A’s hoping new faces make for same clubhouse chemistry

The roster that the A's will trot out for opening day looks so little like the team that ended the 2014 season, names should be on the front and back of jerseys to help fans identify all the new players.

In making so many changes, A's general manager Billy Beane was accused by some of breaking up team chemistry, a clubhouse mixture that has led to three consecutive postseason appearances. With nine trades in the offseason involving 27 players and the loss of seven prime free agents, the faces in the clubhouse have changed.

But after some early reservations, the A's players who remain from last season have come to believe that the good vibes that have historically resided in the Oakland clubhouse haven't gone anywhere.

Oakland Athletics second baseman Ben Zobrist (18) makes the throw to first base getting Los Angeles Angels batter Chris Iannetta out in the second inning of their spring training game at Hohokam Stadium in Mesa, Ariz., on Saturday, March 7, 2015. (Doug Duran/Bay Area News Group) ( Doug Duran )

"To me, the chemistry has been here longer than any of us in Oakland," catcher Stephen Vogt said. "Those old A's teams of the 1970s had it. They could come in, be relaxed, put away the personal stuff and just go out and play. That hasn't changed.

"(Manager) Bob Melvin tells us our identification is that we go hard and fight hard. And those are the guys that they bring in here. So the chemistry works with the new guys. It just does."

In recent years, that chemistry has spilled onto the field with postgame pies in the face, the "Bernie Lean" and home runs tunnels. Off the field, there have been the Darth Vader helmets, Vogt's NBA referee riffs and "going to the jungle," where players would coat their gums with extra-concentrated hot sauce before some games last year.

Already this year, former 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh, a friend of Melvin's, gave the team an identity, telling them in a clubhouse meeting that the A's reminded him of "jungle lions." The new Michigan head football coach said that jungle lions had a drive and ferocity that zoo lions don't.

The current run on team chemistry dates back to 2012, right fielder Josh Reddick recalls, when the team opened the season by playing two games in Japan against the Seattle Mariners.

"It was a super-huge rebuild that year, too," he said. "We got some special traction with the trip to Tokyo. There was more bonding on that 18-hour flight than there was in six weeks of spring training. You were face-to-face, roaming around the plane, meeting players' families, playing with their kids."

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A's hoping new faces make for same clubhouse chemistry