Well It didn't take long for our Oakland Athletics to show that last year wasn't a fluke. Oakland's staff leads all the Major League's in many pitching category's and is top 3-7 in many more.  The greatness of our staff starts with our starting pitchers and what's even better is that we are paying our six starters about 7.5 million between them. To contrast this the next best staff on the AL is paying about $50 million (Angles) and one of the best staff's in the N.L. (PHI) is paying $65 million. And our staff is deep, our 5th (McCarthy) and 6th (Ross) starters are putting up some very nice number's.

I'm not going to talk about how we are squandering all this cheap greatness with our offense and defense right now but just give you the numbers. I'm going to give you stats as a staff to try and find out our weakness and some stats of our starting pitchers that are top 25 in a category.

Continue reading this post »

That the A's haven't done something, anything, to create some news. that Rotoworld, Chone Figgins blurb that is. 

The noise-less, ass-less, drink-less, dick-less, money making-less, furry box-less, hard green things. Empty Seats that is. 

The infuriating, cursing, bullying, wrecking, and crying you have to do sometimes.   Trying to leave the parking lot in a hurry when the House that Rickey rebuilt is full that is.

That they don't have one and probably aren't going to get one sooner than 5 years from now. A New Stadium that is.

That even if they Travel, even if they pay., even if its sound and solid, even if all agree, even if it's prudently financed, even if they start today, it's probably going to be closer to..... San Jose territorial rights, Environmental impact reports, NIMBY's., self-important power holders, regulators and red-tape government gone wild.......ten years from now for that stadium with how slowly things have been going and why, that is.

That Bestbuddepotistic, dull, uninspiring, failing, lucky to have any job, time to move along, fence grabber.   Why is Bob Geren still the manager that is.

That person who needs to take one for the team, release the reins and let the name do his thing. Billy  bringing in a Big Time manager, now that we could use him that is.  

That they let him move for nothing.

It's not about whether you liked him and his  trifecta or not. It's not about whether he gave Billy  the Stink Eye one day.

It's not about him or the fire-breather. it's about having a guy with a  .395 OBP and  20+ HR power pinch hitting and injury replacing a few guys for 2.5 million a year. Its about, starter or not, having a good, cheap enough back-up to have on the bench, that has certain skills that most other players on the team can't match now or probability ever. Jack  that is. 

that he wasn't pinch run for.  Why do you leave a slow runner on first with two outs late in a 1-0 game.  He was also a defensive liability,  making even more sense to replace.  He was tied for 6th in HR on the team with two other players at 12, so leaving him in for later to try and win the game by smacking one didn't seem like a reasonable plan. In my book, he is less to blame than Howe. Jeremy that is.

that it was broken along with our chances. Jermaine's leg that is.

that he decided that in a tie game of a clinching series that pushing was more important than touching. Eric that is.

that he decided in a tie game of a clinching series that arguing was more important than tagging. Miguel that is.

that four, bonehead, unusual, freak,  never seen before or since plays happened in such important games on years we were good enough to win it all, all in a few years time. The Early 2000 playoffs that is.

2, 1, 2, 1, 1, 2, 2, 1, 1, 0.  

Our place in the standings from 1999-2006 and how many playoff series and world series we won in that time that is.

that the heavily favored ,104 win,  A.L.C.S. sweeping team, who played a team that had to go 7games, Won One. the 88' A's wins in the W.S. that is.

that the heavily favored, 103 win, A.L.C.S. sweeping team Won Zero. the 90' A's wins in the.W.S. that is. 

that the heavily favored, best record in baseball actually did what they were suppose to.  And there is no glory. no celebration. Just taint and a heavy heart. The earthquake that is.

that some Green And Gold Demon really pissed him off good about 20 years ago. God that is. 

That the guy who played 10 years and won 3 World Series on one team, and 5 years and two world series on another team, went into the hall for the other. Fucker. Reggie that is.

That Reggie and Rickey and Rollie and Dennis and even Dave and Mark and Dave don't have anything, or nearly enough. To do with the A's that is.

That it is acceptable that one team has a 6-1, 5-1, or 4-1, payroll advantage over other teams. 2-1 is acceptable. 3-1 is questionable. The rest is outright ludicrous. Fair, Major League Competitive balance that is. 

Someone who feels the need to correct every little grammar error that they see to the point where it's just irritating and unnecessary. Groll's that is.

someone who was relied on year after year, decade after decade,  to keep my superiority complex intact,  who is now doing better than me. The Giant's winning the World Series that is.

That a young 5-tool MVP candidate was traded for a , his worst season by far, looking very very questionable in AAA, chance in a blue moon at sniffing being a Star, chance in a red moon of being a good starter. Michael Taylor that is.

that boring, in-between, nothing to anticipate or watch, favorite-less, fun draining time. The Days between the Super-bowl and Opening Day that is.  

Anything you Don't like?

the A's have seemed to answer our prayers by going for it this year. If the A's sign Beltre, along with all the other moves the A's have made this off-season, I will declare the FO some Bad Mother F____rs.

Careful now.

Lets start with some Samuel L.Jackson Pulp fiction - muggafugga muggafugga

Dave Chappell- one of the baddest mother f____rs of all time

 Jay Z threats- Motherf____r What?

Robin Williams- mofo

 Dane Cook-  large fri mofo

Tupac- last mother f____r breathing song.   lyrics here

Wallet- frst here and then here Pulp Fiction. 

would you date her?

joke

dope-  DIE M.F. DIE 

pick one and only one:  

(  be careful )        video game  version     Military Version.die mother f____r die song   

                              300 version                   wolf version                                                                              

I would love to see a version of this for Dexter or Spartacus.

more hard-rock music :bad bad bad bad bad mother f___r bad.song

lets get drunk

Urban Dictionary- Bad Mother F____r

famous movie lines

some other soundboards from some Bad F___rs- -Quagmire-   here  old man -here 

Chuck Norris is so bad- here

This guy was the ultimate bad- Bruce Lee.  Ok, Ok i know you actually want to see this

Perhaps this guy once laid claim- Mike Tyson

We will end with some more Samuel Jackson quotes

dump away if you dare M.F. wiki

Stats found on NFL.com here. These are Defensive Rankings vr other Teams in the NFL.

                                              2008          2009          2010

Yards per game                       27th         26th          14th                                                   


Total points                             24th           23rd         14th

passing yards                        10th             7th          7th

rushing yards                         31st             29th        26th

sacks                                     13th            11th          4th

turnover's per game              23rd             30th        22nd

Ok our D has improved alot in YPG, PPG. Sacks and TO/PG have improved slightly. We have stayed the same on PassYpg and RushYpg.  

These numbers didn't tell me enough of what I wanted to know particularly on why is our Rush D bad and who is to blame. I looked at some advanced stats to find out. What I found out is basically:

Our front 4, Blitz schemes and coverage is at the top of the NFL.

Our linebackers and secondary are at the bottom of the NFL in pursuing and tackling RB's.

The left side of our run defense is our teams weakness, the right side is our teams strength.

We don't get enough turnovers to ever be an elite Defense.

Either the Defense system/scheme is broken in regards to our secondary 7 ever being good at stopping the run or the players we have there are just not good enough. Probably some of both, but I would say it is more the  scheme. Our scheme is made to stop the pass. But not with turnovers which points to our heavy reliance on back to the QB man to man D. 

Only read the rest if you are interested in a deep analysis of the Defense from a advanced perspective. Make sure to click on the links. This will attempt to explain the strengh and weakness of mainly our run defense since this is where our Defense is worst :

A) how good our front 7 is against the run,

 B) how good we are in clutch situation run Defense,

 C) how good is our front four vr the run and vr the pass

 D) how is our linebackers run d 

E) how is our back 7 secondary against the run

 F) which side of the D line is better vr the run

Now some innovative statistics from footballoutsiders.com that trys to answer some important questions about a Run Defense. You can take a few hours reading there breakdown and you should do this but I'm going to try and make it a little easier and alot shorter to understand. I think this really points to the strength and weaknesses of our Defense with the Big weaknesses better understood after seeing them.

I'm going to explain each new stat. read the simple definitions if you don't want to think about it much.  I'm going to rank the Best Teams Defense, the  Raiders rank, then the worst teams defense in each unique category.

Adjusted Line Yards-  adjusted for the quality of offensive opponents and situation.

simple definition:how good is the front seven against the run no matter if they play a cake schedule or not

#1-PIT #2-CHI #3-NYJ- no surprises here 

#10-OAK- nice

#30-IND #31-TB #32-BUF. 

Power Success: Percentage of runs on third or fourth down, two yards or less to go, that achieved a first down or touchdown. Also includes runs on first-and-goal or second-and-goal from the two-yard line or closer.Teams are ranked from lowest power success percentage allowed (#1) to highest power success percentage allowed (#32).

simple definition: how does the Defense stop the run when it is a clutch situation.:

#1 New Orleans.Surprise. there the best clutch run D. #2 Detroit- Suggs? #3 Green Bay

Raiders are #9. Not bad at all.

#30- New England-what?  #31- Chicago- what? #32 CIN-  okaaaa.    

 Click here to hear all of Dave Chapell's Lil John sounds and pranks. Very cool site.  Yeeaah!!!

Stuffed: Percentage of runs where the running back is tackled at or behind the line of scrimmage. Ranked from most stuffs (#1) to fewest stuffs (#32).

Simple definition: RB sacks.

#1-CHI- #2-JAC-#3- DET

Raiders are # 5. pretty dam good.

#30-DEN  #31-BUF  #32-CLE

Second level yards- How good is your Linebackers and Linebacker scheme vr the run

#1- SF #2- PIT #3- NYJ 

#16- Raiders- Middle of the road

 #30- IND  #31- STL  #32- TB

Open Field Yards: Yardage gained by running backs at least 10 yards past the line of scrimmage, divided by total running back carries.

simple definition: how good is the linebackers and secondary at pursuing and tackling a RB.

#1-PIT #2-GB #3-NYJ

#32- Raiders- this is the biggest weakness with our defense. We were 31st, 16th and 30th the prior three years.

