As if the boatloads of young talent received in recent trades wasn’t enough, the rival Oakland A’s made another upgrade by signing super-prospect Michel Inoa with a record breaking $4.25M signing bonus.

Oakland is already winning with what they have on the field right now, and I’ve already mentioned how nervous their minor league system makes me in regards to the next 5-10 years, so it’s moves like this that make me think that the A’s will be the team to beat in the AL West for quite a while, starting in the near future.  Inoa is young enough to flop, obviously, but it’s the A’s strategy that I’m talking about; building a potential powerhouse from the ground up.

For the record, Seattle was in the mix for Inoa for a short while.