http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/scorecard/mlbnews.asp?articleID=166568

"The Cleveland Indians sent pitcher Steve Karsay to the Oakland A's in exchange for an undisclosed amount of cash on Sunday."
I guess....this is good for a temporary fix.  All these injuries are still making my head spin though.  

Lets Go A's.

  The A's pull out a 5-2 victory over the Minnesota Twins.  The story of the day belongs to the guys at the end of the game.  
  A recently-turned 22 rookie closer is establashing himself as a person that knows how to handle himself in any situation.  After giving up a walk and a double to open the 9th inning with a 3-run lead, Huston Street shut down the inning with three straight strikeouts.  Painting the corners no less with his fastball.
  On a day when Eck's jersey was retired, it was only befitting that the A's pull out a come-from-behind win that is saved in a tight situation.  Huston Street is quickly establishing himself as our decade's closer, coming after Eck and Rollie. And that is a very tough act to follow.

  The Angels trounced the Mariners 9-1 today and no one has expected them to rollover.  With 7 games left to play, and a 3 game series in Anaheim later this month this is sure an exciting to be an A's fan.  With the two teams winning, the A's and the Angels are still in a flat foot tie for first place, with 2 game lead in the head-to-head.

  One more note:  Today was the much ballyhooed AN-Day.  There were special guests, the smell of a fine barbeque, an exciting game, and a chance to put a face to a handle.  Left in the dark were the out-of-staters, the hungover, the poor, the shy, and the forgetful.  However, when it was all said and done, the game threaders had a big blast, was the true mojo for the comeback kids, and took over AN.  Word to the wise: Don't leave us alone.

SCREW YOU AN-DAY!  GO GAMEDAY THREADERS!

A's up 5-2 after a bomb by Payton and another by Kotsay.  Huston set up for SVO on a day the greatest closer in Oakland history has his number retired.

Kiko throws a scoreless innning.  Jay Witasick is up, 6 outs to go to even the series

Lets go A's!!!

Time for another round of Crazy Strategies.  This diary is to talk about strange things we should, could, or "why not?", in baseball.  

  Previously, we had the infield wall where a bunch of our players would surround the batter's box preventing a hit at the risk of their lives.  As well we had the catcher be played as an extra fielder.  What have we got today?

  Well today, I thought we would develop some unique pitching as well as defense.  Yes, we all know our beloved ex-Athletic, the submariner who baffled people as well as our screwball pitcher, Mr. Fear Mecir himself.  Well here we go...

  The Switch Pitcher
    I was thinking about matchups and how important it is to our not-yet-fired Macha.  Every now and then he would bring in folks from the bullpen for a lefty-lefty match-up as well as having bats that can hit only certain pitchers a la Byrnes.  Well, if we're going to have switch-hitters, then why can't we have switch-pitchers that throw both ways?  That would take some serious talent, but think of all the advantages!  
1.Less wear and tear because the workload is divided in half.
2.Nullifies the advantage of switch hitters.
3.Give hitters way too may looks for them to think about.
Grooming a switch-pitcher would be cutting edge but it would be worth it.  Now of course crazy strategies brings up a few questions.  The pitcher would need two gloves on the mound, if thats legal.  And theres gotta be some way to sort out the switch-pitcher-switch-hitter match up seeing that they'd both keep switching until they're dizzy and fall to the ground.  Now if we can get a switch-pitcher that submarines...

  The Ultimate Curveball
    Another strategy that would take a ridiculously amount of skill is to have this around-the-world curveball.  I'm talking about a curveball that you throw as high as heck as you can in the air, and with enough practice you can consistently land that ball ON the homeplate.  And guess what, if its going vertical enough, thats a strike that doesn't even touch the catcher's mitt!  And for anyone who has ever played, its damn hard hitting a ball coming vertically down after being 50 feet in the air.  All we need is for B-Zito to practice launching balls toward the Good-year blimp and having it land on the homeplate consistently.  Not only is this impossible to hit, but it would be impossible to be called a ball.  I mean, if a pitch is landing on the homeplate from a vertical path then it HAD to be in the strike zone.  Find a guy that can do that and we can have someone's line for the night be: 9IP 81pitches 81strikes 27Ks.