#29- WAS  #30-JAC  #31- CIN

Adjusted Line Yards in each direction- which side of our D line/linebackers is good or bad when a team runs

Raiders-   when the other team runs a Left Sweep-     Our right side is 4th.

                 when  the other team runs up the gut-          We are 18th

                 when the other team runs on Right Tackle-  Our left End is 13th

                 when they run a Right Sweep-                    Our left side is 30th-

ding ding dong we have a loser. click dong for dead witches. 

                 when they run on the Left Tackle-          Our Right End is 4th -

ding ding ding we have a winner.     click winner to pick up hot chicks.                                                                                                                                                                                    

adjusted sack rate-,Sacks (plus intentional grounding penalties) per pass attempt adjusted for down, distance, and opponent.

simple definition: how good is our front 4, Blitz schemes and coverage.  regardless of how little other teams pass the ball.

#1- Raiders- wow.  This is our strength. we were 6th in 08' and 09'. 

We Bad Mother Fuckers

Click  Fucker's . Now Click Bad. Click Mother and start about 30-40 seconds in. Finally click  Bad Mother Fucker and scroll down for Great Pulp Fiction quotes.

#2- SD  #3- PIT  #4- NYG

#30- DEN  #31- CIN   #32- TB

This one breaks down drive statistic ranks per Defense.

Yards per Drive etc.  If we have lots of low ranks we are good. Lots of High ranks we are bad.

FUM/Dr represents Fumbles Lost per drive. #1 gets more lost fumbles than any other defense.

 LOS/Dr represents average starting field position(line of scrimmage) per drive. Closer to the 1, the better

 Team                 Yds/Dr                   Pts/Dr                  TOs/Dr              INT/Dr                FUM/Dr            LOS/Dr    

Raiders  10'          27.78 (10)          1.86 (19)                 .093 (31)           .050 (30)             .043 (19)           31.06 (26)    

NYG    10'                21.78  (1)           1.43   (4)             .185   (3)           .089 (16)              .096  (1)             33.52 (32)

DEN    10'                32.69 (26)           2.37 (30)              .073 (32)            .040 (32)               .033 (28)         31.90 (27)  

Raiders 09'                                                                   .081 (32)             .043 (32)              .038 (25)

Raiders 08'                                                                    .117 (23)             .085 (13)             .032  (28)

Raiders 07'                                                                    130 (22)             .097 (13)              .032 (30)

Raiders 06'                                                                    .122 (27)           .099 (11)              .022 (31)

 Where we are really lacking is Defensive TO's. This more than anything else is what's keeping our Defense from ever being elite.  INT's per drive against our Defense is terrible even though it was good 06'-08'. Fum/Dr has always been bad but better this year.  

It  would make it seem that we are not pressuring the QB into interceptions but we know different.  This seems to be a problem with our man to man D.  If We got twice as many interceptions I could live with alot more passing yards against.

FUM/DR can be lack of the sackers stripping the ball from the QB, lack of our D hitting/stripping the ball on tackles, or lack of coaching and scheme.  Getting fumble specialist's would be very help-full. Spending three times as much time in practice on nothing but stripping the ball and the QB's arm would be help-full. 

Conclusion:

Perhaps a 3-4 zone is what the Raiders should switch too long term since the 4-3 back to the QB man to man doesn't seem to be working out.  No Turnovers equals no points off turnovers equals no stops equals less wins.  Teams win games all the time off of a big turnover for 6 or getting a turnover at the end of the game and we do not get our share. Remember we were dead last on how good is the linebackers and secondary at pursuing and tackeling and we are close to last on forced turnovers with interceptions being the main problem.  QB's can throw the ball at our corners without worring about Interceptions. Other teams may not get many passes completed but we don't get the fruits of a wayword pass.

The 4-3 man seems to let us down. (31, 16, 30, 32) is our rank the last four years on pursuing and tackling, and we are at the bottom in TO/per drive the last few years. why is that going to change if we never try a different D?   

Click here for a defintion of what the 3-4 and 4-3 try to do to rush the QB in pass downs. and here on the different types of personnel the 3-4 needs.

Continue reading this post »

 Ranks vr the other teams in the NFL. I found these on NFL.com.

                                             2008            2009             2010

Total Offense yards             29th               31st             14th                 Big improvement

Total points                          29th               31st              10th                     Huge improvement

Passing Yards                     32nd             29th            24th                      small improvement

Rushing Yards                     10th             21st             3rd                  Big improvement

Sacks given up                                          30th           27th                       still a big problem

QB hits                                                      28th            16th                       big improvement

Avg Kick return yards        17th                32nd          21st                       improvement

Avg Punt return yards          2nd                29th            28th                    problem

Turn over differential          15th                30th            18th                    improvement but I'm not

                                                                                                               sure the defensive contribution yet 

Continue reading this post »

Is seems that there is a divide between some at Athletics Nation. 

Those who come to Athletics Nation to read and write about the A's, and Baseball are one half. They do not care if what they write/read is perfectly written. For a post-writer, it can feel like a form of harassment for someone to criticize their grammar and not even discuss the post at hand. And for the readers, having to read the grammar police threads get tiresome and old.

Then there is the half who polices other people's spelling and grammar. And also those who silently and anomalously thank them. It is important for them to have order with all the rules being followed. The misspelling or misuse of a word, a mispronounced phrase, lack of punctuation and generally bad writing are some of the things that can really irritate this type of person. Most grammar police do their best to help clean up the Nation. Sometimes gentle, sometimes forceful, they prod all post-writers to take more care and more time to edit and edify themselves. Athletics Nation seems to have some very high community standards in regard to this. Their are some very capable and creative people that help maintain these high standards and they should be mostly applauded. Reading other blog sites can be frustrating at times as every other post seems to be authored by a third grade dropout.

Continue reading this post »

Trade everyone we can for Japanese Players.

Hire a Japanese manager that does not speak English. Give any remaining non-Japanese players their own individual translator.

Trade the Coliseum for a brand new Japanese stadium. This shall include:

1) a huge excess of big neon lights in fun shapes.

think ten-story tall, neon- green Godzilla spitting red fire. translucent walkways.  Artificial turf made out of out soft flex-able microfiber lights that can change colors. 

2) super-vending machines that include: 

 Three foot long hot-dogs, Kobe steak flavored popcorn with kernels as big as your fist, and most importantly 1000 different brands of beer one shot at a time. 

3) a large pool filled up with shelled peanuts for the kids to play in. Add a five story high, slip and slide ski-jump, into the peanut pool. 

4) a five lane, motorcycle race-track, around the top of the stadium. There will be ten racers of different colors.  Have eight bikes playing by roller-derby rules. Have the other two bikes going in the opposite direction "playing chicken".  Name them "dots" and encourage gambling.
 
5) a bullet train that goes 300mph, doing a repetitive loop under the stadium and around the outfield wall. Except it IS the outfield wall 58 seconds of every minute. Or an easy home run the other 2 seconds out of every minute. 

6) luxury suites that include your own sumo wrestling team. all sumo match losers do a winner take all, samurai sword fight for second base at the end of the game. I guess the "all" would just be second base.

7) an underwater canal strait from the ocean so you can fish for your very own fresh sushi.Chum the waters so some Great-White's make it a challenge to catch anything. Unless your a bad-ass and you have Great-White sushi.  

Trade California for Japan

            that is all- 

           your really, really, Asinine ____________ stadium or Trade would include: ______________.

Was it a bigger mistake for the Giant's to move to San Francisco?

They could have stayed in New York and had billion dollar TV contracts and maybe a hand -full of World Series Rings. Yes things are working out for them now, after 50+ years, but how many years of bad attendance, bad teams and shitty stadiums did they have to go through? Was it all worth it for them?

They had a decade before the A’s came to the bay. We almost Immediately showed them how to win Rings. We also stole some fans.

KC was no great place to have a franchise then, and it still sucks now, . We came from a low-revenue place, to a low-revenue place, and learned how to win. so the move for the A’s worked out

The Giant's left NEW YORK CITY to eventually share the Bay with the A’s. They came from the Biggest revenue place, to for most of there history, a lower-revenue place. And up till this year, learned how to lose.

alternate history: if the Giant's didn't move to the Bay in the late 50's, the A’s might have been the first. would they have picked San Francisco instead of Oakland?. Your San Francisco Athletics.

If the Giants had moved out of state back before ATnT Park, would San Francisco now be on the Table for the A’s to build a new stadium?

Oakland A's WS rings- 4 or about one per decade. Mistake moves to the Bay- 0 ?

SF Giant's WS rings-1 or two per century.  Mistake moves to the Bay-1 ?

Full disclosure: I need any scrap I can get right now to discount the Giant's success and elevate our failure's right now. If anyone made a mistake around here, I'm saying its them. I'm a hater, I admit it.  It helps ease the pain.

I think the A's need to trade two, not Just one, of our big four of Cahill, Anderson, Braden and Gio so the team can try and score many more runs. I think Cahill will bring the most back with Anderson's injury's last year. However, One trade will not be enough for the A's to make a serious run with Oakland's lack of being able to sign good free agents or develop talent from the minors at a good enough rate. Lets face it, no one really good is going to sign with us, if ands and butts notwithstanding. No one not good is going to suddenly break out after coming to the Coliseum (I don't want to hear about Frank Thomas so save it). No prospect in our minor leagues is going to make a big enough difference in the next few years by themself. (I personally thought it was going to be Father Desme and selfishly hope the higher calling suddenly tells him its going to be another ten years before he is needed) 

 We were 11th in the AL with around 660 runs scored. If we could add another 100 runs that would put us around 6th with 760 scored and give us the serious potential to gain us +/- 10 wins .  you can say if we continue to build a super-staff and get even better D, we could have 100 less runs scored on us and get the 10 wins that way. Being as we already have the best ERA in the AL  and a top D team that would seem to be a much harder road but still a choice the A's could make. (non park adjusted if someone wants to cruch where we stand with that)

More after the Jump

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 I  want an apology form the NFL for attempting to steal the game from the Raiders.They didn't succeed, but I am still butt-hurt over the attempt. Call it a type of  attempted battery if you will.

