This started as a response to notsellingjeans’ excellent fanpost and thread but it outgrew the Reply-stage and became its own thing. Nonetheless, NSJ’s fanpost is a must read because it’s excellent and serves as a primer for what you’re about to read here. I’ll re-cap the relevant points from the previous post but it won’t do justice to NSJ’s work.

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The problem with talking trade scenarios between fan sites is the inherent bias people have for the players coming from their team. The great thing about this site is it attracts fans from all 30 teams so (in theory) the bias effect is diminished. What I’d like for folks to do is to look at my trade proposal and try to poke holes in it. Does it favor one team too much? Am I over-valuing a player? Or is it a fair deal that balances the superior short term gain for Oakland with the long term bonus for Tampa?

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So a friend of mine over at Athletics Nation suggested that BJ Upton might be available in a trade this winter and suggested that an offer of Andrew Bailey and minor league SS Grant Green would be enough to bring Upton to Oakland. I'm not here to push the idea that the Rays need to trade Upton. I know they're slashing payroll but I don't know what moves, if any, they need to make to get on budget. I know the Rays need to replace Crawford and I'm guessing Desmond Jennings is first in line for that job.

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A lot of us are really bored over at Athletics Nation. There's been a lot of discussion on how the A's might improve themselves during the offseason. Back in August, one of our Front Page writers posted a story that clearly showed what a horrific pile of suck the A's had in RF. LF wasn't that much better but at least we were getting good defense from there. So, as A's fans, we've all been marginally obsessed with upgrading the corner OF positions. It just so happens that arguably the two best FA position players on the upcoming market are corner outfielders... unfortunately it's unlikely the A's will be willing to pay the huge sums of cash needed to land one of Crawford or Werth.

Thus trade scenarios are born.

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I just can’t appreciate post-season baseball when the Oakland A’s aren’t participating. I start thinking about how the A’s could get better during the offseason pretty much the day it becomes clear they aren’t going to make the play-offs during a given season.  Chone Figgins is a player I’ve liked for a while and in the past week I’ve come across two articles that have at the very least suggested that the Mariners would like to see their time with Figgins come to an earlier-than-scheduled end. I don’t usually pay a lot of attention to Internet innuendo but when a team is coming off a 101 loss season and has (per Cot’s) about $70 million committed to 7 players in 2011 it does beg the question… could Seattle be looking to do a major overhaul of their roster and are they interested in moving Chone Figgins?

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I’m going to use this post to show AN how the A’s can afford to sign any player they want from the upcoming Free Agent class. Please don’t waste your time arguing that the A’s have never handed out a mutli-year, eleven figure annual salary to a free agent. I know this but I’m not interested in what Oakland will most likely do this offseason; rather I’d like to discuss what they can and should do to make the team better this winter. I believe that Carl Crawford will land the richest free agent contract this offseason; therefore I’m going to use him as the example to show how the A’s can sign any free agent who happens to tickle their (or your) fancy. This is not a Sign-Carl-Crawford post per se… admittedly he is the mercenary I’d choose this winter… the point is when I show you how the A’s can shoehorn his salary into their existing budget then it makes it that much easier for you to argue that the A’s can bring in the free agent that you desire. So whenever you see me say Crawford go ahead and mentally edit it to read Dunn or Werth or whomever.

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July is a week old and the play-off races are beginning to take shape. For the fourth consecutive year the A’s are on the outside looking in and if the recent series sweep by the visiting Yankees proved anything it’s that the 2010 A’s just don’t have the talent to seriously compete for a title. I realize there’s almost a half season left to play but when you look at the line-up you see that there isn’t anyone who has seriously underperformed their expected production; that there isn’t anyone who seems poised to suddenly break out… there simply isn’t anyone on the offensive side of the ledger ready to step up and do more to help the A’s win more games in the second half of the year. The defense hasn’t been as good as expected and the bullpen, aside from Bailey and Breslow, is fairly weak.

So forget about Oakland winning the AL West in 2010.

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April 8 is Opening Day for the A’s full-season minor league affiliates and the following are the tentative rosters for Sacramento, Midland, Stockton and Kane County. Some obvious tweaking still needs to be done, namely Midland needing to shed someone so they can get down to the 24-man limit. Minor league roster limits are a little bit different from the big league version most are familiar with and I’ve never really brought it up before because if anyone asked me why things are the way they are I’d have no answers; I’d hope for something shiny to appear and distract those inquiring minds. So… don’t ask me no questions and I won’t tell you no lies. Disclaimer: The source I’m using (Scout.com) lumps all pitchers together, lumps all non-1B infielders together and all outfielders together so some of my position designations are merely educated guesswork.

