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iamawesomer — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 04:40:09 -0000

2009 A's WAR

iamawesomer — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 18:06:36 -0000

2009 A's WAR

Above is for hitters, this is for pitchers. I got about 87 wins, add a SS and SP acquisition to boost it to 90 and the A's would be favorites in the current incarnation of the AL West.

[Sky's note: I like how these WAR projections are available in a Google Doc and will be updated throughout the off-season based on changing personnel and 2009 expectations. Again, this should be a community project for every team.]

2009 A's WAR

iamawesomer — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 17:54:13 -0000

2009 A's WAR

That's for position players, this is for pitchers. FWIW I came up with about 87 wins, just one more than PT did when he did his "Projecting the Friendlies" a while back.

How valuable would Nick Johnson be to the A's?

iamawesomer — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 04:07:40 -0000

How valuable would Nick Johnson be to the A's?

Little post on my site about how valuable Nick Johnson would be to the A's, which is quite a bit (assuming healthy, which of course is quite a bit of an assumption)

Even more projections, Giants ZiPS: Pablo "Pudge" Sandoval?

iamawesomer — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 17:39:04 -0000

http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/oracle/discussion/2009_zips_projections_san_francisco_giants/

From the title you can see the highlight is Pablo Sandoval, who has a .284/.313/.455 projection with 17 HR. That ISO of .171 would put him in the level right below Soto and McCann in terms of catcher power. This is why it's imperative for Sandoval to stick behind the plate if possible, where his offense projects as "very good" in ZiPS as opposed to "Fair" at 1B and "Average" at 3B.

But you have to love the top comp of Ivan Rodriguez. Now granted a good amount of Pudge's Hall of Fame Career value is tied up in his defense, but he's still a career 110 OPS+ hitter and safe to say if Pablo can replicate that while sticking behind the plate he will have a very nice and long career. His other comp is former Giant Benito Santiago

The rest of the offense is predictably pretty bad, no one else who will play in the infield is even listed at "average' at their position. The OF is average, and the Nate Schierholtz projection is really good (104 OPS+), will he finally get some playing time this year?

The pitching is of course outstanding, but look who slots in listed 4th in the Starter list. These are major league projections, which makes Alderson's projection pretty insane. An above average ERA for a 20 year old? Very promising.

I'm not sure why Romo's HR rate is so high, but that's the main reason his ERA isn't very good/so high compared to last year. I don't really agree with that one, but most of the other bullpen projections look about right.

Any projections anyone have any real problems/agree strongly with?

A's 2009 Marcels Out

iamawesomer — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 17:13:56 -0000

Tango released the 2009 Marcel projections yesterday, you can download them over at The Book blog. For those who don't want to weed through two large Excel files, I've consolidated any of the A's on the 40 man roster who had projections into two tables below. I only took the main categories for the pitchers and hitters, if you want to see individual triple or wild pitch projections you'll have to consult the spreadsheets.

A's Hitters

name	reliability	mPA	wOBA
Suzuki	0.77	519	0.33
Bowen	0.57	268	0.3
Barton	0.71	470	0.33
Ellis	0.85	518	0.31
Crosby	0.83	540	0.29
Chavez	0.76	285	0.32
Hannahan	0.73	467	0.3
Petit	0.09	212	0.34
Pennington	0.33	258	0.32
Baisley	0.16	224	0.32
Dillon	0.39	253	0.33
Patterson	0.39	275	0.3
Buck	0.65	319	0.34
Cunningham	0.27	244	0.33
Cust	0.81	550	0.36
Davis	0.63	335	0.3
Denorfia	0.37	236	0.33
Holliday	0.87	583	0.4
Murton	0.71	263	0.32
Sweeney	0.67	421	0.33

A's Pitchers

name	reliability	mIP	ERA	mHR	mSO	mBB
Duchscherer	0.66	113	3.31	10	80	33
Eveland	0.67	141	4.47	11	104	61
Gallagher	0.58	110	4.66	12	90	49
Braden	0.57	89	4.6	10	62	31
Outman	0.22	61	4.35	6	46	21
Gonzalez	0.28	67	4.84	10	56	30
Devine	0.38	49	3.03	3	43	19
Blevins	0.31	44	4.09	4	36	16
Ziegler	0.4	55	3.27	4	35	20
Brown	0.43	47	3.93	4	38	20
Casilla	0.49	55	4.42	6	46	22
Gray	0.05	27	4.67	3	20	10

