Athletics continue road trip against Cubs

Baseball Betting Lines

06/15/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Oakland Athletics are still searching for a win on their current road trip, as they begin a three-game series against the Chicago Cubs this evening from historic Wrigley Field.

Oakland was swept in three games at San Francisco to kick off the nine-game excursion and fell to 4-9 this month following Sunday's 6-2 loss against the Giants at AT&T Park. Jack Cust had a team-high three hits and both Kevin Kouzmanoff and Landon Powell knocked in a run for the A's, who received a rough outing from starter Vin Mazzaro.

Mazzaro allowed four runs -- three earned -- and six hits through six innings to suffer his first loss of the 2010 campaign (2-1).

"We had too many things go wrong in a three-game series to overcome," said Oakland manager Bob Geren.

Kouzmanoff is riding a 14-game hitting streak in which he owns three homers and 11 RBI. Oakland will also visit St. Louis on the trek and is four games off the lead in the American League West standings.

Trevor Cahill hopes to get the A's back into the win column when he makes his 10th start of the season tonight. Cahill is 4-0 with a 1.91 earned run average over his last five starts and defeated the LA Angels of Anaheim the previous time out on Thursday, as he tossed eight innings of one-run ball.

Cahill, a right-hander, pushed his record to 5-2 and lowered his ERA to 2.91 after it was 4.37 following a loss to the Angels back on May 16. He has never faced the Cubs in his career.

The Cubs will continue a nine-game homestand Tuesday and ended a three-game slide by salvaging the finale of a three-game set versus the crosstown-rival White Sox with a 1-0 win on Sunday behind a stellar performance by Ted Lilly.

Lilly did not allow a hit through eight innings and permitted a leadoff single to Juan Pierre in the ninth inning. Lilly struck out three batters in just his second win of the season and Carlos Marmol posted his 13th save despite walking a pair of hitters in a scoreless ninth inning.

"We're in a situation there where they're going to have a chance to tie it up," Lilly said. "How many times in those situations have we seen where Marmol walks a guy or falls behind in the count and then finds a way?"

Chad Tracy drove in the lone run of the game in the seventh inning for Chicago, which is 7 1/2 games off the lead in the NL Central.

Carlos Zambrano will try to build off his latest winning start when he takes the mound tonight. A recent demotion to the bullpen may have worked for Zambrano, who recently took the hill in a 9-4 win at Milwaukee last Wednesday and yielded three runs in five innings.

Zambrano is 2-4 with a 6.05 earned run average in 19 games -- six starts -- this season and will face Oakland for the second time in his career. The fiery right-hander beat the A's back on June 20, 2004 and held them to a run and five hits with eight K's in 6 2/3 innings of a 5-3 victory.

Chicago won two of three meetings with Oakland from June 18-20 of the 2004 campaign and is 93-100 against the American League. The Athletics own a solid 131-105 ledger in games played against the Senior Circuit.

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FOOTBALL BETTING : Crabtree's base deal: six years, $32 million

Football Betting

In the wake of the news that the 49ers have signed receiver Michael Crabtree after an extended holdout, there has been not a hint of the dollars to be paid to Crabtree.

And since this means that his agent hasn't leaked the numbers, it means that his agent feels no specific motivation to do so.

Possibly because his agent isn't all that thrilled to have his name on the deal.

So the numbers will come from sources other than Crabtree's agent. And we've gotten our mitts into them.

Per a league source, Crabtree has signed a six-year, $32 million contract. (The total includes guaranteed money, base salaries, and the one-time incentive based on achieving minimum playing time.)

The deal also includes $17 million in guaranteed money.

As reported elsewhere, the deal can void to five years based on performance triggers, wiping out a final year base salary of $4 million. But they won't be easily reached.

The source tells us that, in his first four seasons (including 2009), Crabtree must either qualify for two Pro Bowls, or he must qualify for one Pro Bowl in one year and he must participate in 80 percent of the offensive snaps in a separate year in which the team makes the playoffs.

In other words, if in 2010 he qualifies for the Pro Bowl and the team makes the playoffs and he participates in 80 percent of the snaps, he'll still need to make it to the Pro Bowl or achieve the 80-percent/playoffs in another season.

Since the chances of Crabtree making the Pro Bowl or participating in 80 percent of the offensive snaps this year is roughly zero percent, he'll have three years to get it done.

And it won't be easy. Frankly, he'll be hard pressed to make it to one Pro Bowl in three years with the likes of Larry Fitzgerald, Calvin Johnson, Anquan Boldin, Steve Smith, the other Steve Smith, Hakeem Nicks, DeSean Jackson, Johnny Knox, Percy Harvin, Greg Jennings, Roddy White, T.J. Houshmandzadeh in the same conference for sportsbook betting.

So, by all appearances, it's a six-year deal. And at $17 million in guaranteed money, the per-year guarantee is a tepid $2.83 million per year.

There's another problem with the deal -- it has no mid-tier incentive package. Instead, the additional $8 million that Crabtree can earn (pushing the max value to six years, $40 million) requires the kind of unrealistic, mega-star performances that no rookie is likely to ever achieve.

So while the contract paid to Packers defensive tackle B.J. Raji covers five years and pays $22.5 million, he has the ability (if he's a solid player) to make up the difference between his base deal and Crabtree's five-year, $28 million haul via the mid-tier incentive package in Raji's deal.

And unless Crabtree meets the performance thresholds necessary to void the sixth year, he'll be stuck under contract for another year at a base salary of only $4 million.

There's one other area of concern with the deal. Crabtree, per the source, received no option bonus. Instead, he has significant money tied to a fairly new device known as a "discretionary salary advance," which unlike an opition bonus is subject to forfeiture if Crabtree decides in a year or two that he wants to hold out for a better deal. (We're also told that the 49ers have included language that would make certain escalators subject to forfeiture, too.)

Meanwhile, the deal falls well short of the mark for which Crabtree and agent Eugene Parker were aiming -- the five-year, $38.25 million contract paid by the Raiders to receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey, the seventh overall pick in the draft.

Even if Crabtree successfully voids the final year, he'll make more than $2 million per year less on average than Heyward-Bey.

Thus, as we explained earlier in the day, this is a deal that Crabtree could have done in July, which would have given him a much better chance of making a contribution to the 49ers during his rookie year.

So while the final outcome can be described as win-win, the broader view suggests that it's really a lose-lose situation.

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