    The Fake-Error Throw-To-First
  This one is kind of a stretch.  Okay they're all kind of a stretch, but then it wouldn't be crazy.  I noticed that when a first baseman misses a throw, like bobbles it or drops it, the runner always thinks about an extra 90 feet.  Of course, if the ball doesn't get far away enough, he stays on his base, but not until he leans away first.  So what I'm thinking is in the situation of man on first, we can have the RFer play very shallow.  Then on the executed play, have him sneak behind the first baseman.  The pitcher would purposely miss the firstbaseman and throw to the RFer, or the first baseman can purposely not catch it.  The ball will fly by Dan Johnson, forcing Figgins to learn towards second while looking back to see where the ball is.  By this time, hopefully Figgins will be offbase and Swisher, our RFer can just scoop it to DJ and tag Figgins out.  This strategy is soley based on the runner "thinking about it".

    The Wildest Pitch
  This is also a crazy defense strategy to trick baserunners.  With so many nitpicks at the balk rule, theres bound to be some loopholes.  This works on the premise that a pitcher will throw a wild pitch thats so off its mark that it hits the ground 1 feet in front of the pitcher so that it bounces vertically right back to him.  As a result, the baserunner usually goes an extra few feet after the windup since he can't be picked off.  Thus, the pitcher just grabs the ball that he bounced on the ground back to himself and throws to first.  Obviously that counts as a ball, seeing that its about 50 feet from the strike zone, but a ball for an out?  Any day, my friend, any day.  This is one of those bang-bang plays.

True, I'm sure I will receive a bunch of obvious loopholes in these strategies, and perhaps a few violations of the rulebook (I, myself have never read the thing).  But, with the help of AN members, maybe we can tweak it enough for it to work for some team crazy enough to try it.  

So, have any of you guys thought of any crazy strategies?  Any of you guys see anything wrong with the aforementioned crazy strategies?  Feedback is good for crazy people like myself.

  Now that we're so close to catching the Angels, I want to see if we can get a few guesses on when we'll catch them.  Heres the question:

  On what date will we have a better record W-L percentage than the Angels?

Lets set some ground rules...

-Only one poster can bet on one date, so even if you guess tommorow, if your post is after someone who also said tommorow, then your guess does not count.  Of course tommorow is mathematically impossible, as we will at-best have the same record as them, not a better one.

-Guessing more than once is not allowed

-You cannot change your guess unless another person already guessed what you posted and you didn't see it.

-You cannot guess again even though your day has been eliminated: ie, tommorow comes and goes, even though you guessed tommorow you cannot guess again.

-The winner gets....something?  I don't know.

Since I started the diary, I am not going to guess.  Alright lets do it!  Give your answer in Month/Day/Year

[EDIT] For the huge pessimist out there, "Not this season" is a guess as well. But may your underwear be permanantly stained if you say that!

The A's were very sharp, both on the field and in the clubhouse, where they got into dress-code mode for a special flight home on the lavishly appointed custom plane of Mark Cuban, the spare-no-expense owner of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks.

"Sweet way to end a trip, huh?" Crosby said. "Life's pretty good right now."
http://mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/gameday_recap.jsp?ymd=20050724&content_id=1143486&vkey=re cap&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb

Anyone know what this is about?  I find it interesting that NBA's craziest manager would be giving us a custom plane ride home.  Maybe Mark Cuban can get in contact with Lew Wolff and convince him to fly A's fans to road games (like Cuban did for the Mavericks every now and then).  

"Everybody was a [dummy] in May. Now everyone's a genius," he said before the finale of a four-game series with the Rangers at Ameriquest Field. "I'm not going to ride that roller coaster. I'm going to stay on an even keel." -Ken "Fire" Macha
http://mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/article.jsp?ymd=20050724&content_id=1143178&vkey=news_oak &fext=.jsp&c_id=oak

Who isn't peeved at the people who said, "I KNEW the A's would be back.  Billy Beane is a genius!" after saying "Well, moneyball is a myth.  Look at the A's now, without 2 of the Big 3 - an obviously lucky stroke for Beane.  Go Giants!"?

