Welcome to another installment of "Foam Peanut Chronicles," an irregular series of mostly non-inflammatory off-topic posts to kill time in between bursts of Hot Stove activity (Hot Stove my a$$... I'm still wearing shorts!) 

Today's topic is "The Best Albums Of 2000-2009, any genre"  Feel free to post your lists, comments, and commentary on said items.  Remember, some people use "best" as synonymous for "favorite," so make sure to clarify meanings before making any off-the cuff comments that would make anybody cry or anything...

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Good morning worker bees, drones, and queens.  It's time to relieve the AN constipation by taking a massive link dump.

Mychael Urban's most recent post on MLB.com is good filler, and hints that King Richard Harden and the A's medical staff didn't exactly see eye-to-eye during his time with the club.

People who spend too much time with slow motion on their DVR's seem to think that Mariano Rivera was spitting on the ball yesterday afternoon.  

Gratuitous Link #1-  My favorite episode of one of my favorite shows.  It's damn near unwatchable, and NSFW, but it's so brilliant that it makes my head explode.

Somebody reminded me that there are other sports than baseball going on this time of year.  He also reminded me that there are a lot of young people out there who have never heard of my favorite football player of all time, Earl Campbell.  He ran like Barry Sanders and hit like a Mack truck.

Gratuitous Link #2-  My favorite sketch from my favorite sketch comedy show of all time. (also NSFW) BTW, the guy at the far left of the table is the voice of SpongeBob!   

CC Sabathia is going to pitch on three days' rest today.  While, occasionally, this tactic works, it often fails.  My prediction is that he'll pitch five innings and give up four runs, three earned, and the Angels will win.  Congratulations and/or condolences, depending on which team you consider the lesser of two evils.

Gratuitous (Abstract) Link Dump-    White rapper, exploding crapper, I heart Wire, blimps on fire, Royals Review, flaming poo, more Mr. Show (NSFW), Pooh Suits on the go (NSFW), Digable Planets, Dammit Janet.

Finally, if you're not voting for Wally Cornelius in the Community Prospect Poll, you need to Check the log, check the record, check the guy's track record.

This post was just filler.  If it were an actual post, it would be full of hyperbole, straw man arguments, imprecise statistics, and spelling errors.

Ah, hah.  Thank ya very much!

How about that Patterson, eh?

He sure stinks it up off the bench, but now that he's in there every day, he's doing a fine job.   Just like Mr. Davis in center, playing every day allows him to get his rhythm, and put some numbers up on the board.

Too bad the A's can't have a 12 man lineup, 'cause a lot of our players (Barton, Patterson, Davis are the best examples) just can't get it done off the bench.  They need to be in there every day to keep up their hitting, and their timing is faulty coming off the bench.

Unless Patterson is penciled in to a starting spot next year (I would be surprised if he is, with all the depth ahead of him), he should be traded this offseason, possibly for a reasonably low-priced veteran bench presence who can produce without having to play every day. 

My completely right brain analysis is that I don't like the cut of his gib.  He shouldn't have been allowed to wear #1, which had been unofficially retired since Billy Martin was managing the club, and he's totally got the bad face.   He shouldn't wear his pants low and baggy either...  It makes him look like he has stick legs with no calves.

As for the left brain analysis, hopefully that will follow below, from AN's team of crack sabermetrician commenters.   I don't do that sort of stuff, because I'm the philosophy guy, not the math guy.  It's not in my job description.  Union rules, sorry.

Bill James has recently written a very profound and interesting article about steroids, the Hall of Fame, and how steroid users in the future will likely be looked upon as pioneers, rather than as pariahs.   Free Bill James content makes me happy, and hopefully you too.

Here's my token Brett Wallace link, to an early surface-level analysis of the trade from some mediocre corporate blog...

For further interesting filler, here's a performance of one of my favorite bands, Wire, on German TV in 1979.

Seriously, though... read the Bill James piece if you have time.  He's my favorite post WW-II philosopher, and for good reason, too.

