by Charlie O Mallonee

OAKLAND–Will the Oakland A’s be buyers or sellers towards the trade deadline? The A’s are right in between that decision of buying or selling and they’ve finally made the big move talking for weeks now about making the move about getting out of fifth place and into fourth place. While they’ve finally done that their in fourth place they’ve got a record 43-51.

So the A’s are eight games from .500 they’re a half game in front of Seattle as of Tuesday night as the M’s had sole possession of fifth place and their just one game out of third place behind Texas. It doesn’t even seem possible to be talking about the A’s being in third place with the way things were going in the late part of May and early June.

You’ve got to look at where they are and the most important thing to look at where they are in the wild card standings and currently their eight games out of the final wild card spot. If you look at the wild card right now if they season ended today it would go down like this in the east it would be the Yankees, in the central it would be the Royals, and the Angels in the west.

The wild card teams would be Minnesota and Houston then you have to look at whose in front of the A’s trying to battle for that wild card situation. First of all you have Baltimore and in an interview with baseball analyst Peter Gammons Monday night Gammons said that Baltimore is really going to come into this trade deadline as a buyer on their last gasp.

They have a lot of players that are going to become free agents, their not going to afford to keep everybody and their going to have to be in a situation where they’re really going to have to retool after this year. So the O’s are going to be buyers, then you have Toronto who has really cooled off their at .500 right now, but they still can believe they can be in the thick of things so their going to be buyers.

Then you have Detroit the Tigers they never think their out of anything and right now their interested in being a buyer for another starting pitcher. Which they might be in a deal with the A’s, then you have Tampa Bay, the Rays are just too close to being into the wild card at this point. If the Rays can get players as a rental. You have Cleveland who are ahead of the A’s in the wild card they’re almost certainly going to be sellers.

Charlie O covers the A’s and the A.L. trade deadline at http://www.sportsradioservice.com listen to the podcast below