I also want them to seriously consider changing the challenge rules.

The Chiefs first TD drive was an epic example of how bad ref calls change games. Something needs to be done.  I have some possible solutions.

On the Cheifs first TD drive:

1.a probable, bad pass interference penalty for them to even get around the red zone.  We had some questionable ones called against the Chiefs later in the game and nothing can be done about them. this was the least offensive thing the refs did this drive.  I didn't like it, but Chiefs fans could probably tell you why it was  a good call with a strait face.

2. we have to waste our first challenge on a bogus TD when he was down and did not score a TD. Refs screwed up, we paid for it by using one challenge.

3. we correctly challenge the passing TD, where both his knee and foot are out of bounds, and not only do the refs still call it a TD, it means we can't get another challenge for the inevitable screw job they have in store for us.

I can not see, in any way, how with both his knee going out of bounds and his second foot going out of bounds how anyone could call it a TD. especially with the BS non TD call that Foster caught today and Calvin Johnson had in the beginning of the season.  There is no way Chief fans can say this was a good call with a strait face.

4. the refs screw us and call a fumble, we cant challenge because they already screwed us twice the last TD. Think about it, because they screwed us twice, they get to do it again, therefore adding the fourth screw job from the same drive. refs screw up, they then screw it up again and still award a TD and using our last challange.

the refs do four fruckings in one drive. I say  Fruck the Frucking Fruckers.

I propose one of three new challenge rules: currently a team gets two challenges. If they are right on both they get a third challenge.

1.  Unlimited Booth review on TD's and Turnovers

they may need to change the challenge rules so that turnovers and TD's have unlimited  booth review. lets get these types of  calls right every time possible. I can watch 10 more minutes of a football game if they get it right. turnovers or TD''s only.  Teams would still have to use there challenges when the booth ref isnt looking or too slow to stop play which still happens too often. No more hurry up and get the next play off so the bad call stands. 
     
or

2.  Add two minor challenges for non-Td and turnover plays.

If you don't like every TD or turnover subject to booth review because of time/game strategy considerations,

Still have two Major challenges be possible on TD's and Turnovers by each team, with a third if you get them right.

in addition, two minor challenges to be used for anything else and not subject to the major challenge.. Four reviews possible but two of them are minor challenges.  You use up your minor challenges on first down plays etc, to bad, but not so bad that you can't still get crucial calls later in the game right.  

(remember it would only be reviewed if it was possible it was a bad call, so most TD's would not be reviewed but a lot of fumbling/sack  turnovers probably would).  This new rule is probably the most confusing and hardest to think out, but in theory it would make sure that more important plays (Td's and TO's) get reviewed.  

or

3. successful challenges gain another challenge no matter when

same rule  as now, two challenges but if you are successful on a challenge, first or second, you get another (third) one. In addition, If you are still successful on your third, you get a fourth and so on.

in theory, this would make them unlimited. your right on the first or second challenge, you get a third. Your right on the third, you get a fourth, etc, etc.

Dose not matter if its the first one or the second one, the refs screwed it  up, why should the team be penalized a challenge for being right? if your right and the refs are wrong, you should get to challenge and challenge and challenge some more. Now even when your coach thinks your right, the announcers think your right,  you think your right, the replay ref seems to get it wrong or not indisputable about 1/4 of the time.  So there still will be bad calls, just not as many.  

Now these new rules would have not helped us on the first TD, the refs were going to make sure KC scored a TD but it would have allowed the raiders or the booth to make sure the fumble was called correctly.

Does anyone knows what channel and day Mike Pererra? the NFL head ref goes over bad calls? Yes the Raiders won. I am so, so happy about that. I just don't like the feeling that our team is so marked for bad calls. Just because I'm admit-tingly paranoid does not mean they are not out to get them.

I so don't miss the days of the refs getting things wrong and having no recourse at all before they had replay and I doubt ill will miss it if they give teams or refs more tools to get it right. .  I want more accountability. More fairness. More challenges.  This rule would probably help the Raiders, out of all teams, the most for obvious reasons, but it is still time for a change.

Here are some ex A's with stats on the year with who was traded for them.  this isn't ment to bash anything or anyone, just a what if.

Dan Haren- 3-1      4.50era.  For him we got:

     Dana Evland- 2-1        4.76era. dont really miss him

     Greg Smith-1-2          7.33era. really dont miss him

     Brett Anderson,  Chris Carter double boo-yaa and don't forget

    CF Carlos Gonzalez- 3hr 17rbi 330avg 348obp 848ops. son of a bitch. for him we got

Matt Holliday-               4hr, 11rbi, 283avg, 313obp, 807ops, for which we also gave up

    Huston Street. DL. had a good year last year but now costs 7million instead of a cheap Andrew Bailey till 2015

Brett Wallace came for Holliday and in AAA so far he's- 8hr 17rbi282avg 365obp 989 ops and.still playing 3rd?.

son of a bitch  who we flipped for

     Micheal Taylor- 2hr 15rbi 247avg 314obp 776ops.

 I know its early in this trade but i think every A's fan would rather those Wallace/Taylor numbers be reversed especailly when i think about

Andre Ethier    9hr 26rbi 365avg 432 obp 1.161ops. double son of a bitch.  who we traded for

  Milton Bradley 2hr 12 rbi 226avg 333obp 737ops 

 and for those of you say we needed Milton in 06' I say

2006 14hr 52rbi 276avg 370obp 818ops Milton Clubhouse Cancer vrs

            11hr 55rbi 308avg 365obp 842ops  Ethier 06 '+4 more years

 Milton fked us again when we had a trade worked out for

 Leo Nunez 1-0 0.00 3saves. 26 saves last year. but Bradley ended up "injured" so we got Andrew Brown instead

more

Jason Giambi- 0hr 1rbi 100avg 387obp 537ops

Barry Zito-4-0 1.53 (he's costing almost 2 million a win since signing with the Giants, good for him this year)

Nich Swisher-15rbi 282avg 371obp 889ops  (Gio Gonzalez, Ryan Sweeney, Fautino De Los Santos)

Jason Kendall -0hr 4rbi 287avg 361obp 694ops (Jerry Blevins)

Marco Scutaro- 2hr 7rbi 278avg 364obp 735ops (Grahm Godfrey 4.62 AAA sac)

Scott Hairston- 4hr 10rbi 271avg 357obp 892ops (Kouzmanoff)

Shawn Gallager -7.94era

Ryan Webb- reassigned

Craig Italiano- 0.00era in 22 AA/AAA innings

Rich Harden- 1-1 4.56era (Eric Patterson, Josh Donaldson, Gallager)

Bobby Crosby -1hr 5rbi 265avg 390obp 772ops

O.Cabrera- 2hr 14rbi 236avg 288obp 623ops traded for and we still have:

  Tyler Landendorf SS. 306avg 375obp 783ops 0 errors in 15 games AA

Travis Buck- 1hr 2rbi 219avg 324obp 699ops. (how did he ever get 10million a year and how did Seattle end up with so many rejects and overpaid players this year?)

Adam Kennedy- 1hr 11rbi 214avg 268obp 598ops

Mark Kotsay -2hr 4rbi 159avg 245obp 540ops

Jerremy Bonderman-5.74era

some who got away when just a few more million could have got it done-

Justin Smoak- draft not signed 05,  1hr 4rbi 148avg 333obp 666ops. the next coming of Texeria?

Johnathan Papelbon-draft not signed 02' 2.77era 7saves

Adroldis Chapman (according to the A's we came in second in that sweepstakes. will 5million a year will be worth it when its all signing bonus and he can get even more in arbitration later?) 1.29 era. probably yes and he would get more today.

son of a bitch on all three.

Joe Blanton DL (Adrian Cardinas, Josh Outman)

Jack Hannihan Reassigned. ( Justin Souza 3.21 AA )

Arron Cunnighan Reassigned

A.Embree DFA

Kiko Calero FA-injury concerns. (1.95era in 09')

Dan Meyer 16.20era DL (3.09 in 09')

Chad Bradford FA-injury concerns (2.12 era in 08')

now there are more like Pena, Ludwick, Cruz (7HR)etc but there success was far removed many years and/or many teams after the A's let them go. if anyone wants to include them or the ex A's from a long time ago like Tejada (856OPS) feel free.  

You know what i hate? When after waiting all off-season for the new baseball season to start,  and within the first few weeks, you pretty much know yourbaseball team sucks.....and it's going to be another long year of heartbreak.  Or your team is at best going to be .500. Which means no playoffs, (unless your the 2006 St.Louis Cardinals). And no playoffs for me is close enough to sucking as to not differentiate (yes I'm spoiled and have unrealistic expectations of making the playoffs each and every year). 

Of course a team can come back and make the playoffs after starting out mediocre, and there were a few A's teams in the last decade that went on post all-star break tears that any team would be hard pressed to duplicate. (The 2001 A's  team was 58-17 and the 2002 A's team was 52 -21 post all-star).  But it's sure nice to start out a season hot and have the mojo running all season long.

It's really, really, early...... I know.  Playoff teams are not made the first few weeks of April.  SSS, SSS, SSS, i get it.  And it could very well be that the Mariners and Angles are that bad, not that the A's are any good,  But this team has started off HOT, the western division looks weak,  and I can legitimately hope of the playoffs for the first time in many years after the start of the season.  This getting out of the gate strong is really nice for a change.  Yes this season has started out great for having hope.

You know what else is fun? Scoring runs. Oakland  usually have been far south of average in the league in team runs in a season:

    2009 9th in runs scored A.L.

    2008 14th (dead last)  

  2007 13th  

  2006 9th 

   2005 6th

    2004 9th  

  2003 9th  

 2002 8th

That's one year in the last eight (8) the team has been better than average in scoring runs. Could This be the year Oakland ( 51 million dollar payroll or 1.6 million per player, which is last in the A.L) breaks into the top five in runs scored? 

Least you ask why I should care that the team with the lowest payroll can make some statistical dominance, What more can I root other than some moral victory's in this age of inequitable payrolls and my team on the bottom end of it?  