Dammit, the A's should be playing .900 ball, for no other reason than we're A's fans and everybody else is not.  Is this reasonable?  Of course not...  But I'm telling you all what...  I'm sick and tired of being reasonable.   Being reasonable is the reason this whole ballclub is stuck in this middling morass of mediocrity.    I'm sick of ballclubs being run by "baseball people."   What the hell do baseball people know about baseball? They just play it, and they act like being a good player is the be/all end all of baseball experience.   In the locker room, the amount of respect a player gets comes from how much money he makes and how good his stats are, not his intelligence, savvy, or personal brilliance (or lack thereof!)   I wouldn't let an ex-player even sniff a management/coaching position unless he happened to also be of genius level intelligence and have a burning obsession for victory.  

 "Hissho" is what it's called in Japan, and it translates to "Desperate Victory..."   basically, the idea is that today is the end of the world, and in order to be able to live with yourself in the afterlife, which will be coming immediately after the game, you need to f***ing win, to redeem your mortal soul...      I seriously heart this philosophy, and would like to see more of its' implementation/use among coaching staffs and non-star players...    Star players should only play defense and run bases at 90-95% to avoid DL stints for hamstring pulls and other nagging injuries.  However, I want to see 110% effort from the scrubs at all times, because they are eminently replaceable.  It is also the duty of a quality organization to maintain a good blend of medium-ceiling prospects and AAAA-type players in AAA to replace the injured...  

A gung-ho win win win mentality can't just be put on or taken off like clothing.  It must be planted like a seed and nurtured.  First, it is important to pull the weeds and the old dying crops from the plot of land one wishes to sow.  Even though the dying tomato bushes might produce another fruit or two, it is better in the long run to suffer a short-term tomato shortage than long-term starvation due to inefficient crop rotation.   This means that in order to implement a hardcore culture of winning, house must be cleaned of anyone and everyone who plays more for himself than for the team.   Extreme egos must go.  Players who accept winning and losing on an even keel must go.  Members of management with interests other than success of the franchise and winning every possible game on every level must go...   If it so happens that the most physically talented players or most intellectually gifted members of management are unable to maintain a total commitment to creating a winning franchise, then they have to go, too.   Players who get down on themselves and get in severe funks have to go.   Players who can not generate artificial confidence/arrogance/bravado to sublimate/defeat self-doubts and fears have to go too.

A club that wins every year has to have somebody very strong at the top, who works harder than anyone else in the organization...  Someone that hates losing and spends nearly every waking minute either working or brainstorming to make the organization better.   I would prefer that this someone have no spouse or family, and basically be married to the ballclub like a priest is married to the church.   This person can be a baseball genius (GM) or an organizational genius (Club President) who maintains a hive of sublimate baseball geniuses; that part doesn't matter.  However, this person has to be the positive inspiration for club employees and players to work hard to win, and the negative inspiration to make people afraid to lose. 

The manager of this club needs to be someone smart enough to help design the build of the club and its' corresponding strategies, and someone who is willing to stick to those strategies and not do a bunch of dumb maverick Ozzie Guillen shit.    The manager needs to take an active role in the emotional health of his team, massaging certain players' egos, while kicking other players in the ass.   He can be a brilliant tactician, but if he's not, he can easily be surrounded with the right coaches and sabermetricians to make all the tough decisions for him.   It's important that he gets in an argument with a player or two each year to set his boundaries and emphasize the importance of team play, concentration, hustle, and winning.   It's also important that he gets kicked out of a game or three each year because, otherwise, the umpires would see his club as weak and would have no reason to fear making bad calls against his club.

As for the players, we would draft less on college statistics and performance scouting, and put way more emphasis on psych profiles, hand-eye coordination tests, and coachability.   It is likely this club would draft most of its' players out of HS, preferring four years of intensive team-controlled training to four years under a college coach.   

Team-controlled training wouldn't just be light coaching and the expectation that the wheat would sort itself out from the chaff.   Team-controlled training would take the more useful elements of intensive Japanese style training, and add much more personal coaching than any prospect ever gets in any minor league system today.    