Speaking of bandwagoners...
Q: Which AL Team has the best young talent?
Athletics (Harden, Street)
Indians (Hafner, Martinez)
Rangers (Blalock, Tex)
Tigers (Bonderman, Shelton)
  -ESPN Poll
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/index

Is it just me or is this poll not even close?  A's by a land slide, though the Ranger's twosome is pretty fearsome.  But the thing is, the question asked about the best young talent, not the two best young talents.  Have they not heard of Haren, Swisher, Croz, or Dan Johnson?  Not to mention, our "veterans" are not too old either...

``This team isn't going to stop,'' third baseman Eric Chavez said. ``I'd be really surprised if it did. I don't think this team is hot. This has been going on way too long to call it a hot streak. We've won at home, we've won on the road, we've come from behind, we've dominated with pitching, we've won with bloop hit, we've won with home runs. We've won in way too many ways to say this is a fluke.''

uh oh...seems like someone disagrees...

``It's almost impossible to keep playing like this,'' Crosby said. ``You just want to minimize the rough spots. We're playing so good that it's almost easy, and we can't expect that continue.''
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/sports/12213896.htm

Is it just me or are those contradicting statements?  Our grizzled superstar Chavez is the dreamer while a young pipsqueak Crosby is the one being a pessimistic "realist".  Seems like the divide on AN ("we ARE this good and will continue to be this good" vs "we HAVE to come back down to earth eventually") is also in the clubhouse as well.  Well...I don't mind waiting as long as possible for us to cool off, do you?

Any other links?  I haven't heard from street's espn journal recently.  I wonder what happened to that.  

By the way, I'm having more fun watching this comeback than the 20 game win streak....how about you?

"The toughest thing for a baseball player is when they project negative situations when they haven't happened yet, and that's what I was doing early in the season," Zito said. "But now I just try to project positive situations.

"It's all mental. I mean, I've made a few mechanical adjustments, but if your mental game is not in place, you're not going to have success."
  -ESPN game recap http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/recap?gameId=250720103
(sorry I don't know how to link text to hrefs...unless its just like it is html.  Maybe someone can tell me)

Wow, thats really cool.  I know a lot pitchers talk about how a slump or whatever can be changed by fixing some mechanics but I truly believe anyone who's ever pitched know that a huge part is mental.  And the truth is that I see Zito now compared to Zito in the seasons after his Cy Young year - he's grown.  Before he would look shaken up, he was emotional (which is good but bad when not harnessed correctly), and just like a kid with a lot to learn.  Now, apparently he achieved some enlightenment and handles things more optimistically.  

I can definetely relate to this - one's attitude towards life makes things better.  Zito just took this approach and applied it to baseball.  I know a lot of drama people have and a lot bad things going on in their lives can be changed very easily by changing perspective.  And I notice that people who are overall most happy, enjoy life to the fullest, also become the most successful in life.  

Zito is a good example of why we should not worry and be happy.  (hit the music) People all over the world...join hands...start a love train, love train, (coors light beer train comes rushing through arlington in Texas)...

Is this a bit too hippy for AN'ers?  

  Did anyone notice and read this story:  

http://oakland.athletics.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/article.jsp?ymd=20050717&content_id=1134809& ;vkey=news_oak&fext=.jsp&c_id=oak

  It is now called "Notes: Zito's option in his hands" when it use to be called "Notes: Zito's Dad is a Genius" or something to that extent.  I wonder why they would change it.  Does anyone think that maybe Zito didn't want to portray his Dad as a genius?  I just don't see why not.  Very confused over something very little.  

Mychael Urban, you wrote the piece!  Explain yourself, sir!

Continue reading this post »

heres a link to the AL west report:

http://oakland.athletics.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/article.jsp?ymd=20050712&content_id=1128024& ;vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb

As usual, Mychael Urban does an outstanding job covering the A's in Oakland's midseason report.  Sadly, when it comes to a report on the bigger scale, like the AL West one, things aren't quite as rosy (unbiased).  It seems that this midseason report was written a couple months ago by what it is saying...which would not make it a midseason report.  Theres many subtle things that slander the A's, but being a major sports media, thats pretty much all the slander they can get away with.  

For example, to quote:
  "The characters in the AL West race might have changed places a bit over the last few years, but the one constant remains the Angels at the top of the fray."

