Oakland A's Ship Mark Ellis to Colorado Rockies; Will More Moves Follow?

The A's made their first major roster move of the pre-trade deadline season today when they traded Mark Ellis to the Colorado Rockies for minor league pitcher Bruce Billings.

This marks the departure of the A's longest tenured player and leaves Billy Beane as the A's sole link to their contending teams of the early 2000's.

Jemile Weeks, hitting over .300 since his call up in early June, has already established himself as the starting second baseman. The trade of Ellis just makes it official.

This trade still doesn't really inform other teams whether the A's will be buyers or sellers at the deadline. The A's appear to be fading over the past few weeks, which might signify the potential departures of Josh Willingham, David DeJesus, Grant Balfour and Michael Wuertz, to name a few.

The A's have a number of members of their farm system, Chris Carter, Adrian Cardenas and Michael Taylor, to name a few, that could benefit from the departure of a few veterans.

The offense is still woefully ineffective, and any influx of youth a la Weeks would do wonders for the A's and their future. The pitching staff is still strong, and with the prominent returns of Rich Harden, Brandon McCarthy and Tyson Ross, the A's may have more starting pitching heading out the door via trade. I can't make an educated guess as to who would potentially be traded. But Josh Outman and Guillermo Moscoso could be traded.

Gio Gonzalez, the A's only real All-Star candidate, has been mentioned in a few trade rumors, but it seems highly unlikely Billy Beane would pull the trigger unless it would land the A's a massive bat in return.

Just one month til the trade deadline, and I still don't know what the A's will look like on August 1. All I know, is that Mark Ellis will not be in the green and gold any longer.