SB Nation User Blog: KMoAsFan

No Reason to Panic.

KMoAsFan — Fri, 16 May 2008 08:05:59 -0000

Ok, there is no denying Cust and Thomas have been disappointing so far. I don’t feel like justifying that observation as I’ve done it in like 10 other threads, but basically Cust has shown no power, very little ability to hit fastballs, and does nothing consistently besides walk and take pitches right over the middle. Thomas is getting old, and while making contact he is not a guy who benefits or helps a team with singles. To help this team out he needs to hit for power, a .220 average is not difficult to replace. The singles should be reserved for Ellis, Sweeney, Davis, Barton, or whoever hits in front of Thomas. HE DIDN’T GET THE NAME THE “BIG HURT” FOR DRAWING WALKS AND HITTING BLOOPERS. Yes, I know he has a decent OBP, but the walks that inflate it are not as valuable as those extra base hits with guys on in front of him (that is, if there is an occasional A on base).

Now before the season, I think Billy had a little bit better hunch that this team would be successful than he led on to. It wasn’t going to be that hard to top the offense last year, or for the last few years for that matter. It’s not like Kendall, Kotsay, Stewart, Scutaro, Swisher, and Johnson were tearing up the league; plus having BoCro healthy would help as well. The addition of Thomas was a great idea given the teams fast start, but if the team begins to peter out here over the next few weeks I could see a total revamp of the outfield coming up. Ironically this team’s success over the next couple weeks will probably correlate heavily to whether Thomas and Cust start doing what they are on the roster for, hit for CONSISTENT power. If they don’t I’d be willing to bet Davis, Thomas, and Cust will be the first to go in favor of a younger core and starting outfield of RSweeney/Denorfia, CarGon, and Buck. If the team still continues to struggle, and Barton and Suzuki are showing no signs of improvement then it's likely that Brown and MSweeney will probably be gone as well. At that point the front office can go back to saying it was a rebuilding year, and no one outside of Athletics Nation will even really notice. It's not all bad though...

I'll be the first to say I’ve been a little more antsy with my critiquing of Cust and Thomas lately. Mainly because living on the east coast, I wanted to see one of the more exciting guys in Buck and CarGon get called up for the ATL series b/c I’m not sure when I’ll get to see this team play again. Plus, the one time I did see Buck was the July 24th game in Anaheim last year, where he absolutely dominated. The thing to keep in mind is that guys like Barton, Buck, Hannahan, and Suzuki are supposed to struggle. They are all going to have tough stretches this early in their careers. Just look at how the god of all rookies, Evan Longoria, has been faring as of late. The things to not accept or try and justify are the guys who are supposed to be performing consistently, but actually playing like rookies. There is no justification for what Cust and Thomas are doing right now, they have been flat out terrible. Hopefully they come out of it, and play to their abilities, but if not…well, the team will still be ahead of where everyone thought they would be, and we’ll get to watch some young guys bust their butts and have a lot of fun.

A's Authentic Road Jersey???

KMoAsFan — Fri, 09 May 2008 03:45:16 -0000

A's Authentic Road Jersey???

I've been trying to find an Authentic Road jersey for a couple days now, but the only size available anywhere is 60. I don't get it, do they not make the gray "Oakland" jerseys anymore? The Majestic site supposedly has them, but according to the lady on the phone they don't ship for 10 days, even with 2nd day shipping. I'd like to have it for next weekend's series in ATL, any ideas where I can find a size 40 one of these things???

Game Changers?

KMoAsFan — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 21:55:01 -0000

First let me just say this; this post isn't meant to compare and contrast players by picking apart every little statistical category, so lets not go there. You'll understand in a minute.

I've been reading a few comments today about the A's hitters' development and organizational approach, which got me thinking. When I casually take a look around the league, or watch *gasp* Baseball Tonight there are tons of budding offensive stars out there that can carry a struggling team, and flat out dominate the opposition. These guys can change the whole complexity of a game. I'm not referring to veterans like Vlad or Pujols, I'm talking about guys that have only been in the league a few years like Matt Holliday, Jeff Francoeur, Justin Morneau, Ryan Howard, Miguel Cabrera, Chase Utley, Mark Teireira, Alex Rios, Hanley Ramirez, David Wright and Prince Fielder. There are plenty more, but I don't want to list guys like the Upton bros, Evan Longoria, Troy Tulowitzki, and Alex Gordon, that havn't really had any time to prove themselves.

When I look at our A's, I don't see any of these guys. I see a lot of very average players in Crosby, Buck, Denorfia, Sweeney, Hannahan, and Barton. These guys are still young and I have a lot of hope, especially for Buck, Barton, and CarGon. But this still doesn't change the fact we haven't had a real star come along for about 6 or 7 years, and even then, Giambi and Tejada's success is somewhat tainted due to the steroid allegations. For so long I wanted Chavez to be that star for us, but he's never really seemed to get much better than he was in his first few seasons.

From these observations I've come up with a few questions, and I figured it would be interesting to get AN's opinion. First, from the guys I previously mentioned, would you credit their success more to their natural talent, or their franchises development and coaching? I didn't have the time to see if these guys were traded around or stayed with the same organization until they were called up, but that would be some interesting information to know. Expanding on this, would it be wrong to blame Beane and the organization for not finding the talented players in the draft, or improperly handling our organizations talent as it moved through A ball? In other words, could someone like Buck, Barton, or Crosby be a better player if they came up through the Rockies, Marlins, or Twins organizations? When I see Crosby making the same mistakes year after year, or Chavez not really getting any better than he was in 2001, I tend to think so.

I really enjoy watching the 2008 A's. Probably more so than any team since 2003. It just seems like it will be hard for this team to compete for a championship in 08' or the coming years without a real offensive star. Regardless of the new guys, the offense hasn't been anything but average for about the last four years anyway. Nearly every World Series champion this decade has rode some dominant hitters there, minus the Dbacks and CWS, who had some exceptional pitching. Hopefully Barton, CarGon, and Buck can play a part in that, but only time will tell.