This club would not only likely have 10-15 coaches per roster (some players with a personal coach), but likely the club would sponsor teams in the Mexican Leagues and possibly create more minor league affiliates at the Rookie- Low A levels in order to foster/train more talent.   It's the Branch Rickey method, circa 1930, and it worked then, and it can work now.   It would cost a few extra million a year, but the key, of course, is to sign more prospects cheaper and train them with maximum efficiency.

A beautiful by-product of this intensive baseball culture of winning is that once it's established, it doesn't take nearly as much energy to maintain as it does to get started.  Winning is addictive, and a player who was raised in an intensive team culture of winning might end up more addicted to winning than to the almighty dollar.  Hometown discounts aplenty...  It would be like the Patriots football club, where players take less money to stay because they know they're gonna win a lot of games, and life is gonna be good.

This, as well as a creative system of paying star players ownership percentages of the club, held in trust until retirement, should be good enough to retain enough homegrown stars to keep the club competitive at all times.

Yet, even with total commitment from management and players, even more of a commitment is necessary from the fans.   Immediate creation of 'Oendans,' another Japanese concept loosely translated as 'Fan Clubs' or 'Booster Clubs,' would serve to foster a group of raucous, loyal, football game loud fans.   In Japan, Oendan members wear uniforms, attend cheering practices, and are absolutely serious about their rooting.  It's almost like a job.   The only way we could get Americans to go this apeshit over a baseball team would be to pay them to attend... which, oddly enough, is exactly what this club would do.   Oendan leaders would be paid employees of the ballclub, and Oendan members would get their tickets at a nominal price, as well as a shitload of perks...  A couple of Oendan sections would be set up around the ballpark, with one in a nice (but not too nice!) part of the ballpark, and of course, one in a crappy section (where newbies would have to pay their dues before getting promoted to a better Oendan!)  

Giving away tickets indiscriminately is dangerous.  The point of giving a ticket away is to entice a seat to be filled that wouldn't otherwise be filled.  Yet, a person with a free ticket still could choose not to go to the game.   Well, this club would create season ticket programs for the most undesirable sections of the park that would, in effect, pay people to sit there.  This could be done through means like selling tickets with a $10 food voucher for $8, for example, which would entice the value conscious.  Another idea would be the Senior Bonus program, where Seniors over 55 could get a special non-premium season ticket program in which they are given a team debit/Visa card that gets swiped at entry and credits the patron with $3, as well as a 10% discount on any food/merch bought in the park with the card.  Some thrifty folks might never buy a thing, but most people want a hotdog or a beer when they watch the game, and would spend over the initial credit on high profit ballpark food/merch.  As an owner, I'd rather have a full seat and amazing public goodwill for the loss of a few pennies than an empty seat to save a few pennies.   

Of course, this club would be cutting-edge with its' promotions and seating arrangements.   As soon as marijuana gets legalized, there would be an open air stoner section with cutting-edge ventilation systems to keep the park from turning into a hazy Grateful Dead concert.  A 21 & over singles bar/section for every game, with slightly overpriced tickets, but discounted alcohol within that section only...   Multiple 'family' sections, with mascot(s) and no smoking and no swearing...   And multiple 'Loudmouth Asshole' sections (separated by plexiglas barriers from other sections) where people can get drunk and fight and be horrible people in general and get away with it, while not ruining the ballpark experience for others...  We'd keep abreast of every minor league team in the country, from AAA to independent leagues, and rip off/adapt their quirky/cool promotions.  The major leagues need a little bit of country-style cornpone promotion to strip off some of the unwarranted arrogance.   Being serious about being major league is elitist and silly.  The only thing to be truly 110% serious about in sports is winning.

It frustrates us all when the A's lose.  I personally know that it frustrates me so much that I have to take a step back and be more of a fair weather fan, otherwise my life would be total garbage...  I'd beat my wife and drunkenly wreck my motorcycle if I took all these losses to heart.

