The A's had an off-day yesterday. In the WBC, the US lost to Venezuela 5-3. Marco!

Susan Slusser has a short article about Joe Dillon, and blog posts about Eric Chavez (who is throwing, sort of) and Michael Ynoa, Angel Garcia, Jeff Gray, and Chris Schroder.

The paper of record profiles Yankee Nick Swisher

Girardi said Swisher was "fun to be around" and "loves to play the game." As for baseball skills, Girardi said Swisher was a patient hitter who worked the count, something that used to be a Yankees trademark.

Erik Bedard has sore buttocks. According to Don Wakamatsu

He had some stiffness in there about four days ago

And in non-baseball news Chuck Norris is considering running for "President of Texas"

The problem is all your offensive philosophy
The answer is easy if you take a called strike three
I'd like to help you in your quest for LOB
There must be fifty ways to leave your runners

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Vanity Fair has a long article by Billy Beane Michael Lewis about baseball in Cuba, and the agent who was convicted of smuggling four players into the U.S. Definitely worth the time to read this one.

Apart from that, as the game starts, much is familiar. The managers do dopey things to remind everyone they exist - like bat their best hitter seventh or bunt the D.H. in the top of the first with runners on first and second and nobody out. There are players who clearly like to get dirty and players who don't. The catchers have the same subtle ability to distance themselves from pitchers in trouble - refusing to make eye contact as they hand him a new ball after a home run. Even the body language is the same - right down to the same startling amount of unself-conscious public crotch grabbing when things go wrong.

According to ESPN, the A's may be prepared to outbid "at least seven other teams", including the Yankees, for 16-year old Dominican RHP Michael Inoa. We'll see.

Milton Bradley flipped out:

Milton Bradley stormed out of the Texas Rangers clubhouse after an 11-5 victory Wednesday night over Kansas City and bounded up four flights of stairs looking for Royals television announcer Ryan Lefebvre.
Bradley, who led the AL with a .333 batting average heading into Thursday's games, heard what he considered derogatory remarks made by Lefebvre on a TV in the Rangers clubhouse. General manager Jon Daniels and manager Ron Washington were close behind and intercepted Bradley, who was the designated hitter Wednesday, before he reached Lefebvre.
"I don't want to get necessarily into the details," Daniels said. "He was upset. Someone who doesn’t know him was passing judgment on TV. It was obvious he was hurt by the comments." Bradley never reached Lefebvre, although he was within about 20 feet of him in the TV booth before being led back down to the clubhouse.
"There was no incident," Daniels said.

And Ryan Sweeney went 3/4 with a HR last night on his rehab assignment with Sacramento. Overall, he's hitting .414 there, and is eligible to come off the DL tomorrow. (DFA Brown). Roster moves coming perhaps? (DFA Brown)

It can be dangerous to try to break down the numbers too much - most of us have a tendency to dismiss some numbers as anomalous, or think others represent a trend, when all we are seeing is statistical noise. Nonetheless, I thought it might be worthwhile to look at how the A's did on offense, both as individuals and as a group, on a month-by-month basis.

I used OPS here because it's readily available, and highly correlated with run scoring, and only included months where the individuals had a significant number of at-bats. Here are the numbers, followed by a few observations (no real analysis):

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Have you noticed that Jason Kendall isn't hitting very well this year? And that Jack Cust is? Yeah, me too. Let's suppose for the nonce that Cust doesn't turn back into a pumpkin, or some other variety of large squash, and keeps hitting enough that his spot in the lineup is a given. Whither Mike Piazza? Could he be the A's every day (or every other day) catcher, or is his defense really so bad that Jason Kendall (ugh) is still the better option.

Here's what the numbers say:

Poll

Who do you think will be the regular catcher for the A's at the end of the season?

6%

Adam Melhuse

12 votes

20%

Kurt Suzuki

40 votes

44%

Jason Kendall

87 votes

0%

J.D. Closser

1 votes

9%

Mike Piazza

18 votes

2%

Jeremy Brown

4 votes

16%

Kendall/Piazza splitting time evenly

32 votes

194 votes | Poll has closed

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In honor of Barry's return. Original lyrics here.
I'm no monkeyball, but then again Waters and Gilmour ain't exactly Dylan. And I wouldn't want to be too fine.

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[ring]
Hello, the worlds smartest and handsomest GM speaking...
The worlds toughest, most kick-ass catcher?...
Oh, Jason, hey, good to hear from you, how'd you get this number?...

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The A's offense gets off to a good start for once, scoring three runs in the first inning off of Mark Buehrle, but then returns to hibernation, and the bullpen will blow it late in the game, as the A's will lose 6-3.

