Simply put, yes.  They have already made enough moves to improve the pitching that they deserve some recognition.  The team that won the AL West for two consecutive seasons deserves to be the favorites after everything that they accomplished.  They won't be the favorites, though, but that didn’t stop them in 2012 and 2013.

In the 2012 season they were expected to possibly lose 100 games and have the worst season in recent Oakland history.  The team took a complete overhaul trading away two former all-star starting pitchers and a former all-star closer for a bucketful of prospects and signed an international unknown in Yoenis Cespedes.  The team came into the 2012 spring training needing name tags to know each other, but under the guidance of Manager Bob Melvin the team meshed and used chemistry to win the division on the final day of the season.

In the 2013 season they were still a favorite to make the playoffs, but big time moves made by the Los Angeles Angels and the revamped Texas Rangers put them on the back burner as favorites to win the division.  Even though they weren’t expected to win the division, they expected to win the division, and thanks to the exploits of surprise MVP candidate Josh Donaldson they again won the division championship.

This offseason it was the big signings of the Seattle Mariners, the health of the Los Angeles Angels and again the revamped Texas Rangers that makes people believe the Oakland Athletics won’t be able to do it again.  They were no slouches this offseason, though, and if any of these three teams is going to knock them off of the top they are going to have to run through a young offense that has another full season under their belts, a strong starting rotation, and a revamped bullpen that may be the best bullpen in the league.

So you can forget the big time signing of Robinson Cano by the Seattle Mariners.  You can forget about the health of slugger Albert Pujols and the rumored muscle weight gain of Josh Hamilton.  You can forget about the moves the Rangers made to fill the offense with Prince Fielder and Shin-Soo Choo.  You can forget about all of that, because just like the great man Ric Flair said, “To be the man you’ve got to beat the man,” and until they can knock the A’s of the top, they should still be the favorites.