It is officially my birthday now so I thought I'd give a gift to all of AN and make a DLD for this wonderous day!

Today is the 169th day of the year and there are 196 days left until everyone wakes up with an enormous hangover. Some highlights of this day include, but are not limited to:

• Amelia Earhart was the first woman to fly across the Atlantic, although this time she was merely a passenger, in 1928.
• Sir Paul McCartney was born in 1942 on this day, as well as non-Sir Roger Ebert.
• As far as baseball goes, Jack Buck sadly passed away on this day in 2002 and Larry Doby followed in 2003. Well there goes my thoughts of jubilation...
• And for all you Tom Cruise fans, today is Academy Day if you are a Scientologist.

As for some real stuff:

Scientists have discovered transparent frogs, Kyle Farnsworth is the other other white meat, and this man is the human race's best candidate for being the first person to fly.

Finally, since it's my birthday I feel that I should be lucky today. So I'm going to try my hand at one shot of Kitten Cannon. My score is.......... a measly 738 feet. I guess I won't go to any casinos today.

That's all I got folks, prepare for dumpage in 3...2...1...wait we have a leak. Oh well, maybe next time.

Hello AN! Let me start by saying how happy I am to see the big league club FINALLY performing well and starting to gel as the weather starts to warm. Sound familiar?

Now on to business...

This past offseason should have been a happy time for every A's fan on earth unless you were a fan of Huston Street, Greg Smith, and/or Carlos Gonzalez. However, what ended up happening was AN lost a large number of its more prolific posters. This has happened a lot since I joined this wonderful, A's-loving community but not to this degree. I remember the wonderful DLDs where Sharon, Jennifer, and salb918 had countless discussions about a certain welcoming, larger-than-life snowman. I remember PaulThomas' excellent stats, dry wit, and (at times) harsh demeanor. I remember monkeyball's poetic interludes, jd44's blunt yet needed analysis, grover's and xbhaskar's regular posting, Apricot, Ice Cream, and McFood as themselves, and most importantly the AN of the past.

Before the current residents of AN begin polishing their proverbial pitchforks let me say that I still love AN. There isn't a day gone by where I haven't checked this website many times. I'm not here to condemn the current heads of this site and I'm not here to say that the people who do post regularly are subpar. What I am doing is asking that AN's long lost brothers and sisters return, despite their differing opinions on the current state of this blog.

Of course life can get in the way so if these missing posters are just living their lives and aren't able to come to AN regularly then they don't need to feel bad. But if they left because they felt that AN was getting too political or yahoo-ey then they need to know that there are tons and tons of members who miss their invaluable contributions. I say this because I am absolutely certain that the majority of AN misses its founding fathers and mothers. The group we have now is awesome but it certainly lacks the insights and products provided from the aforementioned MIAs.

I am writing this hoping that they still read AN enough to see this call to action and that our community will become even more populated. If nobody comes back then I would just like to say that I hope our community continues to expand and educate the uneducated, inspired the uninspired, and enrich the poor. But really the bottom line is how much better we are than Halo's Heaven and we shouldn't refuse any additional help.

On an aside: Everyone needs to stop recognizing the stats vs. non-stats debate. Stats are essential in baseball as is scouting. If neither was important then they wouldn't be used by GMs on an every day basis. Neither side needs to proclaim that they are superior because there's no reason why either should exist without the other. Respect stats and respect eyeball analysis and we're all good. But mainly respect other people and then we're definitely on the right path.

I will now defer to a (snow)man much more influential than myself to convince you to return:

via robertd.files.wordpress.com

From Slusser's notes today was this interesting tidbit about the TV woes of many so far this season:

We have been getting some questions from viewers who have Comcast but are not getting the game on Comcast Channel 89. Fans must have a DTA box to receive the games. They can not go directly from the cable in the wall to the TV. The DTA boxes are FREE of charge with no additional monthly fee. Fans can get up to two with remote controls for each home. They simply call 1-800 COMCAST and ask for a DTA Box to receive the A' s games. They will be delivered to their homes for free or subscribers can pick them up at their local Comcast Store location.