Unless I am reading this wrong, the Angels have not been at the top of the fray, except for one weekend last season and most of this season.  How on earth can the Angels be the constant division leaders over the last few years?  It seems to me that this writer is trying to push for the recent past to be erased so that he can usher in an era of media dynasty for the West Coast Yankees.  To get things rolling, he is trying to make the Angels the perrenial AL West leaders like the Yankees are for the East.  Too bad the division standings for seasons to come will not reflect his wishes.  

He goes on to report (which is where I get the hint that this was written a little while back despite the date of the article- today):  

  "GM homework assignment: At this point, a Mark Kotsay trade makes sense if the A's can get more parts for their rapid rebuilding process. Trading him doesn't make the A's a seller, just opportunistic in a market hungry for outfielders."

Lets forget that Kotsay is one of the key pieces in the A's resurgence for years to come.  Lets forget that Billy Beane already talked about the A's always being a seller and a buyer.  Lets forget that our team has been already playing like a contender for the last month and is only going to get better so we don't need more pieces.  KOTSAY WAS ALREADY SIGNED - done deal, what kind of homework assignment for BB is this guy talking about?  Maybe he needs help with his history paper cuz god knows he doesn't remember anything.

Along with hints that Rangers are the only threats to the Angels and constant reminder that the A's are rebuilding, this guy definetely is trying to sell something. Something not true. 

  I am just curious what AN people's 3 favorite teams are (besides the A's) and what their least favorite 3 teams are.  

  This kind of poll is pretty standard in most Sports discussions, so it probably has been done before.  Just think of it as an update - maybe Hawk pissed you off enough to knock the Sox down to your most hated team?  Maybe the recent trouncing of the Angels by the M's has knocked Seattle to one of your favorites?  Well, lets see if people who are A's fans are also similarly fans of other teams.  So post your top 3 and least favorite 3 and a reason why (no matter how inane).  I'll get it started off:

Top 3:

1. St.Louis (great baseball city, fan of Rolen, good team)
   
2. Baltimore (Tejada, and takes on the Yanks and the BloSox every year.)
   
3. Marlins (Dontrelle of Yay-yay area, small market team)

1. Angels (their clueless fans, rally monkey, bandwagon, the artificial lifestyle of the OC)
   
2. Red Sox (their rude fans, inferiority complex to the Yanks, playoff series vs A's)
   
3. Yankees (payroll, Giambi, constant coverage on all sports media, playoff series vs A's)

  This diary is a product of my engineering thought proccess to find loopholes, my insane attention to stupid details, and just pure fun insanity.  Theres a number of things that I realized as I watched baseball through the years that I might tweek if I were leading a team that would bend all the rules.  I will give these observations names and perhaps...one day someone will employ these strategies.  For example:

  The extra defender:
    The catcher's purpose while the pitcher is pitching is not very useful for the defensive team.  The only point I see in him is to throw the ball back to the pitcher, but really...how does that help us?  This is what I would do, I would just employ the catcher as an extra outfielder or infielder and have the pitcher throw to no one.  So what if the ball "gets by the catcher"?  Just have the ballboy pick it up, and have the ump throw a new ball back to the pitcher, thus fulfilling the purpose of the catcher.  As a result, when the hitter hits a rocket back up the middle past the pitcher, there will be our catcher to gobble it up and throw to first.  Just beautiful.  Of course this would never work with runners on base (wild pitches lead to extra bases), and you might piss off the ump by beaniing him on every pitch.  But hey, with nobody on?  Just give me an extra defender.  (Also, this strategy would not work with 2 strikes, cuz the hitter can just swing at the third strike and run to first, since the catcher won't be able to tag or throw him out)

  The Infield Wall:
    I've notice that a lot of singles and hits are balls that happen to pass over our heads.  The only time we ever catch those balls for outs is when the ball is coming down.  So why don't we ever catch the ball on the way up?  If you line your infield as a wall around the batter's box, and he slams a would be homerun into your second baseman, that saves a run or two.  Whats Mark Ellis' worth to a Game 5 run in the ALDS?  Afterall, if you get close enough to the hitter, the ball is ALWAYS playable on its way up (unless its a pop fly, which in case it is an out anyways).  Whats that?  What happens when one of our players is injured?  I'll answer that question with a question: What are farm systems for?  