 Speaking of low payrolls and the bitterness I have about it:

Average payroll of the bottom six teams is about 50 million.  Average payroll of the top six teams is about 150 million.  It's time all T.V. revenues goes into one pot and is divided equally between the 30 teams.   Here are some synonyms for inequitable which mirrors my thoughts on the way MLB does things compared to the NFL or NBA: 

 unfair, grievous, immoral, improper, shameful, unjustifiable, unsporting, fixed, shabby, deplorable, oppressive, repugnant.  In stronger words:  total fking bullshit if your an A's fan.  At least as a Raiders fan I can claim owner incompetence.  But I digress....

After 8 games we are Third, right behind the Yankee's (206 million payroll or 8+million per player)  and Tigers (122 million payroll or 4.5+ million per player)  in runs per game in the A.L.  I think at least three players (Davis, Barton and ______) are going to have to have career years to keep it up, but maybe this small ball baseball is going to work out all year long. 

 I'm really wanting Rajai Davis to steal 100+ bases this season and with a patient Barton taking alot of pitches behind him,  it's conceivable.  Nothing is more exciting to me as an old A's fan than to relive the days of Rickey dominating games from the basepaths.  Realistically,  its not going to happen as Rickey had only three 100 steal seasons in his career. The last time someone stole over 100 bases was Vince Coleman in 1987, but it sure would be fun to watch.  

Pitching has Oakland's bread and butter the last eight years (thank you Coliseum) and so far the 2010 version hasn't disappointed.  Team A.L. ERA rank since 2002-

  2002- 1st. 

 2003- 1st. 

2004- 2nd.

  2005- 5th.

2006- 4th

2007- 6th

2008- 4th

2009-4th. 

That's six out of eight years in the top four with the worst year being 6th out of 14 teams. You can see the A's team's that have made the playoffs this last decade didn't do it based on it's run scoring ability.  This years version has the A's once again at the top of the A.L. and as of right now, tops in all of baseball in team ERA. 

1st- Oakland 2.61,

2nd- S.F 2.82

3rd-Twins 2.88.

  The starting pitching looks like it could be particularly impressive this year, able to go five deep with our worst starter's  ERA ( 4.09)  right now a four time All-star in Sheets (01',04',07', 08') who probably needs another month or so to really break off the rust from missing all of 09'. 

Do I dare think that a team with a 50 million dollar payroll, widley expected to be in last place in the West, or at best .500, could actually dominate in Pitching and hitting in this year of 2010? I have been givin real hope. And my dreams are getting bigger. You?

I think Grant Desme should be number 5 on the prospect list. Here is a write up on scouting reports I did back in mid-august about Desme.  WARNING the link below is LONG. Some highlights of that write up and my final thoughts after the jump.

everything you ever wanted to know about Grant Desme  

The highlights-

Continue reading this post »

I was reading the A's official site when I came across this

Mt. Everidge making a name for himself.

Did this possibly come from here?

AN comments on july 28th and Aug 4th

I did think of that nickname on July 28th,  but I can't say if anyone else used it in print prior to that. If no one can prove otherwise, I just may have to take the credit for that particular one Mr. Urban.

I have heard of a rumor that someone is doing a revamp of AN terms " time to update ANcillary terms?" and want to see what the accepted nickname should be for him. Feel free to throw out some new nicknames for the other rookies and see if we can get some consensus before the next update.

I have looked over the nicknames used for Everidge and tried to get most of them in this poll- There are a lot of good nicknames so I grouped a few together.

I just got done turning in our teams film for the "San Jose" 48 Hr Film project.  Our amateur film team did a short ( 5 min)  WW2 movie shot out of Petaluma called "Vernicher". ( We had a real Tank! )

Our team won The Jury's Selection Award in last months "San Francisco" 48 hr film fest out of 75 competitors.  I was thinking on doing a baseball movie next and wondered if anyone had any ideas on a good place to film one around the bay.   a real ballpark's time would have to be donated.   Thanks,  and let me know what you think about the movie.

click here for movie  Vernichter

I am going to take you on a little drive.  It can be a long drive or a short drive depending on if you want to access the many links provided in this post. I hoped to have answered many of my own questions in writing it.  I have succeeded in that regard and maybe more.   Now for the drive...

This is an extensive scouting profile of A+ Stockton Center Fielder Grant Desme, using some Bill James statistics and primers.  One of the primers has to do with the ability of players to move inbetween positons. Another primer is the on the projectabilty of minor league statistics.  There are also several scores and formulas used to try and quantify players speed.  I have also tried to find different ways of comparing players power.  

When I started this profile, I wanted to know more on how Desme's injury's affected him and also the chance of moving him back to his High School and Early College position of Short-Stop.  There will be a massive amount of information on him if you are interested.  If your not, there should be alot of other information that could be helpful in discovering the player on your favoriter teams system that may have unique skills.

6'2, 205lb.  Age 23. 2009 Combined Stats between A and A+....105 gm..... 29D, 6T, 26 HR, 80 RBI, 37 for 41SB, 900+OPS.

Selected by Oakland Athletics in 2nd Round (74th overall) of 2007 amateur entry draft. He was the fourth player taken in that draft by the A's after Simmons, Doolittle and Brown. Bats right, throws right.

Coming out of Hi-School he was a highly-regarded, swith hitting short-stop who could play either middle infield position...Had the ability to hit with power to all fields. High School: Played four years of baseball at Stockdale High School...In 2003, batted .419 with 25 runs scored, 18 runs batted in, five doubles, three triples and a home run....Co-MVP of the SWYL as a senior. He then went to San Deigo St and transferred to Cal-Poly the next year. His last year in College he earned the Big West’s triple crown for the regular season with a .405 batting average, 15 home runs and 53 RBIs in 50 games. He also stole 12 of 15 bases that season despite missing the final six games of the year due to a fractured wrist.

Desme also led the Big West in slugging percentage (.733), on-base percentage (.494) and total bases (143) en route to Big West Player of the Year and Louisville Slugger second-team All-America honors.The junior led the Mustangs in a total of 12 offensive categories. In national statistics for the regular season, Desme was 16th in slugging percentage (.733), 22nd in home runs per game (0.3), 28th in batting average (.405), 57th in runs scored per game (1.08) and 71st in RBIs per game (1.06).

With the broken wrist, the A's knew recovery should be expected to take at least a year. So the A's expected to not be able to play him until around July 2008.   However,  Improvement on a wrist injury will continue for at least two years. And thats right about now.  To see if that might be making a difference in his hitting,  I'm going to do his OPS splits by month. (split info here)

April-732.......May-822......June-(before call-up) 918......June ( after call-up)-658..........July-1086.......Aug-1227 (that just so happens to also be his OPS his last year of college before breaking his wrist, also 1227).  Info on broken wrists here. 

His shoulder injury happened in 2008 and was a torn labrum.  I could could not find much information on the injury but it took him most of 2008 to heal. torn labrum info here.   Whether its regular playing time or a completely healed wrist, Desme is now putting up numbers rarely seen. To see how rare, I want to look at his speed, check out his defense to find his future position, and also want to look at  his power with some comparable OPS. 

What I'm not going to do right now is spend any time looking deeper into his strikeout/contact problems.  I think it is a big problem that needs steady improvement.  And that, along with his age, is the reason he is not higher up on the prospect lists at the moment. However a post can only be so long and this one will be long enough without the weaknesses analysis. This is his rookie year, and even though he is old for the league, a move to Midland may not depress his numbers considering the Team OPS of Midland is 807 and for Stockton is a much lower 732.

First- I want to show his Speed and Defense.

Speed

Here are some different scouting report blurbs-2007-he's an average runner in terms of pure speed, although he does have good first step quickness. Desme has shown good instincts for stealing bases. 2008- he is just an average runner to first (4.3 seconds).

Here is also a scouting report number. The ratings are based on formulas that sum a player's entire career based on available statistics in their database, including minor league and college data. Full Summary here

He has a better speed number  than 71% of all other players. I think his speed number is on the low side (for him) because of what he didn't do in college. In almost 500 at bats in college. Desme went  20-5 in Stolen Bases. In almost 500 at bats in the minor leagues, Desme has gone 39-5 in Stolen Bases. I'm not sure what happened between "average" and now but somethings changed for the better.  Now look at his power score. Wow, He's not going to improve much on that one.

Now, for  a different way to check his speed,  I will use a speed Score formula originally proposed by Bill James in 1987. His formula took six elements and put them on a scale of 1-10, then took the average of the six elements. These elements included stolen base percentage, stolen base attempts, triples, runs scored, grounded-into double plays and range factor.  The higher the number  the better.  5 is average.

Desme's (fangraph) speed score right now is around 8.2.  For some perspective, that's 2nd in the California League (Min 190 PA). and 4th in all A+ ball.  However the 1st-3rd place guys have an OPS of  603, 745 and 646 respectively.  Looking into all the higher AA leagues we see there are only 3 total players there with a speed score over 8.

For what that means- its time for a Bill James primer:

"Talent in baseball is not normally distributed. It is a pyramid. For every player who is 10 percent above the average player, there are probably twenty players who are 10 percent  below average."

Defense-

scout blurbs- Jan 2008-I like his arm strength in CF but feel his range will deteriorate and be pushed to an outfield corner.

April 2009-On defense, Desme has been thrown into the center-field fire this year, and has shown he can indeed play both sides of the ball. While he profiles as a future corner outfielder, he possesses range, speed, and a good throwing arm. Yet, he hasn’t played center field since his sophomore college season at Cal Poly, and admittedly not very well. "I wasn’t a very good outfielder in college really," Desme said. "The first year was really rough."

The 2006 season was his first year in the outfield, having played shortstop through his freshman year at San Diego State. Since transferring, he has patrolled the outfield, and has shown considerable improvement, much in part to his downtime with the wrist injury. For most of his stay in the Arizona League last season he could not swing a bat, limiting him to outfield practice. "The only thing I could do is just shag B.P. every day, so I think that helped me a lot," 

full article here

It would seem like being injured actually helped him to spend all of his time on upgrading his Defense and somehow his speed, maybe he just observed pitcher's move's more than he ever did before out of boredom, so now he's just smarter?  Running around for B.P. balls all day got his legs to grow some muscles he didn't have before? Is it almost to the point where it might be time to think about trying him at SS again?

