That's right. Shut em' both down. I don't want to see either one of them starting a game until after the All Star break. Starters throw too many pitches, and I want to see them hold up for a few months before exposing them to that level of stress. And I certainly don't want to see either one of them in the bullpen, where the erratic schedule can really damage them. Instead I want to merge them into one pitcher named HarDuke.

 

HarDuke is a two armed monster. The Harden arm throws the first 5 innings of the game, and then the Duke are throws the next 4. For the following game they flip it, and the Duke arm gets the first 5 innings followed by 4 innings of Harden. The rest of the bullpen wouldn't even have to warm up that day unless the game goes into extra innings. No matter how well or how badly the game goes, HarDuke will be the only one touching the ball for the first 10 innings.

 

 

Some of you may remember this post from before, and it's needed now more than ever. We all can see that Duke and Harden are incredible when they're healthy, and we know how fragile they are. Doing the same old thing is not worth it, and it's time to try something new. A two bodied player may be ineligible to win a Cy Young Award, but if together they pitch well enough to win one the A's will be in great shape. Say goodbye to Harden & Duke, and say hello to HarDuke.

 

 

[Heretical notion. A year ago our pitching pipeline was empty and we needed Braden as a future starter. We therefore had to take away his screwball to ensure he stayed healthy. Now that we have loads of solid prospects, we can afford to put him in the bullpen and let him throw his screwball. Not to be harsh, but we can now afford the injury risk of getting a truly unique player. Would you rather have a mediocre 6th starter, or one of the best left-handed bullpen arms in the game. I don't know myself, but it's worth thinking about.]

Poll

Shall we give HarDuke a shot?

47%

Yes. We have nothing to lose.

31 votes

20%

No. It's a waste of innings, since Duke and Harden will stay healthy all year no matter how much they pitch.

13 votes

32%

Don't care. Take Harden and Duke out back and shoot them since they're dead to me.

21 votes

65 votes | Poll has closed

We have two great pitchers - Duke and Harden - with major injury concerns. The starting rotation will expose them to a high inning count - thereby increasing the risk of injury, while putting them in the bullpen will expose them to both more frequent and less regular outings - thereby increasing the risk of injury! It seems like a no win situation.

Poll

Should we unleash the Two-Headed Monster?

7%

Other

6 votes

48%

Yes

40 votes

30%

No

25 votes

8%

Both

7 votes

6%

Neither

5 votes

83 votes | Poll has closed

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It’s much too early for this and some of you may accuse me of jinxing him, but look how Barton started his career. Of his first 13 big league games, he got hits for 11 of them, and had walks on the other 2, which means he reached first base in each of his first 13 games. I realize that’s not even close to the record, but I wonder what the record is. How many games would Barton need in order to set this very special rookie record?

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You may laugh, but look at the stats. We're almost at the All Star break, and the A's starters have 3 of the top 6 ERAs in the American League! We're all used to thinking of Blanton as an above average innings eater, but he's once again shown sparks of the same brilliance he did the 2nd half of his rookie season, when he was one of the best pitchers in baseball.

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Gustavo Chacín Born: Dec  4, 1980 - Maracaibo, Venezuela
Joe Blanton       Born: Dec 11, 1980 - Nashville, TN

Year Team  G GS W  L SV CG    IP    H  R ER HR BB   K  ERA WHIP  BAA  
 2005 TOR 34 34 13 09  0  0 203.0 213 93 84 20 70 121 3.72 1.39 .274  
 2005 OAK 33 33 12 12  0  2 201.1 178 86 79 23 67 116 3.53 1.22 .236  

Joe Blanton and Gustavo Chacín were separated at birth - by one week. Look how similar their overall stats were last year. Innings pitched, Runs, homeruns, balls, strike - these guys were nearly identical in every way. You can't find two pitcher who were more similar last year, let alone two rookies. They each did well in the ROY voting. It would have been great if we had both these guys - it's nice to have another lefty - but each of them are great in their own way and I'm more than happy with Blanton.