Update [2005-7-11 18:44:34 by WhiteElephantGuy]: Just came up with a new one! Not that it matters since this diary is so old..
  The Switch Pitcher
    If we have switch batters, why not switch pitchers? Sure they might be rare but what an asset they will be. Its pretty much a matchup in the pitcher's favor EVERYtime. Not only that, but you can even switch it up vs switch hitters to give them different looks. Also throwing from two sides of the plates would give you twice the pitches, I assume (different look on the release, slightly different zip on the ball). It also will save wear and tear on the arms! Interesting thing would be that the pitcher would have to have two gloves out there. Even cooler if we can get a switch pitcher who is a submariner from his left side...

True, I'm sure I will receive a bunch of obvious loopholes in these strategies, and perhaps a few violations of the rulebook (I, myself have never read the thing).  But, with the help of AN members, maybe we can tweak it enough for it to work for some team crazy enough to try it.  

So, have any of you guys thought of any crazy strategies?  Any of you guys see anything wrong with the aforementioned crazy strategies?  Feedback is good for crazy people like myself.

  In looking at this year's candidates for AL ROY, I can say without bias that our Oakland Athletics have (at least) three legitimate candidates so far.  Admittedly, the season is young, but if the so-called experts at the Eternally Self Promoting Network can make predictions this early, so can I.  
  Of course, the rookies I speak of are:
-the Phenom, Huston Street
-Our early candidate, Nick Swisher
-Mr.Finally Made it to the Show, Dan Johnson.

and with Joe finally turning the stove knob from Simmering to Smokin', he can finally tell people to get the h*ll out of his kitchen.  That would put four Oakland rookies on the ROY ballot.

Now, there are a lot of other rookies out there also making a statement, like the early front-runner,
-Dallas McPherson of Team Mickey Mouse, and
-Gustavo Chacin of the BJs (who I would love to get), as well as
-Chris Young, Tahadito Iguchi, Jesse Crain, etc.

But looking at that list, it seems that JUST the A's rookies are equivalent to all the other best AL rookies out there.  Thats pretty significant.  For example if we take a look at Blanton compared to Chacin or Young:
WHIP BAA  ERA
1.16 .245 3.33 -Young
1.40 .273 3.40 -Chacin
1.26 .240 4.48 -Blanton

True that thats pretty big jump in ERA, but we know how ERA is affected by just 1 or 2 starts and how consistency is always an issue for rooks.  But in the stats that matter more (in my opinion), he's hanging right in there.  Also, Joe's the one who has been recently on a role here, so the numbers might even skew more in his favor at season's end.  

Whats that?  The slap-happy public usually gives the ROY to the long ball hitter?  No problem.  The little monkeys from the southern half of the state who predicted that Dallas would run away with the ROY are right now eating their words:

OBP   R  RBI H  HR
.293  27 25  45 8 -McPherson
.298  25 32  47 9 -Swisher

Oh and by the way
OBP   R  RBI H   HR
.319  70 64  130 22-Our 2004 ROY rookie season.

Definetely attainable by Swisher.  Even DJ will get his.  And to save me some time to do the work I'm actually paid to do, I won't even get started on Street.  Lets just say the overglorified statistic of saves will only help his other more meaningful statistics in the ROY voting.  

In conclusion, if I had to put money on which team would get the AL ROY, it would easily hands down be Oakland.  Optimistically, I would even like to see the top 3 in the voting be in Oakland at the end of our season (in November.  I hope the baseball gods won't see that as a jinx).  Oh and also, if you didn't know, we won ROY last year which would make us winning 2 ROYs in a row.  And guess what happened the last time that happened in Oaktown:

ROY
1986 Jose Canseco, Oakland Athletics, OF
1987 Mark McGwire, Oakland Athletics, 1B
1988 Walt Weiss, Oakland Athletics, SS

Thats right - the Loma Prieta Earthquake of 1989.  

-Just another Stomper fan, Aaron the White Elephant Guy.

P.S.  This is my first diary, so be nice.  Oh and thanks for welcoming me into the AN Community.