• Before we are tempted to move him back to Shortstop, lets look at a Bill James primer about defense:
• The defensive spectrum looks like this:

                   ( - - 1B - LF- RF - 3B - CF - 2B - SS - C - - )

with the basic premise being that positions at the right end of the spectrum are more difficult than the positions at the left end of the spectrum.  Players can generally move from right to left along the spectrum.

"Right-ward shifts along the defensive spectrum almost  never work"

"True shortage of talent almost  never occurs at the left end of the defensive spectrum."

List of Bill James primers here. I like the primer about the lead off batter the best (Ricky ball anyone?).

Almost never works is a good reason not to try. But Desme may be the exception to the rule with his unusual improvements. According to that defensive primer,  It would seem like a move to 3rd could be a good/easy move, especially for someone with his SS experience and arm. A move to 2nd would be the next step to the right of the spectrum if the A's did want to try and move him to a harder position than 3rd. Otherwise it seems CF seems to be a good spot to keep him right now and a move to SS is not going to happen.

Power-

A blurb- While the power display harkened memories of Dave Kingman, Ports manager Aaron Nieckula said Desme is equipped with more than just dead-red pull power. Nieckula’s take is Desme’s power ranges from left field to the right-center gap. "He’s not a dead pull guy," Nieckula said. "You can pitch him away if you want … but he’s going to punish you." .......................Dave Kingman's career major and minor league stats here

Isolated Power, or ISO, is a statistic that was created-invented by the famous general manager Branch Rickey and Al Roth in the 1950's (this pair also invented On Base Percentage). Isolated Power attempts to separate and measure a player's ability to hit for power as exhibited in extra base hits (doubles, triples, and home runs). Where batting average counts all hits equally, and slugging percentage gives credit for total bases, but also counts singles, ISO measures just the player's extra-base abilities. Isolated power is basically a ratio of Extra Base Hits per at bat.

Desme is leading all the (A+) leagues in Isolated Power at .368.  Jonathan Gaston is the only other (A+) player with an ISP over 300.  Gaston also has a speed score of 7.6 and is one of the only two other comparable players too Desme I found in A+.  T.J. Steele is the other with a great speed and power combo.  He has a 7.5 speed score and a .232 ISP.  There was no one in (AA) that broke even a 7 speed score that had good power. 

Side note:   Both Gaston and Steele both play for the Astros (A+) affiliate in the California League.  The Astro's AA affiliate also plays in the 8 team Texas League with the A's (AA) team the Midland Rockhounds. The A's have pulled off  trades with three of those 8 teams (S.Deigo, Colarado, St.L)  in less than a year and seem very comfortable  trading with each other.

How about OPS? What does OPS tell us? It gives up a great tool to compare players on their overall offensive contribution. In order to be among the league leaders in OPS, a player must hit for average, display a great batting eye (to collect walks), and hit for power. An OPS over 900 is considered quite good, and an OPS over 1000 is sure be among the league leaders.

Desme is hitting +320 OPS points better than his team (1052 vrs 732).  AA player Chris Carter +189 ( 1004 vrs 807).  Abert Pujols +389  (1134 vrs 745) . ......For more on the A's,  (AA) Midland Rockhounds team with my player analysis go here.

Now I want to look at  how many 1000+ OPS guys are in  each level of baseball (min 190 PA) 2009. 

players in A or A- ball,... 0....... players in A+,... 6.......... Players in AA ball,.. 3........ AAA players,.. 8.........  ML players 2.  Or less than 20 in all of the major and minor leagues (down no farther than A- ball).   Pyramid says Bill, Pyramid. 

Here is another interesting  Bill James Primer:

"Minor league batting statistics will predict major league batting performance with essentially the same reliability as previous major league statistics."

.....................one can only hope Mr. James, one can only hope........

Even more on Desme-............ don't worry,  the ride is almost at an end.

He is one of the most athletically gifted players in the A’s system, something that has been evident in his speed-and-power numbers, as well as his defense. However, his approach at the plate is, at times, overly aggressive, something that may be a product of the missed season.

Here is a really, really good mid-season top 50 prospect report which includes this years rookie A's.  here . I liked it a lot because of the inclusion of our rookies.

another  2007 scouting report

a nice article about Desme 12 games after being called up to A+ in early July,  when he was hitting .227  here

Here's is Desme's total college and minor league stats: here

One last Bill James primer,   "The chance of getting a good player with a high draft pick is substantial enough that it is clearly a disastrous strategy to give up a high draft choice to sign a mediocre free agent." 

Now Mr. James actually said that about a first round pick,  but I think it still applies. Essentially, by signing a Orlando Cabrera,  you may never get a Grant Desme.  And although it doesn't look like Desme is ever going to be a SS again, he may have the athletic ability, arm and infield comfort level of a prior Short Stop  to be able to man one of the other defensibly important infield position's.

As far as his injury's go, I never was able to determine just how he broke his wrist or tore his labrum. I  don't know if it was baseball related, a freak accident or chronic weakness. I do know that no one seems to be concerned with it at this point and that he seems to have fully healed and maybe even oddly benefited from it. 

The name drop of Dave Kingman was one I really liked even though the speed does not compare.  Kingman was the reason I was an A's fan for 3 years, even though Rickey Henderson got me started.  I hope everyone enjoyed the ride.

I am going to take you on a little drive.  It can be a long drive or a short drive depending on if you want to access the many links provided in this post. I hoped to have answered many of my own questions in writing it.  I have succeeded in that regard and maybe more.  Now for the drive...

This is an extensive scouting profile of A+ Stockton Center Fielder Grant Desme, using some Bill James statistics and primers.  When I started this profile, I wanted to know more on how Desme's injury's affected him and the chance of moving him back to his High School and Early College position of Short-Stop.

6'2, 205lb.  Age 23. 2009 Combined Stats between A and A+....105 gm..... 29D, 6T, 26 HR, 80 RBI, 37 for 41SB, 900+OPS.

Selected by Oakland Athletics in 2nd Round (74th overall) of 2007 amateur entry draft. He was the fourth player taken in that draft by the A's after Simmons, Doolittle and Brown. Bats right, throws right.

Coming out of Hi-School he was a highly-regarded, swith hitting short-stop who could play either middle infield position...Had the ability to hit with power to all fields. High School: Played four years of baseball at Stockdale High School...In 2003, batted .419 with 25 runs scored, 18 runs batted in, five doubles, three triples and a home run....Co-MVP of the SWYL as a senior. He then went to San Deigo St and transferred to Cal-Poly the next year. His last year in College he earned the Big West’s triple crown for the regular season with a .405 batting average, 15 home runs and 53 RBIs in 50 games. He also stole 12 of 15 bases that season despite missing the final six games of the year due to a fractured wrist.

Desme also led the Big West in slugging percentage (.733), on-base percentage (.494) and total bases (143) en route to Big West Player of the Year and Louisville Slugger second-team All-America honors.The junior led the Mustangs in a total of 12 offensive categories. In national statistics for the regular season, Desme was 16th in slugging percentage (.733), 22nd in home runs per game (0.3), 28th in batting average (.405), 57th in runs scored per game (1.08) and 71st in RBIs per game (1.06).

With the broken wrist, the A's knew recovery should be expected to take at least a year. So the A's expected to not be able to play him until around July 2008.   However,  Improvement on a wrist injury will continue for at least two years. And thats right about now.  To see if that might be making a difference in his hitting,  I'm going to do his OPS splits by month. (split info here)

April-732.......May-822......June-(before call-up) 918......June ( after call-up)-658..........July-1086.......Aug-1227 (that just so happens to also be his OPS his last year of college before breaking his wrist, also 1227).  Info on broken wrists here. 

His shoulder injury happened in 2008 and was a torn labrum.  I could could not find much information on the injury but it took him most of 2008 to heal. torn labrum info here.   Whether its regular playing time or a completely healed wrist, Desme is now putting up numbers rarely seen. To see how rare, I want to look at his speed, check out his defense to find his future position, and also want to look at  his power with some comparable OPS. 

What I'm not going to do right now is spend any time looking deeper into his strikeout/contact problems.  I think it is a big problem that needs steady improvement.  And that, along with his age, is the reason he is not higher up on the prospect lists at the moment. However a post can only be so long and this one will be long enough without the weaknesses analysis. This is his rookie year, and even though he is old for the league, a move to Midland may not depress his numbers considering the Team OPS of Midland is 807 and for Stockton is a much lower 732.

First- I want to show his Speed and Defense.

Speed

Here are some different scouting report blurbs-2007-he's an average runner in terms of pure speed, although he does have good first step quickness. Desme has shown good instincts for stealing bases. 2008- he is just an average runner to first (4.3 seconds).

Here is also a scouting report number. The ratings are based on formulas that sum a player's entire career based on available statistics in their database, including minor league and college data. Full Summary here

He has a better speed number  than 71% of all other players. I think his speed number is on the low side (for him) because of what he didn't do in college. In almost 500 at bats in college. Desme went  20-5 in Stolen Bases. In almost 500 at bats in the minor leagues, Desme has gone 39-5 in Stolen Bases. I'm not sure what happened between "average" and now but somethings changed for the better.  Now look at his power score. Wow, He's not going to improve much on that one.

Now, for  a different way to check his speed,  I will use a speed Score formula originally proposed by Bill James in 1987. His formula took six elements and put them on a scale of 1-10, then took the average of the six elements. These elements included stolen base percentage, stolen base attempts, triples, runs scored, grounded-into double plays and range factor.  The higher the number  the better.  5 is average.

Desme's (fangraph) speed score right now is around 8.2.  For some perspective, that's 2nd in the California League (Min 190 PA). and 4th in all A+ ball.  However the 1st-3rd place guys have an OPS of  603, 745 and 646 respectively.  Looking into all the higher AA leagues we see there are only 3 total players there with a speed score over 8.