I called my Dad back home to tell him this and he rushed down to the Comcast Store in our town and sure enough he got 2 free DTA boxes for our house. He asked the agent at the store if I could get one for my college dorm and she said that it should work the same as at home as long as my college has a Comcast account. I called the store in my college town to see if this was true and he said he needed to check the account info. and would get back to me, which is where I'm at now and I'm starting to suspect that the call won't be coming but I'll update as this continues.

I know that many people have expressed frustration at not being able to watch the games, myself included, and have even resorted to possible illegal options in order to get our A's fix. Hopefully this will help everyone, I'm hoping it helps me.

Update: After talking to the aforementioned guy and a subsequent agent over the phone they told me that I needed to get housing varification from my RA and I should be able to go down to the local Comcast store and pick up a DTA box. The agent over the phone told me that it's tricky for students to get the box since we're not the names on the account but that if I can get some sort of verification I should be able to get around this issue. Hope this works for you guys as well.

I've been catching up on a few A's related tidbits and stumbled across a couple interesting things. First off, in Slusser's latest article she elaborates a little on the Ynoa name change(s) and talks about how he'll be in Phoenix in early March and April to check out the team and get acclimated to life in the U.S.

Even more interesting is the recent signing of Aussie catcher, 19-year-old Oliver Box.

...according to Owens, is a right-handed hitter with "raw power." Box will be in Phoenix for extended spring training, and then might be assigned to a short-season A-ball team if he doesn't return to Australia to play for the summer.

And finally Slusser reports that the A's are close to signing four younguns from the Dominican Republic. Along with the new scout in Taiwan, the signing of Box, and of course Ynoa it seems that we're close to becoming a powerhouse in the overseas markets.

And then then I read Urban's piece on Tyson Ross, among other things, and came across a blurb about the A's changing Ross's mechanics:

Ross' delivery has since been tweaked, the product of a postseason trip to Oakland's Instructional League.

Good news there... Then there's some not so good news here

Geren also cautioned against reading anything into the fact that staff ace Justin Duchscherer hasn't thrown in a few days. Duchscherer has been getting treatment on his right elbow, but he told Geren he's fine, and Geren said Duchscherer hasn't missed any scheduled bullpen sessions.

If past A's history holds true then Duke is hiding an injury and will be on the shelf in the beginning of May. Of course, I may be overreacting but like I said, I've become all too familiar with these types of things.

Dump Away!

Merry Christmas and a continuing happy holidays to those of you who don't celebrate Christmas.

Link Time:

Apparently Justin Duchscherer has never given a bad gift.

MLB.com: What's the worst present you ever gave?

Duchscherer: I don't really buy stuff people don't like. I don't think I've ever given a gift that someone thought was bad. Or maybe they just hid that they thought it was bad. But I think I do pretty well.

Meanwhile Brad Ziegler's dreams are sky high. An interesting tidbit from that article is this:

He started this season in Triple-A and nearly asked for his release when things weren't going his way.

Good thing I've been advised not to eat foil. I would've never known that on my own. I'll be sure to keep it away from Buddy as well.

And finally, whoever's been saying the Yankees are evil (read: everyone on AN) obviously hasn't read this story yet. God bless those generous Yanks!

Happy Holidays to all, and to all good night!

It's over. The incumbent's job is safe as of now because Rafael Furcal has chosen to go back to the Braves instead of accepting our 4 yr/40 mil offer. Rosenthal was the first to report it.

This is really demoralizing for us I feel. We were all set to add another weapon to our offense and spirits were high that we could possibly compete with the Angels next year but it doesn't appear that Furcal will be a part of that.

I'm sure many of us will be mad at him for spurning us, others relieved, and the rest sad as I am. Unless BB can pull off a trade for Escobar or Hardy, I'm hoping that Petit opens the season as the starting SS because I really really really don't want to waste a draft pick and the money to sign Orlando Cabrera. I'll attach a poll to see what you all think we should do now.

The options regarding having to trade one of Cahill/Anderson mean that you feel that we need to acquire one of those players and that giving up one of the aforementioned pitchers is acceptable. The options where we don't give up Cahill/Anderson mean that you explore the possibility but if the answer is no, you move on to someone else. I realize it's a bit confusing but hopefully this will clear it up.

Link

Free-agent first baseman Russell Branyan and the Seattle Mariners agreed Wednesday to a one-year contract.