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The signing of Esteban Loaiza last November was one of Billy Beane's most surprising and controversial moves. Most thought that $7 Million per year was way too much for a team with a small budget to be paying for a pitcher with such a mixed track record, while a minority suggested that, with equally mediocre pitchers signing for even more, it could actually prove to be a bargain.

With Loaiza having apparently made his last start of the regular season, I thought it would be a good time to look at how the year's crop of free agent pitchers performed.

Poll

What do you expect from Esteban Loaiza in 2007-8?

1%

The batting practice pitcher we saw in April. That contract still sucks.

4 votes

3%

The Cy Young candidate we saw in August. Beane is a super-genius!

11 votes

61%

200 Innings/year of consistent league-average performance. Good value signing.

170 votes

31%

Two more years of Jekyll and Hyde inconsistency. Pass the antacid.

86 votes

2%

Several more traffic arrests. Pass the radar detector.

6 votes

277 votes | Poll has closed

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Where is everyone? Did the cool kids all go to hang out at another blog and not tell me?

Anyway, a few links for the off-day:

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Thanks in part to AN, Bill King is one of the ten finalists for the Ford Frick Award. The full list is:
Tom Cheek  
Ken Coleman
Dizzy Dean
Jacques Doucet
Gene Elston
Bill King
Tony Kubek
Denny Mathews
Graham McNamee
Dave Niehaus

"Throughout the month of November, more than 105,000 fan votes were cast exclusively at the Hall of Fame's Web site - the highest vote total in the three-year history of the online fan voting component to determine Frick ballot selections -with King (25,380), Niehaus (17,091) and Doucet (15,002) selected by fans for the ballot through the online vote."

More details at
http://baseballhalloffame.org/news/2005/051206.htm

Ohad hasn't posted one of these in a while, so I thought I'd fill in with a look at how some of our minor leaguers are doing.

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The A's have called up RHP Ryan Glynn, who was scheduled to pitch for Sacramento today, and designated Britt Reames for assignment. (And they had to do it just after I said in the prospect thread that Glynn was probably an organizational filler type. My bad. And now for the extra sentence to make this long enough. There.)

According to the Sacramento game notes, Nick Swisher and Britt Reames (originally scheduled to start for the 'Cats today) have been called up to Oakland, and Matt Watson and Jermaine Clark have been sent down. I thought Swisher's rehab was supposed to take longer, but he was really tearing it up in his brief stint there, so I guess they decided he's ready. Welcome back Nick.
http://ism.infinityprosports.com/Uploads/126//Game%20Notes/May25.pdf

I've been meaning to ask about A's farmhand Adam Morrissey for a while. Today, he was removed from the 40-man roster to make room for Tim Harikkala, making the question a little more timely. I already know why he isn't considered much of a prospect: he's an infielder whose defense seems to be awful, and his bat isn't quite good enough to be moved elsewhere. But even given this, the organization seems a bit too eager to give up on him: first by relegating him to the bench early in the season in Sacramento, even though the team is full of older players who are also non-prospects, and now by designating him for assignment. He's still fairly young (not yet 24, and repeating AAA). So is there something I'm missing here, or does Morrissey still have some chance of being a major league player?

With all the uncertainty around the A's performance so far, I decided to have a look into my crystal ball to see what the future would hold. The pictures were somewhat obscured by the seams, but here is some of what we have to look forward to this year. Be forewarned: it's not a pretty sight.

May 11: Sprinting out to left field before the bottom of the first inning, Eric Byrnes gets distracted by the afternoon sun and runs full-speed into the green monster. He is dazed, and removed from the game as a precautionary measure, but afterwards a relieved Larry Davis announces that "X-Rays of Eric's head didn't show anything."

June 12: On a blazing hot day in Atlanta, Bobby Kielty removes his hat during the national anthem, and within seconds his hair catches fire. Mark Kotsay calmly saves the day by extinguishing the flames with a perfectly aimed stream of tobacco juice. Tim Hudson pitches eight scoreless innings as the Braves take a 1-0 lead into the ninth, but Charles Thomas, substituting for Kielty, beats his old team with a 2-run homer off Danny Kolb in the ninth, finally earning Joe Blanton his first win.

June 24: Barry Bonds returns to the Giants lineup as the DH against Oakland. In his first at-bat, he hits a shallow fly ball to left field that Byrnes misplays as Bonds limps around the bases for an inside-the-park home run, bringing him within 10 of Babe Ruth. The strain proves to be too much for Bonds' knee, which requires surgery the next day, ending his season.

