SB Nation User Blog: Doug

Calling it/Bragging Rights thread

Doug — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 14:56:13 -0000

With the second season upon us, I thought it would be fun to provide a clearinghouse for predictions, guarantees, and other bold statements. For example, here's mine:

The A's will make it past the division series for the first time in the Beane era.
Thomas will be good, but Chavez is going to have a monster postseason and will be our MVP.
Harden will win the clinching game in each series that we play
Saarloos will be the bullpen MVP
Kendall will hit a home run in the ALCS
Feel free to add your own, or argue with mine :).

DLD 5/13-Watson heading to Japan

Doug — Sat, 13 May 2006 16:10:15 -0000

No witty intro, just saw this story on the Bee and it took me by surprise.

http://www.sacbee.com/content/sports/story/14255034p-15070448c.html

In short, "He hugged his teammates, shook hands with the coaching staff and walked away from the team . . . Watson is leaving the River Cats to play in Japan. . . Watson played in only 34 big-league games since being selected by the Montreal Expos in the 16th round of the 2002 free-agent draft. But Watson has flourished in the Pacific Coast League since the A's claimed him off waivers before the 2004 season. . . "

Looks as though he got tired of waiting for his break with the A's, I wish him the best of luck (and it looks like the Free Matt Watson committee needs a new target-Jeremy Brown anyone?). Feel free to add to the linkage, discuss how the vagaries of talent and the well-timed hot streak can lead to a career as a fourth OFer, or to gnash your teeth and pull your hair over Duke's trip to the DL.

Turning points

Doug — Thu, 29 Sep 2005 03:59:03 -0000

So, with the A's season coming to an early close next week, I've been thinking about the season that was and trying to identify one moment that could be considered the turning point, for better or worse. You can make arguments for Crosby's return, Harden's second injury, the acquisition of Jay Payton, but given the last few days, I think the turning point was the august 31st game v. the Angels when Chavy came a stiff breeze shy of a walk-off home run against K-rod. Thoughts? Pick your turning point, I'm curious what others think. Here's to 2006!

Smoak is gone

Doug — Fri, 19 Aug 2005 02:04:45 -0000

In Baseball America's Daily Dish:

"School's back, at least in some parts of the country. Once 2005 draft picks attend their first college class, teams can no longer negotiate with them. South Carolina's recruiting class improved as Justin Smoak and Reese Havens both began their freshman year this morning. Smoak, a switch-hitting first baseman from Goose Creek, S.C., slipped out of the first three rounds but still turned down a signing bonus approaching $1 million from the Athletics, who picked him in round 16. Havens, a shortstop/third baseman from Charleston drafted by the Rockies in the 29th round, passed on a bonus in or more than $1 million."

Well, it was worth a 16th round pick, it's just a shame that they couldn't close the deal, especially when it seemed like they weren't very far apart on money. Do people think Billy was serious about wanting him as a player, or do you think he was looking at him as a trading chip in the near future and didn't want to pay him too much? I think the A's draft class is still strong even without Smoak, but this drops it from Great to Solid until we find out who among the HS fireballers is for real (lansford sure looks good so far, not really a fireballer, but you get the idea). Thoughts on the draft? Should the A's have coughed up another $100k for Mr. Smoak?

Torii Hunter

Doug — Sat, 30 Jul 2005 02:45:55 -0000

Kind of morbid, but ESPN just put out that Torii Hunter tore a tendon, possibly his Achilles, in his left ankle and will miss at least the month of August. This is obviously a blow to the Twins hopes of chasing down the wild card. Even though he's had an off year offensively, no one on the team can replace his defense in CF. Do you think the Twins will now make a serious run at Mike Cameron? Or do they stand pat and hope for the best? This could also impact that ginormous Ramirez trade being talked about. Anything that gets him out of the AL (and if he is going to the Mets, out of contention) is fine by me. I can't be happy about this b/c he got hurt, but this will seriously hamper Minnesota's ability to challenge for the Wild Card.

Blez in the news!

Doug — Fri, 29 Jul 2005 16:42:46 -0000

Today's Sac Bee: http://www.sacbee.com/content/sports/baseball/oak_athletics/story/13316365p-14158476c.html

Other than the Blez quotation at the end, this article kind of got me thinking about the A's moving to Sacto. I know this has been hashed and rehashed several times, but I'm now beginning to wonder if the plans for a smaller stadium, Wolff citing the lack of A's corporate support as a factor in that move (one of the arguments against moving the team was the lack of large corporations in Sacramento), and the related comments about wanting to expand the season ticket base are preludes to an A's move in the near future. Thoughts?

A's in Minnesota

Doug — Wed, 06 Jul 2005 21:22:51 -0000

I was wondering if any ANers would be there when the A's come to Minnesota at the beginning of August. I'm going on either Tuesday or Wednesday night, and the presence of another A's fan could help me decide. Here's hoping that series will have big playoff implications.

Extra characters . . . . . . . . . . .

Ghost writing

Doug — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 15:08:40 -0000

A though occurres to me while reading a rant about Joe Morgan over at MinorLeagueBall. We talk about some of the schmucks they have writing for ESPN.com (Kruk, Morgan, etc.)-how much of that do you think is their own writing and how much of it is handed off to the intern? I've never been 'behind the scenes' at a place like ESPN, so I don't know how often the process is used. I also don't watch BT or Sportscenter enough to know if the writing 'sounds' like them, so I thought I'd throw it out there. Might this explain some of Joe's irrational moments (Dissing moneyball when he's never read it, in particular), or is he just a wacky old coot?

Morgan with a head scratcher

Doug — Wed, 01 Jun 2005 18:21:25 -0000

http://insider.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?columnist=morgan_joe&id=2073496

Somehow manages to advocate a stat-head idea (saves are overrated, use your best reliever in the critical situation) and turn it into a hankering for the good old days when men were men and pitchers threw until their labrums caught fire. Bizzare.

ACES

Doug — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 04:30:50 -0000

Just finished reading Aces, thought I would start a diary for discussion. My overall impression was good. As someone who reads every scrap of A's news he can get his hands on, there was not as much earth-shattering material in there as there would be for the less rabid fan, but I thought it was a crystal clear window into the kind of life and times of Tim, Mark, and Barry specifically and big league pitchers in general. Really liked the game lines in the back, that will probably be the part of the book I will come back to again and again in the future. Thumbs up to Mychael, but when I see it on my shelf in 5 years I'm sure I'll be thinking 'What might have been . . . . '

Special moments:

-GnGG is not going to like the section where Barry discusses Alyssa Milano, but since they have broken up I'm sure it's all good

-Special irony to Hudson's admiration of the Cardinals

-In the beginning Mychael mentions how the life of a beat writer has changed in the past thirty years. I think the way his access translated into this story will be very popular and could help bring the balance back towards the old-school ways (at least in certain situations)

-Kind of cathartic reliving last season through the book, still remember Mecir coming into the game against the Angels, remember watching Hudson get hammered against Boston in September, glad I had time to get through it all in one day.

-The discussions about Peterson were particularly interesting, my hasty conclusion would be that he is a young/inexperienced pitcher's coach, a development type.

I'd love to hear what everyone else thinks. Also got my prospect handbook in the same shipment, so it has been a great baseball weekend for me :).