It seems that last year Blanton gave up fewer hits, while this year Chacín is doing better in that regard. If you look at DIPS though, these guys have been quite similar so far, and I wonder which of them will be the better pitcher 10 years from now. In the meantime, "Go A's" and "Smoke em' Cupcakes!"

Why Frank Thomas should hit leadoff!

I realize this will sound sacrilege, but there's more than enough evidence to prove the point. Look at Frank's stats when there are no out and no men on base: .345/.424/.862/1.286. That is also when he hit all 5 of his home runs this year. [When he didn't have 0 on and 0 out he was .111/.211/.142/.354] Whatever the reason may be, if he's most likely to be productive as a leadoff hitter, we should give him that opportunity as often as possible.

Now many will say we can't do it because Frank will clog up the bases. First of all, a 424 OBP is worth the tradeoff of a slower runner. In the worst case, during close games we can replace him with a faster runner who can then takeover the leadoff spot. More importantly though is that Frank will be followed in the lineup by Chavy and Swish, who have 20 homers (and 14 doubles) between them. Having more men on base, no matter how slow they are, will only help in those situations. Also bear in mind that Frank does have runs. He's been on the bases before and found his way home.

Frank wants to prove that the White Sox made a mistake in replacing him with Thome, who is on pace to have the best year of his career. He certainly has the drive, and already has been useful in helping Swish reach his prime. I say it's time to put him in the place where he'll do us the most good. I realize the Joe Morgans of the world will laugh at us - a lumbering giant as a leadoff hitter? Well guess what? If that's where he has an OBP over 400 and hits homeruns over 15% of the time, I say we give it to him.

The one problem I see is that Chavy needs a mighty bat behind him to reach his prime. A simple solution is to have Swish hit behind Chavy. Here is Macha suitable (alternating lefties and righties) lineup:

Thomas
Chavez
Swisher
Bradley  
Crosby
Kotsay
Ellis
Johnson
Kendall

This diary wouldn't be complete with giving much thanks to compy75 for giving me this idea with his excellent diary on May 1st

Update:

Today's game has further proven the point. Look at Frank's new splits between 0 on, 0 out and otherwise:

0 on 0 out 30 AB .367 / .467/ .967 / 1.433 6 HR

Otherwise 66 AB .106 / .213/ .136 / .350 0 HR

His AVG is 3.46 times better, OBP is 2.19 times better, SLG is 7.11 times better, OPS is 4.09 times better, and homeruns are infinitely better.

I think there must be a mental block going on over here, and Frank should hit leadoff until he gets his groove back.

Two quick points.

1. Frank Thomas may not be hitting well, but he's sure helping the team. Swisher gave Frank credit for helping him with his swing, and there is no doubt that his presence is giving Chavy the protection he needs to truly thrive.
   
2. Loaiza may need Kendall's help. Maybe Melhuse should switch to Zito, who can use a change of pace.

But now for the main point of this post: What do you think has been the four biggest surprises so far this year?

Here are my picks:

1. Frank Thomas is on pace to hit over 35 homers, yet has a batting average under .200 and an OBP of less that .270.
   
2. Swisher is on pace to break the Roger Maris steroid free home run record, and Chavy is right behind him.
   
3. Ellis has an OPS  of less than .500.
   
4. Kennedy has been outstanding, and if he continues like this will get us another pair of draft picks to go with the pair Zito will be getting us.

If anyone has a different top 4, I'd love to hear it.

One of the tenets of Moneyball is to use your best reliever when the score is closest, regardless of which team has the lead. Fortunately our bullpen is stacked this year with quality arms. Sarloos should be a #5 starter, not simply a long-man/mop-up guy. Street has Duke and Kiko setting up for him, Witasick has been good so far and is locked up at bargain basement prices, and Kennedy has been much improved since he focused on just being a reliever - and he has loads of incentives since he's in his walk year. Since we have several pitchers who could in theory close a game, I say it's time we use Street only when the game is tied or one run apart, whether it is the 9th, 8th, or even 7th or 6th inning.

