams feel like they know what they have and can pick a direction to go. My feeling is that the A’s put together the 2017 team knowing it wouldn’t be very good, but hoping maybe the club could stick around .500 long enough for some of the exciting young talent to come up and give the team a boost that could, in a perfect world, mean taking at least a shot at the wild card.
Mostly, though, this season is about giving the young players the right amount of time to mature, develop, and come up only when ready, with a group of mediocre placeholders — such as Matt Joyce, Trevor Plouffe, Rajai Davis, and Adam Rosales — holding down the fort as best they can.