Best Of The Oakland Athletics: Top 10 Utility Seasons
By Phil Watson
Spring training is well under way and position players are due to report to camp this week as we continue looking at the best single-season performances in the history of the Oakland Athletics and San Francisco Giants by position.
Today is a different sort of day as we look at 10 of the best utility seasons in the history of the Athletics, dating back to their arrival in Oakland in 1968.
The series alternates each day and will conclude with the best players by position in the history of each franchise. So far, we’ve featured the 10 best seasons for the A’s at at shortstop, catcher, left field and second base.
To qualify at a position, a player needed 100 games at the position in a season. This category is for players who met the 100-game requirement while playing multiple positions, not reaching the 100-game threshold at any single spot. This requirement was not prorated for the strike-shortened seasons of 1981 or 1994.
Before you turn the page, here are the seasons that just missed the cut:
15. Joe Rudi, 1975 (1B-LF-DH)
14. Wayne Gross, 1980 (3B-1B-DH)
13. Jack Cust, 2007 (DH-RF-LF)
12. Scott Hatteberg, 2002 (1B-DH)
11. Nick Swisher, 2006 (1B-LF-DH-CF-RF)