Even in the glorious years of the Big Three and Tejada and Dye and all those cats, the 60-65 losses a season still took a huge toll on me...   About the only time I was truly satisfied was during the 20 game winning streak.   Finally, things were going decently, for once, as they should be...

I used to pick on Yankees' fans for expecting their team to win EVERY DAY and being rude and angry when they didn't.  Now, I'll still pick on Yankees' fans for being rude and underinformed, but just like an addict has to come to terms with his/her problem someday, I right here and now am coming to terms that maybe I'm a lot more like the Yankee fans than I thought I was...

I know it's unreasonable to expect these 2009 A's to win every day.  It might be unreasonable to expect them to be too terribly much over .500 when the season's over.  Maybe I don't actually EXPECT a victory every day, but I want one and I get pissed off when one doesn't come...  

You should have seen me screaming at the TV when Springer kept giving up foul after foul to Lopez last night. (I wonder if Bill James ever researched 10+ pitch AB's to find out what the hitters' OPS is in those AB's compared to career stats...)   If that scenario had been going down in my videogame, I would have pulled Springer mid-AB after the 3rd or 4th foul, because, by then, I knew in my heart that Lopez would gut it out for a hit.   But I guess you can't do that in real life, 'cause you'd hurt the guy's feelings or something...

It's times like those that I wish A's clubhouse culture were more cancerous...  a group of selfish ravenous dogs fighting against their asshole manager by taking their aggressions out on the rest of the American League...  Kinda like the 70's teams were, except they were united against Finley, not Dark or Williams...   Lots of fights... lots of purpose pitches...  

I miss the mores and ideals of 70's sports...  Back then, they paid more heed to the idea that sports serve as a surrogate for aggression and warfare, and the players seemed to play a lot more aggressively and recklessly.  Now that players can become wealthy members of the business class, they protect their bodies more and don't play as recklessly, because their bodies are now high-return assets, instead of mere tools to do a job...   

These days, though, especially in the Midwest, there are a lot of fans that stay positive and say "Oh well... go get 'em next time" when their club loses, and they don't wake up the next morning to negative headlines and 800 blog comments about how bad their team stunk the night before...   This modern era might be a true golden age for this sort of fan.   The players are as PC and sanitized as they've ever been...  There's very little cheating, and most of the umpires are pretty decent  (Angel Hernandez would have sucked biscuits in any era!).   Plus, the players have more longevity because they don't play through serious injuries anymore, and have the strongest union in the world.  I don't know, though.   Cardinal baseball reminds me of hospitals for some reason... all clean and sanitized and spotless, but, dude, yer ass is hanging out!

Oh well... this post is just filler anyway.  I only wrote it because I wrote about 10 comments the other day bitching that there's not enough content on AN these days, and since I can write at least a little better than a fourth grader, I figured I'd do my part.

It looks like Mark Mulder is almost ready to pitch again and is ready to sign.

Of course, the obvious team to sign him is the Angels, with all of their pitching woes, but their hardheaded insistence on replacing the wounded in-house keeps them from pulling the trigger.   Bill Shaikin of the LA Times hammers Scioscia and company for this policy in an article from yesterday.

The Dodgers are down.

This recent news blurb suggests the Nationals are interested.  You would think that their fans might be a little bit excited.  Nothing shaking on Federal Baseball though.

What do you folks think?  Should we gamble on a guy who used to be a big stud for us, or should we pay greater heed to letting the young talent develop?

I personally think that this team should be in go-for-it mode until Seattle proves they're for real (I don't think they are) or the Angels recover from all of their injuries, tragedies, and managerial stupidity (2 out of 3 if they're lucky).  This division looks wide open and winnable with 85-90 wins.

Therefore, I think we should sign Mark Mulder to a low-guarantee, heavy-incentive deal, put Outman in the pen, and try to get something for Eveland from somebody (Washington, maybe?)  

If Mulder gets hurt again, bring up Gonzalez or Mazzaro.  No great loss.  If Mulder regains his form... huge gain.

Anyway... long story short...

Go A's!  Go away Eveland!  (nothing personal... just business)