July 10: Just before the All-Star break, Beane tries to shake up the team by firing Ken Macha. The new manager is Art Howe, whose first move to jump start the offense is to swap Mark Ellis and Marco Scutaro in the batting order.

July 16: When Howe comes out to the mound in the 7th inning to replace Barry Zito with Ricardo Rincon, a confused Zito says "Wait, where's Ken?"

July 20: Beane trades Byrnes to the Royals. In return, the A's get Calvin Pickering, and Allard Baird agrees to buy new chairs for the A's offices. After working with the new acquisition for one day, Ron Washington declares him a "Pickerin' machine."

July 28: In a blockbuster seven-team deal, the A's trade Octavio Dotel and Kirk Saarloos, acquiring Ryan Howard, Prince Fielder, Jason Giambi, Bellamy Road, cash considerations, and a new dinette set. (Oddly enough, Ohad predicts the trade exactly two days earlier, in a post on AN that no one reads). After two days of working with the new players, Ron Washington has a nervous breakdown and leaves the team. Rene Lachemann takes over as third-base coach, and Howe hires Ken Macha as his new bench coach.

August 5: After a frustrating loss to the Royals (despite a record the six errors committed by the starting outfield of Stairs, Long, and Byrnes), Eric Chavez misunderstands Jason Kendall's admonition to "Wear It," and puts on Kendall's catcher's mask.

August 7: Chavez is still wearing Kendall's mask, having decided that he is more comfortable talking to reporters that way. A distracted Howe hands in a lineup card featuring Chavez as the starting catcher. Chavez throws out three baserunners, and calls a brilliant game as Joe Blanton pitches eight shutout innings, but Blanton is denied what would have been his third win of the year when, in the ninth inning, Erubiel Durazo, playing third base, boots a ground ball and then throws it into the fountain in Kauffman stadium, allowing three runs to score as the Royals complete their sweep.

August 21: Jason Kendall hits his first home run of the season, but is called out for passing Kotsay on the base path, as Kotsay stands on second base too stunned to move.

September 5: Frustrated by the team's most recent losing streak, Nick Swisher proclaims "Dude, this sucks almost as much as losing to Chavvy at Halo2."

September 11: Barry Zito holds a press conference announcing that he will be starring in a new reality series with Paris Hilton, but controversy erupts when Zito refuses to answer questions about his relationship with an adolescent girl who he met on the internet.

September 29: In his last start, Rich Harden pitches a complete game shutout against the Angels, finishing the season with a record of 12-15 and an ERA of 1.66. He will finish second in the Cy Young voting to Sidney Ponson, who is 23-5 with an ERA of 4.72.

October 1: The A's win their 61st game of the season. Ray Ratto writes a column calling them lucky.

October 10: After the White Sox win their first two games of the ALDS against Boston, Michael Lewis announces his plans to write a book about how Kenny Williams and Ozzie Guillen have used innovative strategies to outpace their competition, prompting Guillen to ask "Who the fuck is Michael Lewis." But the Red Sox storm back to beat Chicago as Keith Foulke strikes out Jermaine Dye with the bases loaded to end game 5.

March 24: Rob Neyer publishes his preseason predictions for the 2006 season, which include the A's as world series champions and Chavez as MVP.

March 28: On the eve of spring training, Chavez announces he is retiring from baseball to study holistic medicine. At least I think that's what he says; it's hard to understand him when he's wearing that damn mask.

I was planning on doing this even before someone else posted the hitting stats. Sample sizes are very small, but I think you can still get a rough idea of how people are pitching based on their peripheral stats (strikeouts, walks, homeruns). So without further ado:
Harden   21 IP, 29 K,  5 BB, 4 HR, 23 hits, 14 runs (13 earned)
Haren     29 IP, 18 K,  8 BB, 3 HR, 33 hits, 18 runs
Zito       26 IP, 12 K, 11 BB, 2 HR, 23 hits, 13 runs (10 earned)
Blanton  19 IP,  9 K,   2 BB, 3 HR, 22 hits, 10 runs
Saarloos 17 IP, 12 K,  3 BB, 0 HR, 14 hits,  5 runs
Etherton 20 IP, 17 K, 12 BB, 3 HR, 23 hits, 17 runs (12 earned)
Meyer  19.2 IP,  7 K,   6 BB, 4 HR, 28 hits, 18 runs (17 earned)
Yabu      14 IP,  6 K,   7 BB, 1 HR, 14 hits, 10 runs (9 earned)

