--RHP Russ Springer signed a one-year deal worth $3.3 million, and he could earn an additional $300,000 in incentives based on games played. The 40-year-old veteran will be one of the team's primary set-up men, along with whichever second-year reliever -- Brad Ziegler or Joey Devine -- does not end up as the closer. Springer has had sub 2.50 ERAs in each of the past two years.
--RHP Andrew Brown had season-ending shoulder surgery on Jan. 29 and the A's let him go in order to clear a spot on the 40-man roster for Russ Springer. Brown, a reliever, had a 10-percent tear in his right rotator cuff repaired by Dr. James Andrews in Birmingham, Ala. In addition, Andrews fixed a small labrum tear and addressed bursitis in the joint. --LHP Ron Villone is among the veteran relievers the A's might target in the final two weeks before pitchers and catchers report. Villone, 39, was new Oakland reliever Russ Springer's teammate in St. Louis last year.
--2B Jemile Weeks, the A's top pick in last year's draft, will be fully able to participate in big-league spring training, assistant general manager David Forst told the San Francisco Chronicle. Weeks missed the second half of 2008 with a torn hip flexor and there was fear that he had incurred a sports hernia, but Forst told the paper that the final diagnosis was edema in the area of the original injury.
--RHP Michael Inoa, the 6-foot-7 Dominican teenager the A's signed to a $4.25 million deal last year, will be at extended spring training, as the team had suggested after he signed. Inoa, 17, has been working out at the A's academy in the Dominican Republic.
BY THE NUMBERS: 16 -- The number of big-league seasons Russ Springer has pitched in the big leagues -- 14 more than any other reliever on Oakland's 40-man roster.
QUOTE TO NOTE: "I wouldn't just go anywhere. I feel Oakland has a chance to win the division and take me to the World Series before my career is done." -- Reliever Russ Springer, 40, after signing a one-year deal with the A's.