I want to highlight that for A's infielders the two highest wOBA belong to the catcher and the (hopefully if the A's don't sign a free agent) SS. That's fine when those guys are Joe Mauer and Hanley Ramirez, but when their Kurt Suzuki and Gregorio Petit, you have a problem. Petit's reliability score (how much stock to put into the projections on a scale form 0-1) is only .09 so it's not all that useful, but still, the A's could probably use some help at the corner IF spots and SS (one to two of Rafael Furcal, Jason Giambi, or possibly an Adrian Beltre trade would be great)

The OF looks solid, with plenty of options available. Considering how often A's outfielders go down with injuries this is pretty important. Just please don't let one of those happen to Matt Holliday this year.

As for the rotation, none of the reliability scores are very high so it's hard to glean too much from them. They should all hopefully surpass the IP listed, hopefully by a lot. Eveland's HR rate looks very good, Gonzalez's (don't think he'll be in the rotation but listed him there) is very bad, but again the reliability is very low since most of these guys don't have much major league pitching history. It wouldn't hurt the A's to sign a free agent pitcher to a short deal (1 year of Randy Johnson perhaps?) to shore up the rotation.

The bullpen is the same with regards to major league experience, but they all posess good K/BB ratios. I don't think the pen needs any work. All in all not a bad looking bunch, and with a free agent signing or two at key positions and I think this team can contend in a weak AL West next year.

Thoughts?

EDIT: It appears Tango's file only rounded to two decimal places for wOBA as opposed to the usual 3. I'll try and fix that later, I heard Fangraphs has the full projections out too.

Will The Warriors Shoot More Efficiently This Season?

iamawesomer — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 16:23:44 -0000

Hello GSoM community, I have a new warriors blog over at Golden Stat Hoops which I thought you might enjoy, its a Warriors blog with more of a statistical emphasis. Here's the first post from it, let me know what you think/if you disagree with the ideas. Thanks.

When looking at a boxscore, the first thing most people probably notice is who scored the most points. It's only natural, the team who scores more wins, and thus players who score the most points are usually valued very highly. But the question that should be raised and is not asked often enough is did they score efficiently, that is could they maximize their scoring potential? Since I'm a baseball fan first and foremost, I especially like Kevin Pelton's analogy of scoring efficiency to on base percentage, arguably the most important stat in the game yet undervalued for a very, very long time.

So how can we expect the Warriors to fare in scoring efficiency this year? First, a few definitions and stats that will help shed some light on efficiency.

FG%, 3P%

These are the stats your dad grew up with and the ones you typically find in newspapers and fantasy leagues. They are easily deduced from the box scores, FG% is simply the number of field goals made (FGM) divided by the number of field goals attempted (FGA), while 3P% is the same for 3 point shots (3PM/3PA). The Warriors ranked 12th in the NBA with a 45.9 FG% last year, just 0.2 above the league average. Their 3P% was much worse at 34.8, good for 26th place and 1.4% behind the league average of 36.2%.

Now your first though may be "wow, the Warriors can't have been very efficient look how poorly they shot from behind the 3 point line." This is actually looking at things the wrong way and demonstrates why straight FG% and 3P% are not the best evaluators of efficiency. It doesn't take into account at all that the Warriors had a lot more 3PA as an overall amount of their FGA (29.5% to be exact, tops in the league), but more importantly it doesn't account for the fact that a 3PM is worth 1.5 times a 2PM in terms of points. Which brings us to

eFG%

Effective Field Goal Percentage (eFG%) is a stat which was popularized by Warrior legend Rick Barry in his Pro Basketball Bible series of books. The formula is simply eFG% = (FGM + .5*3PM)/FGA. Looks just like FG% except it takes into account the extra point a 3PM is relative to a 2PM.

