Jane Lee says that the A's haven't offered Manny Ramirez a contract, but cites Buster Olney saying it could happen soon.

Grant Brisbee calls the A's interest in Ramirez/Magglio Ordonez "bizarre," and he's not wrong at all.

Phil Garner is sticking around as a part-time adviser, at least through spring training. I have no idea what this means. I'm not sure I care.

David Wishinsky tries to figure out what's going on at 1B/DH with the news that Kila Ka'aihue would be the front-runner for the DH spot going into camp if the A's signed Manny Ramirez. I think Wishinsky has it right, though he says it more diplomatically: R.I.P. Chris Carter. (For what it's worth, PECOTA projects Carter as the best hitter on the team. ZiPS disagrees by a lot, figuring him for just an 88 OPS+.)

Oh, yeah, I forgot, ZiPS for the A's are out. They're basically the complete opposite of what PECOTA things. Where the Baseball Prospectus system has no fewer than seven guys hitting at or above league-average after accounting for park, ZiPS has zero A's hitting that well. By contrast, PECOTA is bullish on a lot of the A's young starters, including, for instance, a 5+ ERA projection for Brad Peacock. ZiPS says all the A's starters are above-average except for Tyson Ross. The bullpen looks less pretty, but Joey Devine fans will be pleased by his 114 ERA+ projection.

Here's Stan McNeal's preview of the A.L. West for Sporting News, which has the Rangers up top and the A's on bottom. He has the leading candidates for the final three rotation spots as Tyson Ross, Graham Godfrey, and Jarrod Parker. If Godfrey is the leading anything for anything, somebody's doing something wrong.

Here's another post from Baseclogger Jeremy Barfield. It's about responding to failure and adversity.

Speaking of A's players writing, Brandon McCarthy took over Hot Clicks at SI today. It includes a bikini photo of his wife, if you're into that kind of thing. He also hilariously compares spring training to Oregon Trail, defends (correctly) Rob Gronkowski, and writes this about this fourth-favorite swimsuit model:

1. Sarah Brandner: She's so hot that when I thought I saw her at a store once, I screamed like a Beiber concert-goer for like three seconds. Turned out it wasn't her and then everyone in Sam's Club got super weird about it.

How is it fair that someone gets to be this funny and this good at baseball? I guess god's revenge is his one-of-a-kind trick scapula.

If the A's want a DH so bad, maybe they should trade a middling prospect for Bobby Abreu. That's got to be better than messing around with Magglio Ordonez or Johnny Damon, right? Plus, it's good for baseball because it could open a spot for Mike Trout.

Jay Jaffe presents his annual Vortices of Suck, the players/positions that were "tornado-level disasters," especially accounting for salary. The A's first base situation made the list. But hey, sure, bring back Conor Jackson. You get right on that, Bob Melvin.

I promised odd stuff. Here's a review of Moneyball in the newspaper of Mount Mansfield Union High School, Jericho, VT. The movie Moneyball, that is. And do not even dare tell me how old this kid was when the A's won twenty straight. I don't want to hear it.