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I learned a lot about how the A’s operate when I read Moneyball, but the thing that really stuck in my mind was the bit about the board Beane had that showed the depth chart of the entire organization. I wanted a board like that but my wife refused to let me put one up in our bedroom… or in the living room.

Our son’s room was also declared off limits.

And we didn’t have a garage.

So my dream was put on hold by the "sensibilities" of my beloved bride. But my desire for all-encompassing knowledge and power never truly abated (nay it only grew stronger) and as such it was only a matter of time before it came to fruition! Via Excel spreadsheets.

I mean really, a giant board with magnetic names tags is so archaic.

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A's GM Billy Beane made an interesting comment the other day.

We're going to look at young players to fill spots, first and foremost," Beane said. "If those players we'd like to acquire aren't obtainable, we'll consider bringing in guys who can hold the positions down.

Link.

So the A's aren't interested in chasing down free agents but they are going to be talking to teams about making trades. I don't care how you feel about Oakland's current crop of young pitching (maybe you think they're the greatest thing since Hudson/Mulder/Zito... maybe you think all but Anderson are way over-rated) at the very least the responsible thing to do if you were the GM of a major league baseball team would be to kick the tires a bit and see what the sticker price is for Johnson.

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Greetings!

I'm bored.

A friend of mine, a fellow A's fan, said that he'd like to see the A's trade any and every vet off the current roster and load an already fairly decent farm system with even more prospects. I thought that sounded intriguing, so rather than waste my time over on AN talking about what kind of package the Rays would have to put together to get the A's to part ways with Zooks (proposals which would undoubtedly feature a decidedly pro-Oakland slant) I figured I'd come here to this bastion of Rays dedication to hear what you guys think would be a fair proposal. This is meant for fun and to wile away the hours while I sit at home taking care of my ill son. If trade speculation isn't your thing than thanks for checking out my post and enjoy the rest of your day. For everyone else... let's chat.

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If you’re a lot like me you should probably seek a mental health professional.

Wait… wrong website.

If you’re a lot like me the 2009 baseball season is dead to you, the post-season and the World Series a mere footnote in your existence. The A’s are sitting at home after their third straight losing season and you want to know what Billy Beane and Co. are going to do to make the 2010 season a more enjoyable experience for you. Winning more than half their games would be a good start and I’d like to tell you how the A’s can make that happen.

Only one must learn to walk before they can run.

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The minor league season is over and the Arizona Fall League has yet to begin. Baseball America has begun their League Top 20 lists but they haven’t hit anywhere where the A’s have qualifying individuals. Winter ball is months away (although today it seems as if winter itself is close at hand) and the A’s are being their typical tight-lipped selves regarding the goings on in Instructs. So don’t expect much in the way of minor league discussion in today’s write up. What will I talk about?

Glad you asked.

Next year’s Free Agent options, the current 2010 payroll and some interesting service time tidbits, why using FIP or any other metric to argue Cahill’s place in Oakland’s 2010 rotation is missing the point, a moment of praise to Rajai Davis’ base running skills and… I don’t know… whatever I bloody well want.

If that sounds interesting to you then I’ll see you on the flip side.

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The 2009 minor league season is over and congratulations are due to the Midland RockHounds, who won the Texas League crown by defeating the NW Arkansas Naturals 3 games to 1. The Sacramento River Cats were not so fortunate, getting swept by the Memphis Redbirds in 3 games. All in all it was a fairly successful year for the farm system, as several prospects that were under a lot of scrutiny had good seasons while 3 of the 4 full season teams posted winning records. (Heck, even the Stockton Ports managed to rebound in the 2nd half and go 36-34 to finish with a 61-79 overall record.)

I plan on doing a full summary of the farm system a little later on. For today I’m going to update what key players did in the play-offs. Minorleaguesplits.com is the only website that I know of that keeps track of play-off performance as part of the yearly tally but even they only show the numbers as part of the whole body of work. So if you ever wonder why the numbers from their website are different from what you will see at MiLB.com it’s on account of the play-off performance. The season totals listed below include the play-off numbers.

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First, the really cool news.

The Sacramento River Cats and the Midland RockHounds have both advanced to the next round of their respective play-offs. The River Cats are going for their 3rd consecutive PCL crown and what’s great about this season’s squad is that the current roster includes a fair number of high end prospects. Exposing them to the pressures of play-off baseball (even if it’s the minor leagues) can only help their development as ballplayers. The A’s have always believed that winning in the minors is important; as it helps the individual players unite as a team to strive towards a common goal.

Now if only we could get the organization to start winning in Oakland again… that would be a good thing. (Mean? Probably. Honest? Brutally.)

And how well are these wonder prospects doing in a play-off environment? I’ll tell you after the jump… so come on over!

You know you want to.