This is especially relevant concerning the Warriors, who we all know shoot a lot of 3s. The Warriors 51.1 eFG% was good for 8th in the league last year, 4 spots higher than their FG% ranking and a whopping 18 spots above their 3P%. So while the warriors may not shoot 3 pointer at a high percentage relative to the league, their volume more than makes up for it with regards to efficiency. But there's one more shooting stat which more fully encompasses efficiency

TS%

True Shooting Percentage (TS%) incorporates free throws into the equation, TS% = Pts/(2*(FGA + (.44*FTA))). Notice the 2 multipliers in the equation, the 2 is to get the TS% to be closer to FG% (its less confusing to have Andris Biedrins 07-08 TS% to be 63.7 as opposed to 127.4), and the .44 multiplier is because of And-1s, technicals, flagrant fouls, clear-path fouls, or three shots after a foul attempt on a three point attempt, if there were none of these occurences than the multiplier would be exactly .5 since you would always get two free throws per a possession.

Notice that TS% doesn't care how you got your points per se (there's no 3PM, FTM in the formula), it only cares how many you got on how many shots. It also rewards players who get to the free throw line a lot (provided you make them). Say on one possession you got fouled in the act of shooting and missed your shot, but make both free throws. Your TS% for that possession would be 2/(2*(0+(.44x2))) = 2/1.76 =1.14, as opposed to the 1.00 it would be if you had just made the jump shot without being fouled.

I couldn't find league wide sortable TS% by team (if someone knows where I could that would be great), so I just calculated the Warriors TS% by hand and it turned out to be 55.5. I'm not sure where that ranks compared to other teams, but it is 1.5 percentage points higher than the league average team TS% of 54.0.

Enough with the mumbo jumbo, just tell me how the Warriors will do this year

Well, its hard to say. While I don't think individual shooting percentages fluctuate wildly from season to season, the Warriors are going to be a very young team (young players have less historical data to work with and can improve more dramatically than older ones) with a new nucleus of players (will Corey Maggette be able to sustain his excellent numbers from last year in a new system?), so trying to project their shooting efficiency this year from last year's data may not work that well. That being said, let's look at individuals' numbers last year (apologies for the formatting, new to Wordpress and struggled to find a better way to make a table):

Warriors 2007-2008 Shooting

Player                       TS%    eFG%
Monta Ellis              0.580    0.536
Baron Davis        0.523    0.483
Andris Biedrins        0.637    0.626
Al Harrington          0.547    0.517
Stephen Jackson      0.536    0.481
Kelenna Azubuike    0.534    0.505
Mickael Pietrus      0.549    0.525
Matt Barnes              0.510    0.483
Brandan Wright        0.583    0.554
Austin Croshere       0.573    0.526
C.J. Watson              0.519    0.470
New Player
Corey Maggette       0.595    0.497
Ronny Turiaf            0.539    0.474
Marcus Williams       0.499    0.471

The first thing to note from the numbers is that my man-love for Andris Biedrins is well grounded in the stats (and not just the hair gel). Now I know part of the reason Biedrins posts such high percentages is because his whole game is putbacks and dunks for the most part, but still he should have gotten much more than the 7.3% of the teams FGA. Shouldn't let that kind of efficiency go to waste.

Speaking of waste, Baron Davis did a bit too much of it with regards to this shot selection. His reputation as a chucker is well grounded in these stats, as his TS% was the worst on the team of the regulars (and his eFG% was no great shakes either), exacerbated by the fact that he took just under 300 more field goal attempts (20.6% overall) than anyone else on the team. From a pure shooting efficiency standpoint replacing, if you replaced Davis's percentages with Maggette's the team would see a dramatic improvement in TS%. Of course the game doesn't work that you can just change the numbers like that, but I still think Maggette would be an improvement over Davis with regards to shooting.

This year's team also won't feature Mikael Pietrus or Matt Barnes. Pietrus was surprisingly efficient by these numbers, probably because he mostly shot 3's all day (and made a lot of them). Barnes was very similar to Pietrus in the shot selection, except the part about making the 3 pointers, so his numbers are much worse. But both were still significantly better than Marcus Williams, who I assume would get a lot of their minutes. Williams still doesn't have much of a track record, but maybe there's a reason for that as his numbers from last year are terrible. Let's hope they don't expect him to do much shooting.

The man who should be doing most of the shooting (hopefully) is Monta Ellis. His efficiency was incredible last year, especially when you consider the volume (16.6% of the team's FGA) of shots he took. By now I'm sure all Warriors fans have heard about Ellis's injury. Personally I don't care what happened so much as how (hopefully not at all) it will affect his game upon returning (whenever that may be). If Ellis can return and be the player they expected when they signed him to that huge $66 million extension, I'm sure all will be forgotten.