For what that means- its time for a Bill James primer:

"Talent in baseball is not normally distributed. It is a pyramid. For every player who is 10 percent above the average player, there are probably twenty players who are 10 percent  below average."

Defense-

scout blurbs- Jan 2008-I like his arm strength in CF but feel his range will deteriorate and be pushed to an outfield corner.

April 2009-On defense, Desme has been thrown into the center-field fire this year, and has shown he can indeed play both sides of the ball. While he profiles as a future corner outfielder, he possesses range, speed, and a good throwing arm. Yet, he hasn’t played center field since his sophomore college season at Cal Poly, and admittedly not very well. "I wasn’t a very good outfielder in college really," Desme said. "The first year was really rough."

The 2006 season was his first year in the outfield, having played shortstop through his freshman year at San Diego State. Since transferring, he has patrolled the outfield, and has shown considerable improvement, much in part to his downtime with the wrist injury. For most of his stay in the Arizona League last season he could not swing a bat, limiting him to outfield practice. "The only thing I could do is just shag B.P. every day, so I think that helped me a lot," 

full article here

It would seem like being injured actually helped him to spend all of his time on upgrading his Defense and somehow his speed, maybe he just observed pitcher's move's more than he ever did before out of boredom, so now he's just smarter?  Running around for B.P. balls all day got his legs to grow some muscles he didn't have before? Is it almost to the point where it might be time to think about trying him at SS again?

• Before we are tempted to move him back to Shortstop, lets look at a Bill James primer about defense:
• The defensive spectrum looks like this:

                   ( - - 1B - LF- RF - 3B - CF - 2B - SS - C - - )

with the basic premise being that positions at the right end of the spectrum are more difficult than the positions at the left end of the spectrum.  Players can generally move from right to left along the spectrum.

"Right-ward shifts along the defensive spectrum almost  never work"

"True shortage of talent almost  never occurs at the left end of the defensive spectrum."

List of Bill James primers here. I like the primer about the lead off batter the best (Ricky ball anyone?).

Almost never works is a good reason not to try. But Desme may be the exception to the rule with his unusual improvements. According to that defensive primer,  It would seem like a move to 3rd could be a good/easy move, especially for someone with his SS experience and arm. A move to 2nd would be the next step to the right of the spectrum if the A's did want to try and move him to a harder position than 3rd. Otherwise it seems CF seems to be a good spot to keep him right now and a move to SS is not going to happen.

Power-

A blurb- While the power display harkened memories of Dave Kingman, Ports manager Aaron Nieckula said Desme is equipped with more than just dead-red pull power. Nieckula’s take is Desme’s power ranges from left field to the right-center gap. "He’s not a dead pull guy," Nieckula said. "You can pitch him away if you want … but he’s going to punish you." .......................Dave Kingman's career major and minor league stats here

Isolated Power, or ISO, is a statistic that was created-invented by the famous general manager Branch Rickey and Al Roth in the 1950's (this pair also invented On Base Percentage). Isolated Power attempts to separate and measure a player's ability to hit for power as exhibited in extra base hits (doubles, triples, and home runs). Where batting average counts all hits equally, and slugging percentage gives credit for total bases, but also counts singles, ISO measures just the player's extra-base abilities. Isolated power is basically a ratio of Extra Base Hits per at bat.

Desme is leading all the (A+) leagues in Isolated Power at .368.  Jonathan Gaston is the only other (A+) player with an ISP over 300.  Gaston also has a speed score of 7.6 and is one of the only two other comparable players too Desme I found in A+.  T.J. Steele is the other with a great speed and power combo.  He has a 7.5 speed score and a .232 ISP.  There was no one in (AA) that broke even a 7 speed score that had good power. 

Side note:   Both Gaston and Steele both play for the Astros (A+) affiliate in the California League.  The Astro's AA affiliate also plays in the 8 team Texas League with the A's (AA) team the Midland Rockhounds. The A's have pulled off  trades with three of those 8 teams (S.Deigo, Colarado, St.L)  in less than a year and seem very comfortable  trading with each other.

How about OPS? What does OPS tell us? It gives up a great tool to compare players on their overall offensive contribution. In order to be among the league leaders in OPS, a player must hit for average, display a great batting eye (to collect walks), and hit for power. An OPS over 900 is considered quite good, and an OPS over 1000 is sure be among the league leaders.

Desme is hitting +320 OPS points better than his team (1052 vrs 732).  AA player Chris Carter +189 ( 1004 vrs 807).  Abert Pujols +389  (1134 vrs 745) . ......For more on the A's,  (AA) Midland Rockhounds team with my player analysis go here.

Now I want to look at  how many 1000+ OPS guys are in  each level of baseball (min 190 PA) 2009. 

players in A or A- ball,... 0....... players in A+,... 6.......... Players in AA ball,.. 3........ AAA players,.. 8.........  ML players 2.  Or less than 20 in all of the major and minor leagues (down no farther than A- ball).   Pyramid says Bill, Pyramid. 

Here is another interesting  Bill James Primer:

"Minor league batting statistics will predict major league batting performance with essentially the same reliability as previous major league statistics."

.....................one can only hope Mr. James, one can only hope........

Even more on Desme-............ don't worry,  the ride is almost at an end.

He is one of the most athletically gifted players in the A’s system, something that has been evident in his speed-and-power numbers, as well as his defense. However, his approach at the plate is, at times, overly aggressive, something that may be a product of the missed season.

Here is a really, really good mid-season top 50 prospect report which includes this years rookie A's.  here . I liked it a lot because of the inclusion of our rookies.

another  2007 scouting report

a nice article about Desme 12 games after being called up to A+ in early July,  when he was hitting .227  here

Here's is Desme's total college and minor league stats: here

One last Bill James primer,   "The chance of getting a good player with a high draft pick is substantial enough that it is clearly a disastrous strategy to give up a high draft choice to sign a mediocre free agent." 

Now Mr. James actually said that about a first round pick,  but I think it still applies. Essentially, by signing a Orlando Cabrera,  you may never get a Grant Desme.  And although it doesn't look like Desme is ever going to be a SS again, he may have the athletic ability, arm and infield comfort level of a prior Short Stop  to be able to man one of the other defensibly important infield position's.

As far as his injury's go, I never was able to determine just how he broke his wrist or tore his labrum. I  don't know if it was baseball related, a freak accident or chronic weakness. I do know that no one seems to be concerned with it at this point and that he seems to have fully healed and maybe even oddly benefited from it. 

I hope to have opened some eye's about one of my two favorite A's prospects. The name drop of Dave Kingman was one I really liked even though the speed does not compare.  Kingman was the reason I was an A's fan for 3 years, even though Rickey Henderson got me started.  I hope everyone enjoyed the ride.

The Midland RockHounds are leading all of the AA leagues (Texas, Southern, Eastern) in team OPS. I thought I would take a deeper look into the Rockhounds and their roster. There is about one more month before the AA playoffs and I wanted to see where the season has been. I also wanted to see who the players are, with a few that have been, or probably will be, on the AA team.  First the overall team.

About the team-

Midland plays in the 8 team Texas League. Midland's average player age is  24.3 years which is about the 11 youngest team in AA (info here). For reference the A's (AAA) Sacramento team average age is 25.5, 2nd youngest of the AAA teams. Good article on this here: (The Hardball Times).  They say AA teams are mostly  built around prospects and most of the A's best ones are there.

The parent organizations of other teams in the Texas League are:  The Colorado Rockies, St.Louis Cardinals, S.D. Padres, Houston Astros, K.C. Royals,  L.A. Angles, and the Texas Rangers. Three of them have been very recent trading partners, one a multiple past trading partner (KC), and two unlikely trading partners (AL West).  If the teams are more comfortable trading with each other because they see the other teams best prospects more often, watch out for an Astros trade.

Midland leads the Texas League with a 63-51 record. That may be because the Midland offense has been truly spectacular this year. I'm going to use OPS for a standard evaluation the rest of this post. I'm not going to try and equalize parks or do anything fancy otherwise. Everyone can quickly figure out a players OPS without much problem and it's good enough for this analysis.

The AA team easily leads the Texas league in team OPS at 811. They also lead all AA teams in all leagues. The Tigers AA affiliate leads the Eastern League at 775, the White Sox affiliate leads the Southern League at 769, and 2nd place in the Texas League is the 747 Royals affiliate.

Furthermore, the 811 team OPS is the most prolific AA team OPS in any AA league in at least over the last 5 years. This is as far as I went back with the best I found in the last 5 years being 794. Which also happened to be the 2005 Midland team with Andre Ethier.  That's kind of impressive. Midland has Three of the top 10 OPS guys in the Texas League in #1 (Carter), Cardenas and Donaldson. And yes, Carter leads all of the AA league's in player OPS.

The pitchers have not been near as impressive as the hitters. The team ERA is 2nd to last in the Texas League at 4.75.   A 4.16 ERA in 2006 with Brad Ziegler was the best the team has done in the last 5 years. You can say Midland is a hitters park for sure and the Texas League a hitters league maybe. Someone else is going to have to tell us by how much. Also with the A's graduating 4 pitchers (Bailey, Anderson, Cahill, and Outman)  to the ML club from AA last year, the cupboard may be a little bare.

Now the player info: a few are not on the AA roster but have been included to provide some perspective.

Top prospects for the A's AA team:   hitters;

Chris Carter 1B-22 yrs- 38D, 21HR, 336/433/574.      1006 OPS. He leads the Texas League in just about every important stat.  BA-336, HR-21, Hits-148, D-38, OBP-433, extra base hits-61, runs-101. 15th round pick in 2007. part of the trade for Dan Haren via Carlos Quentin and the White Sox.  He was the #10 prospect for the Sox in 2007(BA). Has 3 other 900+ OPS seasons.

Carter's OPS is +183 points above the AA team OPS average of  811. remember that number +183.

