At this time last year, no one knew if Mark Ellis would play baseball again on the major-league level. Doctors had cautioned him that no player ever had come back from the kind of catastrophic shoulder injury he'd incurred in a collision with shortstop Bobby Crosby the previous spring. Ellis not only played second for the A's all year, but he also led the team in hitting with a .316 average, making for one of the most heartwarming stories in baseball in 2005. And now, after enduring so much uncertainty over his future, Ellis, 28, will have a big new contract and plenty of job security and financial stability: The A's are expected to announce as soon as today that they have agreed to terms on a three-year deal with Ellis worth roughly $11 million, according to a source familiar with the negotiations. The contract will take Ellis all the way through his arbitration years.