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 »