The left-handed-hitting Branyan batted .250 with 12 homers and 20 RBIs in just 132 at-bats with the Milwaukee Brewers last season.

So there goes a lot of people's idea about having Branyan as insurance for the corner infield positions. Seems like a lot of people have been clamoring for him to be an A for so long that it seems destiny that he'll eventually wind up in Oakland.

It's obvious the guy can hit in a reserve role which would have been perfect for the A's this coming season but now we'll have to watch him hit against us 17 times next season.

Oh and I'm not sure if this has been discussed yet but Van Burkleo is officially the Mariners' new bench coach now so let the debate commenceresume on who should be the next hitting/bench coaches. I'm guessing the bench coach will come from outside the organization but it's entirely probable the hitting coach vacancy will be filled internally. That's what she said.

It appears that our "hitting" coach Ty Van Burkleo will be leaving our "offense" to join recently-departed Don Wakamatsu up north in Seattle to "coach" their "offense." Was that a good use of quotations?

The story is here. I'd put this in a DLD but there hasn't been one for a few days so instead of burying it there I thought I'd give it more of a chance of being read.

I've never thought VB was anything special as a coach, certainly not all he was cracked up to be when we hired him away from the Angels. He was supposedly great at working with young hitters especially but the only younguns that seemed to have any success last year under his tutelage were Sweeney and Suzuki. Barton, Buck, Gonzalez, and Hannahan all fell apart and were pretty hopeless at the plate for a while if not the whole season. The offense as a whole was god awful but we don't need to get into that as we're all already painfuly aware of that fact. Maybe it wasn't his fault that they underperformed but in any case it wasn't like he helped them really turn it around either. Perhaps now we can fill the bench coach and hitting coach positions for more than a year at a time to create some continuity.

Auf Wiedersehen!

I was perusing the mlb.com Hot Stove Roundup and the first part of the story is about how the Padres are shopping not only Jake Peavy but Khalil Greene as well. Yes he had a poor, injury-plagued season last year, but the year before he hit 27 homeruns playing half of his games in pitcher-friendly Petco Park. He's known for playing above-average defense also and is signed for this season at $6.5 MM. So to look at him overall: he's relatively young (just recently turned 29), has hit pretty well in years past, and plays good defense.

Now the big knock on him is his discipline. It's bad. His career OBP is .304 which hurts his career OPS (.731). The most walks he's taken in a season was 53 in '04 and he hasn't approached that number since then (25, 39, 32, 22). He's also missed a chunk of time in every season besides '07, but I wouldn't call him injury prone. Last year's big injury was due to him breaking his hand from a punch to a trash can. Stats

I'm not saying that Greene is going to take us to the top, because it's entirely possible that he could be just as bad if not worse than Crosby. I am, however, trying to think outside the box and maybe a change of scenery could work, especially if we can instill some sense of the strike zone within him. If he doesn't work out then let him go at the end of the season, but if he shows improvement then we may have an answer at shortstop for the next few seasons. I'm sure it won't take a whole lot to get him, probably an Eveland or a Smith. If you want to expand the package to get more than just Greene then throw in a Mazarro or so.

I pose the question to you AN, Oui or Niet?

C-c-c-can it be? EMIL BROWN FILES FOR FREE AGENCY

I thought I'd have more to say on this subject but surprisingly I'm at a loss for words. I was really hoping Forst or Beane would come out and say "You don't file for free agency because I DFA you!" but there was no such luck. Seemed like a nice guy at FanFest this past year and started off pretty well for us (not counting his baserunning in Japan) but obviously tailed off quickly and then turned into a grouch. Oh well...

Now for the sobering numbers:

All told, he batted .244 with 13 homers, 59 RBIs and a .297 on-base percentage in 117 games.

 

So long DFA, we hardly knew ye.

Also in that link is the fact that time is counting for the A's to decide on Alan Embree's fate. My fingers are crossed that he'll be bought out and shown the door. There's no need for a guy who can't get outs on this staff any more, especially at that price.

Update alert: Embree Declined. This probably means the end of the aged one, and for some reason we claimed a 33-year old "hitter" from Miluakee. Hooray! Offensive troubles cured!

via asthruz.mlblogs.com

via boston.redsox.mlb.com