Harden and Haren each had one or two bad outings but also dominated at times, and their good strikeout and walks rates portend excellent seasons. Getting out of the thin dry Arizona air should help them keep the ball in the park. I'm really optimistic about both of these guys. Zito is kind of the opposite: his 3.46 ERA is very good, but the 12 strikeouts and 11 walks suggest that he doesn't quite have the command he needs yet. We can only hope that the change of climate also helps his curveball. Blanton is the guy for whom the ERA, the peripheral stats, and the expectations all coincide: he doesn't dominate anyone, but he is consistent and makes the batters earn anything they get against him. Expect a lot of 6 or 7 inning, 3 run, starts out of him. Saarloos, the longshot candidate going into camp, clearly outpitched the other candidates in just about every way. Like Blanton, he isn't going to dominate very often, but by throwing strikes and keeping the ball down in the zone he should keep the A's in the game. Meyer clearly struggled, but based on his previous track record I expect him to rebound quickly at Sacramento, and possibly be back in the mix later in the year. Yabu, after struggling early, looked good the other night against the giants, so may at least prove useful in the bullpen. All in all, I feel pretty good about this rotation's ability to give us a quality start almost every time out.

Calero  14.1 IP, 11 K, 4 BB, 0 HR,  8 hits, 1 run
Cruz     14   IP, 18 K, 4 BB, 1 HR, 15 hits, 6 runs
Duke     11   IP,  9 K, 5 BB, 0 HR,  7 hits, 3 runs (2 earned)
Rincon    8.1 IP,  3 K, 5 BB, 1 HR,  6 hits, 4 runs
Street   13   IP, 14 K, 4 BB, 2 HR, 15 hits, 9 runs
Dotel    11.2 IP,  8 K, 5 BB, 0 HR, 14 hits, 8 runs

The bullpen also gives reasons for optimism. Calero and Cruz could be a devastating combination in the set-up role. Duchscherer looks ready to pick up where he left off in the long role. Rincon, for better or worse, also seems to be picking up where he left off; if the rest of the pen keeps pitching this well, though, he can be used exclusively as a lefty specialist, where he has been effective in the past. Closer-of-the-present Dotel and possible-closer-of-the-future Street seem to have switched places midway though spring training. Street started off hot but has struggled in his last few appearances, while Dotel was awful early, but seems to have settled down in the last week or so. If he is finally healthy and can harness his enormous talents, we'll all be able to rest easy when the A's go into the ninth with a 1-run lead.

The wire service story on Yabu's signing ended with the following:

Beane also said he was making progress on one-year contracts with the team's arbitration-eligible players: designated hitter Erubiel Durazo, outfielders Eric Byrnes and Bobby Kielty, and right-handed pitchers Octavio Dotel and Juan Cruz.

Byrnes has been mentioned in trade rumors, but Beane believes his roster is pretty much set now.

``It's more than likely this is the team we go into spring training with,'' he said.

Obviously GMs usually don't talk about trades they are considering, but I have found that when Beane makes a clear statement like this, he is generally being honest; if he wants to obfuscate, he will usually do so by being intentionally vague. So while he left himself some wiggle room (what does "more than likely" mean, anyway?), I expect that we won't be seeing any more trades. The big question now is which pitchers will make the roster, and which will start the year in Triple-A, and those decisions probably won't be made until the end of spring training.
With that in mind, you may now return to your regularly scheduled 5-way trade proposals.

Rumors over at U.S.S. Mariner are that the A's are close to signing 36-year old Japanese pitcher Keiichi Yabu, presumably to keep a spot in the rotation warm for Blanton or Meyer. Yabu's stats don't look like anything special, and while this isn't the type of move I was expecting, it would make sense as part of the A's approach of looking for good values: If they feel like they need a veteran starter, a cheap signing from Japan offers a much better reward/risk ratio than the huge contracts given to journeyman pitchers like Benson, Ortiz, Milton, and Pavano. Wade Miller could end up being the steal of the off-season, but if Beane is looking for someone for only half the season, planning to bring up one of the kids after the all-star break, then I can see why he chose not to go after a guy coming off a serious injury.

Someone in another thread was asking for current payroll information. Here's an approximation of what the roster would look like if the season started now, along with 2005 salaries in millions. Players with less than 3 years service time are assumed to be making very close to the league minimum of $300k, as is standard. Salaries for Durazo, Dotel, Byrnes, Cruz and Kielty are my best guess of what they will make in arbitration or in a 2- or 3-year extension.