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Today we look at the A’s starting pitching depth in the minor leagues. I realize that the Oakland rotation is composed of several young arms (a couple of whom probably still carry fake ID’s just in case) but young SP are worth their weight in gold for any organization. They are the premier currency in the trade market and given how unpredictable pitching can be in general (plus the high rate of injury) an abundance of arms can quickly turn into just enough to get by. In short, for a professional baseball organization, cheap and young pitching is better than sex.

With twins.

So let’s check out the prospects.

Pitching prospects! Not the prospects for…you know. Jeez, get you minds out of the gutter.

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My timing is impeccable.

The morning after the A’s score 8 runs and Chris Carter hits 3 homeruns for the River Cats I come to AN to post a story about how underwhelming the Oakland offense has been and how we can’t expect to see any help from the farm system until July of 2010.

Gosh how I love feeling timely and relevant.

Today’s Minor League Update is my attempt to gauge when the Oakland A’s offense can expect to receive reinforcements from internal sources, i.e. the farm system. My estimates are meant to be conservative, as I don’t want to see players bounced back and forth between Oakland and Sacramento. When I post a player’s ETA it’s meant to be a permanent arrival… until Billy Beane trades him, of course.

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Hello again.

Work called me away for a while and it’s been tough getting back into the groove of things. For those who don’t know, I’m a wildland fire fighter and August got a little busy for those in my career field. So when I disappear again for a couple weeks just remember… I envy your access to in-door plumbing.

Anyways, I want to focus this week’s minor league update on the 40 man roster and the options that are going to have to be decided upon in the coming months. Why do this now instead of waiting until September 1st? The topic tickles my fancy, that’s why. As I seem to have (once again) misplaced my Cap o’ Omnipotence I’m forced to resort to basic logic and common sense reckoning to try and deduce the future roster.

That’s right… none of what I’m about to tell you is guaranteed!

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Sorry it’s been so long, but Life sometimes has a way of prioritizing things in a way other than what we wish. In fact, if things hadn’t gone to Hell at work this weekend I wouldn’t be posting this piece at all! (I’ll let you come up with what that means… your ideas will probably be more exciting than the reality.) There are some guys in the lower minors that have caught my eye lately and I thought I’d share my notes. So grab your preferred hangover cure ('cause last night's game was a dandy) and enjoy some smooth, soothing scouting reports.

OK, that was beyond cheesy... possibly approaching Velveeta. I apologize.

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I am not here to start trade speculation… or to talk about the A’s farm system. (Bad, grover… I know. Does this mean I need to be spanked now?)

What I am here to do is assess the potential trade markets available to the A’s as they attempt to unload Matt Holliday, Orlando Cabrera, Adam Kennedy & Jason Giambi. Sure, normally I talk about A’s prospects in these weekly chats but I figure discussing the A’s prospects to acquire MORE prospects is close enough to count. Not that I intend to talk about any potential prospect packages in this write up, I feel it’s a little early to start getting into that kind of detail. Besides, I want to give other posters the opportunity to create their own fanposts about whom they’d want from whichever particular team. Designatedforassignment, for example, wrote a very solid piece discussing the New York Mets and their interest in Matt Holliday and I’d like to see him (or her?) tackle some of the teams I’ll discuss in a bit. I encourage other posters to try their hand as well. (Believe me, it’s so much easier on me if I can just comment on the work of others and not have to put in the hours of research!)

Just a friendly reminder… if you’ve got questions about another team’s prospects or you’re worried that your idea is too off-the-wall to avoid ridicule, my e-mail is listed in my bio.

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The Arizona League (AZL) kicked off its season today, meaning the A’s now have all 6 of their North American farm teams up and running, plus a team in the Dominican Summer League… I need to go on a two week fire assignment just to recover from the effort of covering so much ground! Now seems as good a time as any to get everyone up to speed on where the affiliates reside in the rankings, plus note who are making the key contributions towards the victory efforts.

(In the case of Stockton, there’s not much of a list.)

But before we get to the doom and gloom of the A’s High-A ball affiliate, let’s enjoy the success of the upper minor league teams.

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The short season leagues begin in the coming week and that will probably lead to some roster shuffling among the full season affiliates. This week I've decided to try my hand at anticipating some of those moves. Its not just about identifying the guys who are performing well at a lower level, I need to make sure there's room for them in their new digs.

Oh, before I forget, Mark Ellis has begun his re-hab assignment tonight with the Stockton Ports. He's playing 2B, with Jemile Weeks serving as the DH. (Update: Ellis went 0-2 with a BB.)

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With the 13th pick in the 2009 amateur draft, the Oakland A’s picked USC SS Grant Green.

OK… now what?

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I need to start today’s post with an apology.