Grant Desme (2nd round, 2007, 23 yrs)  is probably the only other hitter doing better in the A's organization than Carter,  hitting 1039 OPS for A+ Stockton, but more significantly hitting +309 above the A+ team OPS of 730.  Just to see, ML OPS leader Albert Pujols, has a 1129 OPS or +386 better than the Cardinals team OPS. On to the rest of the guys-

Adrian Cardenas-2B-22 yrs- recently  promoted to AAA. Part of the Joe Blanton trade in 2008. Was the Philly's #2 prospect (BA) last year. And was a #1 pick in 2006. 838 OPS in AA.

Jemile Weeks-2b-22 yrs- A's 1st round pick (12th)  in the 2008 draft. 853 OPS in A+. Put up two 1000+ OPS years in college. recently promoted to AA.

Josh Donaldson-C-24 yrs- Cubs first round pick in 2007. Part of the Rich Harden trade. Has a few 950+ stops in the lower minors. currently 811 OPS.

Cory Brown- CF- 24yrs- 1st round sand pick Oakland (#59) 2007. 1229 OPS his last year of college. his lowest OPS in four low A stops has been 842 with a current 910.

Tommy Everidge-1st-27 yrs.  played his first 55 games at AA this year with a 869 OPS. 10th round 2004. Has had a solid start to his ML career and does not look over-matched like so many other hitters that have come up to the A's the last few years.  His 759 OPS is good for third on the current  ML A's  team, SSS and all.

Mathew Spenser- LF-23 yrs- 3rd rd pick in 2007. Part of the Joe Blanton trade. 853 OPS.  911 OPS last year in A+.

Brett Wallace-3B-23yrs-first round (#13 overall) in 2008. Part of the Matt Holliday trade. #1 ranked prospect for St.L in 2009. played his first 32 games in StL AA team this year with a 841 OPS. Currently has an 760 OPS in 78 AAA games.  The A's were happy to get a #1 prospect 3rd baseman, and I think the Cardinals have been happy with that trade for now with Holliday's 1303 OPS in 16 games.

5 out of those 9 didn't get drafted by Oakland which really shows you the work done the last 1 1/2 years re-stocking the system . And if you notice the A's are only missing a SS.  The A's tried to rectify this by drafting and trading for:

Grant Green-SS-21yr-13th pick in the 1st round 2009. Green put up a OBP heavy OPS of 1000+ his last few years of college. Green could be playing for AA now. If he had signed right away (he has not signed yet) he could have been put in A+ and then been promoted by now or soon if he hit well. This dose not happen often but  Wallace did it.  The A's then hedged their bets by trading for a hi-upside SS in:

Tyler Ladendorf, SS, 21 yrs.  2nd round 2008, from the Twins in the Orlando Cabrera deal. He put up a fat OPS his last year in college and went 65/65 in SB his freshman year. OPS of 728 in the 87 low A games he has had to start his career and he would need an extended hot streak to make the jump to A+ with AA being a possibility later in 2010.

There you have it.  The A's seems to have decided to target the hi-picks in trades and have done (for what we know at this time) at least a good job in the last few drafts with not picking busts.  They are young, all being around 23 years of age.   This group has helped produced a prolific team OPS which has to be a good sign the A's are on the right track. The team seems to be balanced with good to great offensive prospects (counting the guy's that have been promoted out this year) at every hitting position besides SS.  

Four-Five AA players are playing with the A's with some success right now from last years AA team so it is entirely possible that four-five more will be playing with the 2010 A's with some success this time next year . I may do a future AA pitcher report but that list won't be near as impressive. Someone else will have to do a  perspective of the defense of these hitters mentioned.

The Midland RockHounds are leading all of the AA leagues (Texas, Southern, Eastern) in team OPS. I thought I would take a deeper look into the Rockhounds and their roster. There is about one more month before the AA playoffs and I wanted to see where the season has been. I also wanted to see who the players are, with a few that have been, or probably will be, on the AA team.  First the overall team.

About the team-

Midland plays in the 8 team Texas League. Midland's average player age is  24.3 years which is about the 11 youngest team in AA (info here). For reference the A's,  (AAA) Sacramento team average age is 25.5, 2nd youngest of the AAA teams.  Good article on here: The Hardball Times.  AA teams are mostly  built around prospects and most of the A's best ones are there.

The parent organizations of other teams in the Texas League are:  The Colorado Rockies, St.Louis Cardinals, S.D. Padres, Houston Astros, K.C. Royals,  L.A. Angles, and the Texas Rangers. Three of them have been very recent trading partners, one a multiple past trading partner (KC), and two unlikely trading partners (AL West).  If the teams are more comfortable trading with each other because they see the other teams best prospects more often, watch out for an Astros trade.

Midland leads the Texas League with a 63-51 record. That may be because the Midland offense has been truly spectacular this year. I'm going to use OPS for a standard evaluation the rest of this post. I'm not going to try and equalize parks or do anything fancy otherwise. Everyone can quickly figure out a players OPS without much problem and it's good enough for this analysis.

The AA team easily leads the Texas league in team OPS at 811. They also leads all AA teams in all leagues. The Tigers AA affiliate leads the Eastern League at 775, the White Sox affiliate leads the Southern League at 769, and 2nd place in the Texas League is the 747 Royals affiliate.

Furthermore, the 811 team OPS is the most prolific AA team OPS in any AA league in at least over the last 5 years. This is as far as I went back with the best I found in the last 5 years being 794. Which also happened to be the 2005 Midland team with Andre Ethier.  That's kind of impressive. Midland has Three of the top 10 OPS guys in the Texas League in #1 (Carter), Cardenas and Donaldson. And yes, Carter leads all of the AA league's in player OPS.

The pitchers have not been near as impressive as the hitters. The team ERA is 2nd to last in the Texas League at 4.75.   A 4.16 ERA in 2006 with Brad Ziegler was the best the team has done in the last 5 years. You can say Midland is a hitters park for sure and the Texas League a hitters league maybe. Someone else is going to have to tell us by how much. Also with the A's graduating 4 pitchers (Bailey, Cahill, Anderson and Outman) from the AA club last year the cupboard may be a little bare.

Now the player info: a few are not on the AA roster but have been included to provide some perspective.

Continue reading this post »

Signing one stud pitcher does not make a solidly scouted DSL team.

The best OPS on the A's DSL team is Rojas at 897. He is #14 in the DSL and we have no other hitter in the top 100. The best pitcher ERA is Merestil at 1.73 good for #19 in the DSL with no other pitcher in the top 100. Merestil is around 50th in K.

I know the A's have come out and said they are going to be more aggressive down there and they did spend a lot of money on one guy last year, but 2  players in the top 200? I don't know if they need to fire some scouts down there or if they have just been too cheap for too long, but that's not going to cut it.

Although they seem to be not getting enough high quality prospects out of the DSL, there are a ton of ex-DSL players on the ARZ rookie and A- Vancouver teams so its at least possible they had a nice crop graduate out of the DSL the last fews years leaving it bare. There is not many names creating much buzz and there has been no significant DSL player from the A's system play well for the A's in many, many years.  (Casilla's best year has been a 3.93 ERA when he had a 1.59 whip.)  

I don't know what it costs to run a team in South America, but  I think its time for the A's to start up a team in the Venezuelan summer league. There seems to be some good talent coming out of there. They could start trying a new player acquisition philosophy,  with different scouting strategy's, and do it  from the ground up.

For reference there are about 40 ML players from Venezuela with only 7 teams in the VSL or 5.7 created  per team.  The 75 players from the Dominican have 33 teams helping produce them,  or 2.27 players created per team. A dollar spent in the VSL could be equal to 2 1/2 dollars spent in the DSL.  That's a huge market inefficacy.  The A's did sign several Venezuelan IFAs this year so they are at least aware that is a market needing tapping.

Note: All players in the ML born from other country s doesn't mean they all came from a minor-league system in that country, so the numbers will be off, but most did play there. Also I would need to do some more research to see if the quality of players, say All-Stars vrs Non-All Stars,  would be highly significant between the two.

I also think some sort of partnership with a minor league system is Asia (Japan especially)  would be a good use of resources and put them well ahead of most other teams in that department. Once other teams caught on (and they would) the goal would be to start an Asian Summer League with the other five  West Coast teams.  Clearly the future of any small-market team is the minor leagues. There is no reason the A's should be limiting themselves to just the draft and one high priced Int FA signing a year, in just one league. There are  47 ML players from Japan/Taiwan/South-Korea/Australia.  I'm sure there could be another 100 Japanese players if  1)all the Japanese players wanted to play in the U.S. and 2) the Japanese teams didn't control them. That market could be worth more in total ML players than the DSL and VSL combined. If the A's were to start now they would get the first early returns and be in a position to reap the continued rewards from the new Asian Summer League.

In conclusion,

1) There is something wrong with the Dominican system and it may need to be blown up with radical new strategy's and money. 

2) The A's need to start a team in the Venezuelan Summer league to take advantage of the 5.7 players created per team.

3) The A's need to form a partnership with a team based in Asia, with recruiting from South Korea, Taiwan, Japan and Australia, to take advantage of and gain the early rights to, the 50-150 possible ML players that could come from that region with the creation of an Asian Summer League.

4) We are a low-revenue team and these things cost money. I'm going to put each option as costing the A's 2 1/2 to 5 million extra a year with the consequence that it will directly come out of the yearly payroll. The real cost could be  much less when you factor in  the A's will recoup those costs and much much more in 5 years with cheap ML salary's if things worked out as planned.  The money has to come from somewhere to start out though. So imagine the A's this year with a payroll 7.5-15 million less than it is now if you choose all options. This is a harsh reality for a small revenue team,  regardless of it being a good idea or not.

Why go?

After watching Rajai Davis win the game with his walk off triple Monday night with 2 strikes and 2 outs in the bottom of the ninth with runners on first and second,  I started asking myself the last time I have ever seen a walk off triple. I haven't.  It's always a walk off double. I think I should have at least herd of one happening before in the last 20 years of Sportscenter, but it's so obscure and random it's not something I would casually remember if another team did it.

