30 A's in 30 Days – Ryan Sweeney

Acquired: Traded from Chicago White Sox (with SP Gio Gonzalez and SP Fautino de los Santos) for Nick Swisher (January 3, 2008).
Contract: One year (Terms undisclosed). Eligible for arbitration after 2010.
Position: Starting CF

Projected BA/OBP/SLG: (.276/.342/.388)

Over/Under: Teammate Travis Buck and former OF/sex symbol Daryl Boston are two of the names among the top 10 comps for Sweeney over at Baseball Prospectus. This is…not a good thing. Sweeney's a little overrated by A's fans who fixated on his kinda-sorta empty .286 BA last year and it looks like the White Sox were right about his power game never developing. Still, I see a bit of Mark Kotsay in him. Kotsay was about league-average early on before recording a few good seasons in his mid-to-late 20s. Take the UNDER for '09, though.

By the Numbers: .521 – Sweeney's career Major League OPS vs. LHP (.218/.283/.238(!)) in 113 plate appearances. I'm not the biggest Rajai Davis fan, but his career .706 OPS vs. LHP (in 201 lifetime PAs) demands that Sweeney had better not get 600 at bats this year.

Surefire '09 Prediction: With Huston Street gone and Bobby Crosby on his way out (HOT-cha-cha-cha!), Ryan Sweeney ascends to the title of "hottest A" for the fair-weather female segment of our fanbase who first crawled out of the junior high school hallways when Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder and Barry Zito were around.