Since baseball is a game of attrition played with pitchers arms, and warming up for a game also wears down pitchers, we should try to use our relievers for more than one inning whenever possible. Use them for 1.5, 2, or even more if need be. We should also use statistical analysis to see which pitchers should relieve which starters. It seems to me that since Duke's best pitch is his curve ball, having him relieve Zito is a bad idea. Even though one's a righty and the other's a lefty, after seeing Zito's curve all game, Duke's won't be as hard to hit. That however is just my completely uninformed opinion, and it may be total crap - in addition to being wrong. We can however use statistics to figure out who should relieve for who against which batters.

So that is my big wishlist for this season.
1)I would love to see Street called out in the middle of the 6th inning when it is a tie game with runners on first and second. That's when we need him most, so let's see him really help the teams, and not simply rack up the meaningless stat known as "saves".
2)Let's see relievers pitch more outs per outing, and thereby prepare for and pitch in fewer games each season, even as their total innings stay the same, to help keep them fresh throughout the season.
3)Let's see if there's some consistency in who relieves for who, which would indicate that Frost and Billy gave Macha info on the best way to mess with batters by getting the optimal reliever for each starter. (Essentially I want to pair each reliever to a starter, with Street saved for super tight game, and having either Kennedy or Sarloos always available in case a starter needs to leave the game early or extra innings is called for.)

The 2006 draft will be painful for us. If only Dotel And Durazo held up, we could have had two as many as four draft picks before the second round, but instead we'll have to sit out the first round this year. The good news is that we may have a good draft in 2007. It looks like we'll be keeping Zito this year, and if Meyer/Brandon/Windsor pan out we may not have to resign him. That will give us two additional draft picks. We also have JayPay and Joe Kennedy, who will walk after this year. Neither one is earning big bucks, so if they each have a good year we would be able to safely offer them arbitration. I realize the primary goal is to win now, but if Macha ever has the chance, he should pad the stats on these two to make them more desirable. If we are ever up by 3 in the ninth inning and have three average lefties up at bat, let Kennedy get the save so he can put it on his resume. Each of these guys has the incentive to make this year count and thereby earn a good free agent package. I hope Macha gives these guys the opportunity to prove themselves. If we have 3 free agents leave us, we could have as many as SEVEN draft picks before the 2nd round. It would be the Moneyball draft all over again, but with the lessons learned. (For some reason Atlanta made an exception to their usual strategy and went after the college aged Meyer while we ignored him completely.) The last Moneyball draft gave us two solid ROY candidates in the first round. I hope in 2007 we do even better.

Considering how little we're paying him, I think most people here would be happy if Frank Thomas gives us a repeat of his 2004 performance: 74 games, 18 HR, 434 OPS and 563 SLG. There is a chance though that he may be like the Frank Thomas of old and give us 150 games and 40 HR. He'll be with a winning team, and have plenty of protection with DJ, Crosby, Bradley and Swish hitting behind him. In addition to wanting to reach 500 HR, he'll want to prove that his former team made a big mistake in letting him go. While only in our wildest dreams will we have this problem, what if Frank Thomas remains healthy and has an incredible year, and helps us win the World Series? It seems that in such a case we'd have to resign him, and give him the big raise he'd deserve. It also seems he'd want to come back and further cement his case for the HOF.

It would also create a problem of what to do with Barton. If DJ is doing great, we wouldn't want to bench him just to make room for  Barton, no matter how promising he may seem. (Look at how we didn't give DJ a shot - even during a rebuilding year - when Hatty seemed to be doing well.) Will Barton start playing catcher more so that he'll have more to provide the team? Will he start experimenting at 2nd base and be given more chances at left field? Will we make him spend an extra year at AAA so that he'll be older and more developed when we get the first six years of his career?

While we may not have this problem, everyone here at AN should be hoping we do. If DJ and Thomas each have a career year, then Barton's only shot of making the team would be as a catcher, left fielder, or backup infielder. Otherwise he'd have to age a bit before joining the Rockin A's.