Now I confess that I do not know if Davis touched third before Ellis scored, but i don't think he was that close or that  he tagged 3rd before Ellis touched Home. I thought that the game is over the second Ellis touches home and Davis would olny get credit for the last base touched before the end of the game. But the official rules must give the official scorer some leeway and that scorer choose otherwise.

But its possible for a fast runner to get the 270 feet home to 3rd faster than the first-base runner could get 260 feet, 1st to Home with a ten feet lead. If it's possible then walk-off triples must happen on a small but semi-frequent basis. Not that I can find any data on it.  They must be very rare.. So rare that walk off doubles's may happen up to 50 times more offen than triples.  Now take all the walk-off triples ever scored, now put in that it was 2 strikes and 2 outs and see how many of those  have ever happened. We may never see that again in our lifetime on Sportscenter.

I would like to know how often other rare end of game consequences happen and see which one is the rarest.  A walk-off balk. A walk-off steal of home. But there is one other reason why I think a walk-off triple is super-rare. Because it is not a good play. Therefore most players would not try it. And even if they did, the official scorer may not give them the triple so what is the point.  What possible positive outcome was there for Davis to keep running after getting to 2nd? All he can do is get thrown out at 3rd before the run at home scores. Not that that was going to happen in this case but still why go?

To answer my own question,  I can think of few possible outcomes that could be beneficial however unlikely . 

1) If the runner at first was slower, and the ball coming back to the infield was quicker, Davis, thinking that the runner would be thrown out at home, went for third and successfully deaked the first baseman into throwing it to 3rd, too late.

2) The runner from first could also have changed his mind halfway down the third base line on trying to score, and thinking that runner was going to get caught in a pickle,  Davis goes to 3rd, leading to a botched rundown and the player getting home.  I think alot of these scenarios, including the one tonight could be classified more  than one way.  How long does the official scorer have to change his ruling before it becomes, officially, a super rare, walk-off triple?

Ok, now one last illogicall question for you to mull over on this strange play.  Can we agree that the official scorer can make rulings where he can interpret the rulebook in different ways? K, with me so far? Now what if Powell had been on first and Davis had gone for an inside the park HR, touching home plate a split second after Powell, how could it be scored and has something like it ever happened before?

I would like to thank Rajai for winning the game tonight, and doing it in a obscure and exciting way. He has been playing really well as of late and has helped  make the team fun to watch in a down year.  I also think this is the night he has officially got my vote in his bid to be a starting outfielder for the A's moving forward the next year or two.  I have always liked him on the team and saw good value in him being a 4th outfeilder- Defensive replacment- pinch-runner.  But now, dare I say, he is the first one of our young outfeilders to officially break out over the last few years and I don't know if I ever epected that. Nor did I expect to be happy with a breakout not tied to being a HR hitter.

The A's Rajai Davis hit a walk-off triple in the bottom of the ninth tonight against Texas to win the game 3-2. There were runners at First and Second. Once the second runner scores, the game is over and there is no reason for the official scorer to award third base. I suppose with Davis's speed he could have been to third when the second run scored, but the replays only show he was near it.

I don't know if I have ever seen that ruled anything but a double before on a game I was watching but I'm sure it happens a small amount of times. It made me wonder just how rare that is. Does a walk-off double happen 100x more often than a walk-off triple? Does anyone have a  stat site that would keep track of what type of  walk-off hits happened? For that manner game ending walks, error's, balks etc. I would think one of the rarest of all outcomes might be stealing home.

I know a lot of people are perfectly happy with the job Kurt Suzuki has done. His defense,  has been solid. He has a .995 fielding % in the majors. He has a total of 3 errors/passed balls combined in 770 inn, which is outstanding.  He has given up 137 SB in 193 attempts which isn't terribly impressive. Everyone feels his handling of the pitching staff has been great.  I don't know how to quantify that except by his catchers earned run average (cERA) which is 4.54 this year and middle of the pack for catchers. I think his biggest downfall is that he is not progressing as a hitter. He has not had a OPS higher than 735(his rookie year) since AA ball. And it has gone down, if slightly, both years since his rookie year.

Landon Powell hasn't had an OPS under 762 since his first real season of AA ball. Although we won't know if Powell can progressively get better or even hold onto what he's doing OPS wise until he gets a few more years under his belt, we can guess Suzuki isn't going to go out of the 700-750 range anytime soon.

Suzuki April OPS-855,      May-666,        June-729      July-687. 

Powell- April OPS-750, May-905, June 701 July 1144 (wow).

I know SSS and all, but with more at bats he could be more consistent, not less. (not that I expect him to put up a 900+ OPS every year).  Powell is only hitting 50 OPS points higher than Kurk, but he has shown a tendency this year to improve, with the ability to have really high OPS months.

His cERA is also 4.54, so at least this year he has handled the staff the same as Suzuki. I think in this day and age of managers calling games, it may not be that important anyways.   His fielding % of .976 isn't great. He has had 4 errors/passed balls combined in 161 innings. I have been unable to find any fielding stats for Powell in the minors so I'm not sure if this is a solid trend or not but he defiantly needs some work and may never be as good as Kurk behind the plate. He has given up 6 SB in 12 attempts which would make him 2nd best in all baseball behind Kenji Jojima for that amount of attempts. Again, I do not know what his caught stealing % has been in the minors, but he has been excellent so far this year in his limited time.

Powell is a year older than Suzuki and his most obvious weakness beyond his behind the plate D, is his ability to stay healthy and stay on the field. He may never be able to play more than half a season behind the plate and would need to be snuck in at DH or 1B to take advantage of his bat.  At the very least, Powell might have made himself  one of the top 5 back-up catchers in the ML in his rookie year and a very valuable asset to the A's.

If he could stay healthy,( I know a big, big IF) he could compete for the starting C job for half the teams in baseball (if not our own) as his OPS is around 15th in MLB with his amount of games played. I think he could be a nice trade chip to the right team if we decide to keep Suzuki long-term. He could also help make Suzuki expendable if we got the right price and were willing to go with a platoon at C with one of the other minor league studs we have on the way at Catcher in a few years or more, such as Donaldson in AA who leads the Texas league in catcher OPS or Stassi if he signs.

All and all, I think many teams wish they had a Landon Powell on their team right about now. If he can improve his behind the plate D at least 25%,  as well as get the necessary at bats to show if his hitting is really legit and improving, he could really give Kurk a run for his money.

Looking at the A's Minor leagues, it looks like there are many players that are being held up from Advancing. This could be  because of the quality in front of them. Another prospect may deserve to be at that particular level in the minors for there age and advancment to date, so the team needs to keep them there for better evaluation.  Another reason is that the big league club has no openings.  The A's as an organization seems to be heavy on name/upside pitchers but they don't have alot of those pitchers in the minors that cry for a promotion (other than A Kane County which leads the A's affiliates with a 3.50 team ERA (Seattle leads the AL with a 3.65). The A's have alot of position players that do with the AA Rock Hounds and there team .805 OPS, (A's are last in AL at .698) leading the way.  

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Baseball Analysts baseballanalysts.com, archives July 2nd.

Great studys on drafting in general, with three parts. Part 1)-expected value for each draft pick. 2) probability's of becoming a certain type of player. 3) The effect of a General Managers drafting ability.        

As a team Oakland was top 4. As a General Manager Mr. Beane was rated  #1 in WAR above average per pick and #1 WAR above average per draft. The Giants and Sabean ranked at/near the bottom.

Now this does me good. It validates what alot of A's fans feel about our G.M/Team and that his rebuilding plan will get us somewhere and that the A's or there fans are just "unlucky" right now.  It would also seem to quiet at least  some of the criticism of Beane at least as far as drafting goes. At the same time Giants haters can tell their stupid-ass, dumb-ass, fat-ass, Giant loving friends that Sabean is just lucky right now and will probably screw up the team soon. For a shorter acronym to call your Orange freinds,  use (S.A.D.A.F.A).

more interesting facts with some of my own conclusions :

1) a good GM will net his team an average of 6-7 wins more than

an average GM in a single draft. 

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This poll will encompass several area's of the team. They include but are not limited too, team ownership, current management (includes GM, manager,coaches), general playing ability of the talent on the field , minor league system (including depth, drafts, Int. FA signings, progress and ratings of prospects), trades, news positive or negative towards the organization and how the team is playing week to week.

First of all I want to say that I stole this idea from Talking Chop, The Atlanta Braves Blog of Record. They have a nice blog with a lot of links to different info than AN. They stole the idea from Matt Cerrone's Mets Blog, so I don't think I'm going to feel too guilty about it. They  do a weekly poll that keeps a running tally with graph's on how confident there fans are of there team. FYI, the Braves Fan's Confidence is  70% right now, and the Mets fan's confidence is 30% .  Now the Met's are only 1.5 back of the Braves so either Braves fans are really optimistic about the future or New York fans are a lot harder to please or both.  

I figured I would start the ball rolling and see if anyone is interested. Maybe I could have picked a better time for a higher confidence rating but hey lets give it a roll.

(Nice little fan post for everyone to read) - Matt Buggenhagen

This according to A's Beat writer Susan Slusser  and reported on SB Athletics Nation. Gallaghar had a 1.74 ERA in 5 starts for AAA Sacramento, had bad (8+ERA) numbers in limited innings in the majors this year and was the main piece of the Rich Harden trade the A's made with the Cubs last year.

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He's on pace for career Hi's (if he played in his high of 156 games, which of course he can't) in H, HR, RBI, TB, BB, SB, OBP, and close in OPS, SLG, D and R.

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in the Chad Reineke deal made with SD in April.

Reineke was traded originally for JD Pruitt who had a .486 OBP in limited AB's with Vancouver last year. I can't find Pruitt playing anywhere at the moment as his stats say FA.

Reineke is 3-3 with a 4.37 ERA with 12 starts in 20 app. at AAA.

Putnum was batting .260 with 11HR and 44 RBI's in 73 games split about equally in AA and AAA.

Everyone at AN seems to have a favorite player to hate. The A's seem to have a large number of players that could be Designated For Assignment, or outright dumped without much downside. They are all blocking players that are in the teams future from playing time.

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