"In terms of fantasy talent, the A's are the "If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there to hear it, does it make a sound?" analogy. If you and your friends decided to eliminate Oakland from the player pool for your '12 fantasy draft, more than likely you'd hardly notice that anything had changed. In early drafts charted on MockDraftCentral, there are no A's players being taken on average among the top 150 picks, and only two players (CoCo Crisp and Jemile Weeks) that land among the top 200.

While the Angels and Rangers have put forth their best Yankees/Red Sox impersonation this offseason, spending major bucks on Albert Pujols, C.J. Wilson and Yu Darvish, the A's have begun a full-blown rebuilding process with a heavy emphasis on post-hype sleepers. The A's figure to clock in with a '12 payroll of around $40 million, which will be less than half of the payroll of any other team in the AL West and roughly one-fourth of the Angels' expected '12 payroll.

Realistically, the A's can't hope to compete with the Rangers and Angels in the AL West this year, but the question fantasy owners need to know is whether any of the formerly highly-regarded post-hype prospects on the A's roster will be able to finally catch fire. If so, for the A's sake, let's hope it's a power hitter, perhaps the biggest area of concern on a squad loaded with question marks. ..."