According to scout.com (the best pay site for A's minor league information on the web), the A's have left themself open to numerous "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" jokes by signing San Dimas High catcher Josh Leyland.

Continue reading this post »

Dark Horizons is reporting a Variety story that the long in "development hell" movie adaption of Moneyball has finally moved forward.

Continue reading this post »

To quote Billy Beane, “If you are going to rebuild you don’t just need good players, you need lots of good players.” The Giants problem is they have a few good players coming down the pipeline like Villalona and Posey, but a lot of them wont be in the big leagues until 2010 at the earliest, and even then it will take a couple years of playing time to get good production out of them. And when they do finally make the show there aren’t enough of them coming to fill all the holes the Giants have from years of mortgaging their future on ill-advised trades and keeping veterans with value (like Schmidt) even though the Giants had no hope of contending.

Continue reading this post »

There were three new draft signings I haven't seen talked about here.  For reference, and a complete list of the 2008 draft, here is Baseball America's draft list.

The big one is Dusty Coleman.  He is a Shortstop from Whichita State and the people on the Scout.com boards have been comparing him to Bobby Crosby (without the detachable arm and leg action-figure battle damage).  The college sophomore was the A's 28th round pick in the 2008 draft, and here's the kicker:  the A's finally flipped the bird to Selig and promised him a $700,000 dollar signing bonus.  That's comparable to a second round draft pick.  He is currently heading to Arizona for a physical and if everything goes right will sign soon.

The second big signee, according to an insider story on Scout.com, is the A's 2008 11th round pick Chris Berroa.  He can do a 6.4 in the 60, hit .500 in 2006, and plays centerfield. No word yet on what he signed for, but when we find out I'll post it.

The final new player to sign was the A's 2008 29th round pick, right handed pitcher Justin Murray from Kansas State.

Today GM Doug Wilson traded Steve Bernier and their 2008 first round pick for three time allstar blue liner Brian Campbell

Continue reading this post »

Future Athletic Roundup #2.1 – 2008 Stockton Rotation Edition.

    Since we hear so much about Stockton's rotation being so good this year, I wanted to write up a projected line-up.  Also, since it’s a new season with lots of new players and a new site, so I took the opportunity to choose a new name (I got bored with the last one).  Hopefully, unlike last year, I’ll do more than 6 of these this year, but that really depends on my schedule. 

Continue reading this post »

Future Athletic Roundup #1.6 – Prospect Gambling Edition

Sports writers are boring.  Every year we have to put up with a bunch of safe prospect lists, and by that I mean top 50, top 25, or top 10.  I really think Baseball Prospectus had it almost right when they went with a top eleven.  Eleven is an interesting number because it, for once, doesn’t go by the "must be divisible by five" rule most top prospect lists use, but I wanted to take it further.  More so then any sport, baseball prospects are a gamble (you can be the next Curt Schilling when you are drafted, and be organizational filler the next), and the number I felt best represented this "hit or miss" mentality was Black Jack’s own 21.

Continue reading this post »

Here are some Joe Thornton facts I found on boards for opposing teams (Cnucks and Stars).  Feel free to add your own.

Continue reading this post »

Dan Meyer, the final hope from the Tim Hudson trade, has been called up to the A's

Continue reading this post »

Future Athletic Roundup for Saturday, June 23 2007. – Catcher Edition

Now even longer...but weekly instead of twice a week!  Why?  Because I need a life!   As always this is an interactive medium so fan-scouting reports on any mentioned player and differentiating opinions are encouraged.

Continue reading this post »

Future Athletic Roundup for Saturday, June 23 2007. (One day late due to a sluggish internet connection slowing my research)

That was close!  I was almost traded to the Kansas City Royals, but it turns out when I was typing the last issue of Future Athletics Roundup my keyboard strained its enter key on the last sentence so here I am.   As always this is an interactive medium so fan-Scouting reports on any mentioned player and differentiating opinions are encouraged.

Continue reading this post »

Future Athletic Roundup for Tues. June 19 2007.
New and improved with a less corny name!   Well, I always loved the prospect reviews on AN, and since no one is doing them anymore, I’ll pick up the torch until I get run out of AN faster the Dan Johnson can hit into a double play.  As always this is an interactive medium so fan-Scouting reports on any mentioned player and differentiating opinions are encouraged.

Continue reading this post »

Future Aceletics Roundup for Sat. June 16 2007.

After today’s loss I thought it would be fun to take a look at the future of the A’s.  Fan-Scouting reports on any mentioned player and differentiating opinions are encouraged.

Continue reading this post »

Corey Brown was the A's third pick, fifty ninth overall, in this years draft.

Continue reading this post »

...

Continue reading this post »

This is my first diary so wish me luck.  There was recently a diary posted talking about playing Scutaro instead of Crosby. I'm tired of all the Crosby hate I keep reading from posters, he's a great player and deserves more respect then he's getting.  

I have this sneaking suspicion that if Chavez hits 40 to 45 homers this year Crosby will turn into the new "Chavez" as far as hitters that the fans expect too much out of.  Does Crosby have the potential to have a few .300/40HR seasons with gold gloves in his career?  Yes, but it wont happen right away.  I think if we go into each season just expecting improvement he will get there eventually.  If Crosby hits .290/25HR this year he will have had a good year.  It wont be what the fans want, and people will complain he doesn't belong in the "3-hole" because he doesn't put up enough offence or has issues with RISP but he'll get there.   By putting Crosby in the "3-hole" now the A's are training him to be "that" player.

As for Scoot, he's a great player, but he's more of a "Crosby lite."  He's a good hitter but will never have the power numbers Crosby will.  He plays good defense but will never have Crosby's speed or arm.  I really can't understand why people would want to see him in a game instead of Crosby any time except in a tie game at the tenth inning.  I feel people are choosing Scutero over Crosby, not because Scutaro is the better player, but because Crosby isn't living up to the expectations that Tejada set when he left.

And lets face it, if Chavez stays hot and passes the 40 home run mark with a gold glove, Crosby can hit 20 homers with gold glove defense  "calibur" defence, and Tejada has another decline year with 30 homers or so, then letting Tejada walk for Crosby looks like genius.  Tejada will never get a gold glove at shortstop, but Chavez has 5 at third and Crosby will be in the running if he stays healthy the whole year.  Both will can have great offensive numbers which is a premium with that kind of defence.  (The Yanks pay A-Rod 25 million for a reason.) If we had converted Crosby to second who would we have at third?  No one above league average, so I think we need to stop expecting Crosby to be Miguel Tejada at this point and see him for what he is...a developing player that can be something great in a year or two.