Pitchers:
Zito       5.5
Harden      .3
Haren       .3
Blanton     .3
Meyer       .3
Duchscherer .3
Bradford   1.4
Rincon     1.95
Dotel*     3.0
Street      .3
Cruz*      1.0
Calero      .3
TOTAL     15 MILLION
(other candidates: Harikkala, Etherton, Mabeus, T. Johnson, Garcia, Rheinecker)

Outfielders:
Kotsay     6.5
Byrnes*    1.5
Swisher     .3
Thomas      .3
Kielty*     .4
TOTAL      9 MILLION
(other candidates: Watson)

Infielders:
Kendall    11.0
Melhuse      .4
Hatteberg   2.5
Durazo*     4.5
Ellis        .4
Ginter       .6
Crosby       .3
Chavez      8.5
TOTAL      28.2 MILLION
(other candidates: Johnson, Scutaro)

So that comes to a little over $52 million for the 25 man roster. There are another $2 million of buyouts to Dye and Karros that may also be counted against this year's budget. If the reports of a $58 million budget for this year (which was just around last year's number) are correct, Beane will still have $3-$4 million to play with, and that number could go up to as much as $8 million if a couple of the mid-salary players (Byrnes, Rincon, Hatteberg) are traded. It will be interesting to see what, if anything, Beane does with that money. It's not enough to get one of the top-tier free agents - Beltran will get way more than that, and Drew is a little out of the price rangeand probably too big a risk for Billy anyway - and the second-tier free agents, in the $4-$7 million per year range have mostly been getting way more than they're worth this offseason.

According to the Sacramento Bee (which I found linked through this Dodgers blog), the Dodgers have signed former A's farmhands Mike Edwards, Mike Rose, and Jon Weber to minor league contracts (joining fellow journeymen Jason Grabowski, Olmedo Saenz, and Mike Venafro, who all played for the Dodgers last year).
Rose wasn't going to make the big league roster, as Beane clearly plans on signing a veteran free agent to go along with Melhuse, but he apparently has a good chance for a job in L.A. His loss likely means that both John Baker and Jeremy Brown will get a shot in AAA next season.
Weber was never much of a prospect, as far as I can tell.
Edwards put up decent numbers in Sacramento, but Matt Watson was a little beter (in addition to being younger, and left-handed) making him the leading candidate for 5th outfielder next year. Lets just hope we don't see a repeat of last year, when Grabowski did a good job as a backup in L.A. while Kielty and McMillon struggled so badly in Oakland. Otherwise, best of luck to these players.

There was been a lot of discussion in various threads about whether the A's would keep Dotel (which they can do by offering him arbitration) and who they could get at closer otherwise. This seems to be the biggest question mark of the off-season. Other moves - keeping Durazo and Byrnes, letting Dye and Mecir move on - seem a lot clearer to me. In order to see what we might expect from him in the future, I wanted to take a look at Dotel's peripheral stats and see how they compared to some of the leagues top relievers. (Those of you who are allergic to stats or feel that the real issue is whether Dotel has the "closer's mentality" should probably stop reading now).

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I've been trying to find out exactly what the rules are for the postseason roster. The reason I care, of course, is Nick Swisher who was called up on September 3. Though that means he has only been in the majors for three weeks, he already seems to be a better option as a fourth outfielder and pinch-hitter than either Bobby Kielty or Billy McMillon. Normally, Swisher would be ineligible for the post-season, because he was not on the A's 25-man roster or the DL on August 31. But this is MLB, so of course there is a loophole. A player on the 60-day DL can be replaced on the post-season roster by anyone else who was in the organization on August 31. Since Mark Ellis was moved to the 60-day DL, that creates a space that can be used for Swisher. Indeed this is what both Susan Slusser and
Mychael Urban have suggested. But is that all there is to the rule?
One source says

There is a book of Professional Baseball Rules - Business Operations, but it is only available to GMs and their assistants, though it's not as though there is anything earth-shattering inside. ... All 25 man roster players and disabled players are automatically on the eligible list. Players on the 60-day DL [as of August 31, according to the same author -A]may be replaced by a player at the same position, catchers replace catchers, infielders replace infielders, outfielders replace outfielders, and pitchers replace pitchers.

If this is correct, Ellis can only be replaced by another infielder. But not to worry: Swisher played 3 innings of first base against the Red Sox, and I suspect we'll be seeing him in October.

"McLemore? Why is he in the lineup?" The cries ring out from Athletics Nation nearly every time the A's face a right-handed pitcher. It has become a matter of faith for many A's fans that the team is better off with Marco Scutaro in the lineup. But is this really the case? Let's take a look.

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