I planned on doing something special today, rather than post an update on the farm system I got Blez to help me land an interview with A’s Director of Player Personnel Billy Owens and I was going to type up the transcript of that conversation for AN’s perusal today. Unfortunately, Muppets aren’t renowned for their technical savvy and somehow the interview was deleted from my digital recorder. I’ve already e-mailed apologies to Mr. Owens and Blez, and now I apologize to AN as a whole because I cannot provide you with hard "these are his very words" evidence regarding the A’s intentions in the June 9th amateur draft. I will not try to quote Billy Owens based on my memory of the conversation we had, I’ve got too much respect for the man and in the concept of journalistic professionalism (actually, I may have made that concept up just now) to attempt what could only end up a hack job.

I do want to talk about tomorrow’s draft though, in place of the weekly minor league update, and I’m going to use concepts and ideas that I learned from my conversation with Mr. Owens to try and paint a more accurate picture of what we might expect to see on Tuesday. I want to make something clear before we begin: at no point in my conversation with Mr. Owens were specific players ever mentioned as being possible targets for the 13th pick in tomorrow’s draft. Yes, I brought up specific names in the conversation and yes, Mr. Owens could talk intelligently about the players I brought up but in no way have any of the players I’ll talk about in today’s article been hinted at by the Oakland organization itself. I’m basing today’s discussion on the players most rumored (or hoped for on AN) to be under consideration by Oakland at #13 and have a strong likelihood of being around when it’s the A’s turn to draft.

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I had absolutely no intention of writing an update today, as I’ve got a 200+ comment diary rolling and I’m coming down with a bug… so I should be limiting my time on AN and getting some rest.

But NOOOO!

The A’s done gone and plan to call up Vin Mazzaro

to pitch on Tuesday and I would be remiss in my duties as AN’s minor league writer if I didn’t suck it up and give the masses the info they crave on tomorrow’s starting pitcher.

 So let’s do this.

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Given the recent hue and cry I thought now might be a decent time to introduce my plan for improving the A’s in the near and long term. Please note that I didn’t say “immediate” improvement, ‘cause that’s not how things should play out. I think any significant move to improve the team immediately would be a Fool’s Errand at best and an epic disaster at worst. There will be a bit more suffering before happiness can be achieved but if my plan works the A’s could have a new, long term answer at 3B by July and the fiscal freedom to pursue significant upgrades next offseason.

Oh, and more wins in 2009.

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Tonight’s update is going to spotlight 4 players, one from each of the A’s full season minor league teams. I used a process of selection slightly more ordered than merely throwing darts at a wall covered in prospects names… yes I chose to not piss off my wife by putting holes in the wall, my couch is very comfy but I’d rather sleep in my bed. Basically, these 4 struck my fancy in some way or another, either by performance or by seeing their name pop up in discussions on AN.

Today’s test subjects are Sacramento River Cat (AAA) Vin Mazzaro, Midland Rockhound (AA) Josh Donaldson, Stockton Port (High-A) Ben Hornbeck and Kane County Cougar (Low-A) Petey Paramore. All stats are as of 5/24/09… ‘cause that’s when I started researching/writing this and I don’t feel like re-doing the math to account for today’s performances.

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Today’s theme is to accentuate the positive and look at some prospects that I think will be getting a promotion very soon. Let me make it clear that just because I might not talk about a player in this post doesn’t mean they’ve done anything wrong or bad or to distinguish themselves as “true Athletics”. Need based promotions can tap any player at any time. What I’m talking about tonight are players whose performance lines up with a need in the level above. The guys I’m talking about are players who I believe will be hunting for a new apartment before the month of May concludes.

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This edition of the Minor League update is going to focus on the lower minors after last week’s hack spent all his time yakking about the Sacramento and Midland rosters. The baseball gods were not pleased with this display of attention and punished those teams for stealing his heart by cursing them with losing records in the days following the article.

Or something like that.

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Help is on the way, folks. Eventually. Just allow 6-8 weeks for delivery, not counting week-ends or national holidays. You know, best case scenario.

The farm system is far from barren but the harsh reality is no one’s really shown themselves to be big league ready yet. As I sit and write this, Dana Eveland, erstwhile #3 starting pitcher in the Oakland rotation, just came in to pitch the bottom of the 15th and proceeded to load the bases… and he just gave up the game winning hit. Trevor Cahill has given up 27 hits and 18 walks in 26 IP, numbers that in no way support his 4.50 ERA.

4 players went on the DL in the past week, Brad Ziegler has the flu and Jason Giambi’s hamstrings seem to have the tensile strength of warm string cheese. Recently called up Gio Gonzalez just threw 108 pitches over 5 innings, so he’s pretty much unavailable for the next 3-4 games. Oh, and Bob Geren seems to hate Travis Buck.

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