SB Nation User Blog: asfansince1989

Red Sox good for baseball

asfansince1989 — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 22:22:26 -0000

As much as I hate the Red Sox nation as the next green and gold fan, it just occured to me that Red Sox is actually good for baseball. Put it simply, they make money for baseball. Whether it being long time massholes at home, or bandwagoners on the road, or red sox haters coming to see them lose, they do draw a crowd. Plus red sox fans are known drunks, and drunks are easily parted with their money via over-priced consessions and merchandises. If there were no red soxes (or the Yankeess), baseball may become more competitive for true fans, but will also make less money, and less TV coverage, and may become like hokey or soccer.

I feel dirty now, like Gordon Gekko.

Concern for catcher depth

asfansince1989 — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 16:59:46 -0000

It's amazing Suzuki has been able to play so many games and remain productive. but he's not a big guy, I wonder how much of this will wear on him.

I'm concerned that our catch depth drops off too much once Suzuki goes down. Looking at the two games that Bowen caught, Outman gave up 10 hits on Tue, and the Wed stinker. I wonder if we can really trust Bowen as a backup to handle our pitching staff over a full season.

Where are all the fans?

asfansince1989 — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 04:44:12 -0000

ESPN Baseball tonight just showed the A's game hightlight, Brown's walk off. The main comment here is how sparse the crowd is for Oaklan day game, they joked something like "only 19 people were there". That just makes me sad. It's probably one of the ESPN bias again, probably because of a Thur day game against Seattle, but it seems to me like a vicious cycle, if the media thinks that there are no baseball fans in Oakland, why would they ever want to spend any time covering the A's? No wonder we have to play second fiddle to the Gnat in terms of TV coverage. I know I'll probably tick some people off here, but as a long time A's fan who has to move to the south bay, I can't wait for the A's to come down to Fremont.

What to do with an over-abundance of AAAA players

asfansince1989 — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 20:45:00 -0000

So we have a team full of AAAA players, they are good for a short stint, once the league figure out who they are, and adjust to them, our guy fizzles out.

Is there a better way to get production out of our AAAA players? how about making truely AAAA players? Start a MLB <-> AAA rotation program. Shuttle players back and forth once every 1-2 months to keep them off the opponets's scouts' radar. Make them all leagally change their names to "Joe Average", grow some monster facial hair, so the opponents can't tell which is up each time. We are looking for out of the box thinking here.

BTW, how about that Joe I-have-as-many-losses-as-Zito Blanton? One thing I learned, you better have the liqure cabinet stocked if he's pitching. Either win or loss, you are gonna want to have a drink, before, during (especailly innings 4-6 in many cases), and after the game.

Only 10 left from 2006

asfansince1989 — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 21:07:00 -0000

Only 10 left from 2006

Ellis, Chavez, Crosby, Thomas, Harden, Duke, Blanton, Street, Gaudin, Garcia. Thomas left for a while, and Garcia only pitched 2 innings in 2006. So really only 8 left. One of those days wish we could keep our players.

What will CarGo do next?

asfansince1989 — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 23:59:29 -0000

I have to admit the kid is good, better than his avg and OBP so far indicates. He's exciting to watch. I do notice, as I'm sure many here have already, that the kid does nothing but hit doubles or make outs (OK, 1 sacrifice). What else will he do next at the plate? Will he get a walk be fore he hits a HR? With his speed, he may hit a 3B before he hits a single. So I can count total of 5 (maybe 6) things that he hasn't done:

BB (IBB)

HBP

What will be the next "1st" for the kid?

Polarized offense in May

asfansince1989 — Sun, 25 May 2008 17:45:22 -0000

Just looked up A's offense stats for May, and one really strange thing is that everyone is either hitting above 300 (Crosby at 301) or below 230 (Hannahan at 227). Sweeneys, Thomas, Cust, Crosby are hitting, as much as Hannahan, Brown, Ellis, Suzuki, and Barton are not hitting, OK Barton is in a slump of his own compared to the rest. But even counting the part timers, there is just no one hitting average on the team in May. Maybe this is another manifestation of the hot/cold tendencies of A's offense.

Home game only for Harden?

asfansince1989 — Mon, 05 May 2008 23:16:13 -0000

This quote on SF Gate:

"Harden is starting at Stockton to avoid a trip to Oklahoma with the River Cats."

If Harden can't even risk going on a roadtrip at this time, I don't see how they can say he's healthy. That's not 100% confidence, is it? And with Harden, unless we are 284% sure that he's completely healthy, chances are he'll get injured, or already is and is just hiding it.

Maybe we should just keep Harden on a home game only schedule to see if the travel-induced injuries are B.S, and if he's is just as fragile as we all think he is.

Sick of A's TV schedule

asfansince1989 — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 00:08:46 -0000

Last Fri, 13-2 spanking of KC, not on TV!

Today 11-2 spanking of Twins, not on TV!

Out of the remaining 139 games, 28 will not be on TV. Compared to the Giants, who will only miss 4 games on TV. Every time there is a duplicate on CSN, it's the Giants and not the A's. I like the Giants OK now that they are the fighting underdog, but why so little love for the A's? Where/who do we complain to? What are A's marketing people doing about this?

sophomore slump?

asfansince1989 — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 21:52:21 -0000

Which 2nd year player on A's roster will have a sophomore slump, given there are so many of them.

I remember in Swish and DJ's sophomore year, I heard some comment abou thow Swish is more likely to regress because he has holes in his swing, and how DJ is a more complete hitter, look how that turned out.

I think having so many young guns in the starting line up, some of them are bound to fall back a little. I think Bart and Buck are likely candidate, Barton had 1 month in the bigs last year, and Buck was in and out with injuries. I wouldn't be surprised now that they are starters, opposing pitchers will start game planning for them more. I don't worry about Suzuki or Hannahan as much because they are not the top-middle of the lineup hitters that pitchers will focus on. I hope Buck and Baton can make adjustment quickly. Cust is also less likely, the way he broke into the league last year, most pitchers probably already had him on their radar last season, and Cust has stayed productive the whole time.

On the other hand, instead of new players emerging on opposing pitcher's radar, we also have players who are written off like Crosby, if he has indeed improved his swing to be able to after outside sliders better, maybe he can catch some pitchers by surprise.