Wait a minute, you still haven't answered my question. Will you get to the point already?

Sounds like I should be a Vice Presidential Candidate instead of a Warrior blogger, eh? Alright, here's what I think will happen. Assuming:

Corey Maggette gets the bulk of Davis's playing time and shots from last year
Monta Ellis can return some time reasonable (say before the end of 2008?) at a level close to his old form
Steven Jackson gets some of the time at point instead of Marcus Williams like Coach Don Nelson is considering and as a result distributes a bit more than chucks like he usually does
The team gets Andris Biedrins the freaking ball more asadjkhfajwhfajksdhf 63.7/62.6 C'mon!
The other guys stay close to their levels last year

Then I think this team will definitely see their shooting efficiency rise, the TS% especially since Maggette is such a large (7.2%) improvement over Davis. If that happens and the Warriors keep the Pace they ran at last year, expect to see their scoring rise, which is hard to imagine considering it was already a league leading 111 last season. It would be fun to watch, that's for sure.

Poll

Who will shoot more efficiently this year?

Corey Maggette

61 votes

Andris Biedrins

141 votes

Monta Ellis

21 votes

Rick Barry

75 votes

298 votes | Poll has closed

Open Optimism (or pessimism) Baseless (or substantiated) Young A's Player (or prospect) Comparable Post

iamawesomer — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 20:36:59 -0000

I recently made a comment in another thread that I could see Daric Barton turning into a John Olerud type player. I also saw someone else compare Kurt Suzuki to Joe Mauer (I think the first is a bit more believable but that's not the point). Since it's September, the A's are turrible right now, and its the time of the year we see a lot of callups and think about the future, I thought this might be a fun idea to see what everyone thought of the A's talent. So go ahead and post your own comparables, criticize others (try and keep it civil), and have a little fun.

It's the 1st of the month and the A's start September with an off-day, matching the total they had last month (this is their first day off in their last 20). It's also the first day for September callups, though the A's may be holding off for a bit as their AAA affiliate Sacramento Rivercats are in the PCL playoffs.

Regardless, this is usually the time for optimism, as fans get to see a lot of players they've never heard of before get their cup of coffee in major league uniforms. I thought it would be fun then to make some player comparables for the A's youth. I'm going to use 25 as the cutoff age, anyone older than this has probably developed mostly into the player their likely to become, and conveniently none of the A's on the 40 man who miss this cutoff by a year or two are all that relevant (sorry Dan Meyer and Jeff Gray).

I'm only sticking with those on the 40 man roster right now, but feel free to make comparables for anyone in the A's organization. Again, if you have statistics or some quantifiable claims to back up your comparable it would be better, but really this is more of a fun exercise so post whoever comes to mind.

Daric Barton – John Olerud

I like this comp a lot, though Barton isn't wearing a helmet at 1B yet. Olerud was an unheralded 1B in the 90s, mostly known not for his talents but the helmet he wore in the field after suffering a brain hemorrhage in his college years. Olerud never displayed huge HR power, especially considering the offense first era of the time Olerud's career high 24 HR in 1993 is low for a 1B. But he had good doubles power, posting a career .170 ISO-P. While people probably noticed his career .295 AVG, what's more impressive (and part of the reason for the Barton comp) is his .103 career ISO-OBP mark.

Olerud also played an outstanding defensive 1B despite being recognized with only one Gold Glove (don't forget, Derek Jeter has 3). Its early in his career and especially after scouting reports questioned his defense before making the big leagues, but Barton too is near the top of the AL in most fielding metrics. The comp falls apart a bit when you notice that Olerud's career 1016:1275 K:BB era is nowhere near Barton's contact rate, but for now I'll roll with it.

Greg Smith-Andy Pettite

I mainly just chose this one cause Smith gets the "crafy lefty" tag a lot (I'm not sure he's in the rotation next year really) and he's got a sick pickoff move (7 this year but he was called for a balk yesterday (his first). The quintessential crafty lefty good pickoff move of the 90s was Pettitte. If Greg Smith turns out to have a career anything similar to Andy Pettitte I'll eat a Yankee's hat.

Huston Street-?

This was mainly just to highlight that Huston Street is only 25 years old, often forgotten since he's been with the team for a while now. Also just wanted to show that Street has retired 18 of the last 19 batters he's faced and all of those clamoring for him to be shipped out or gotten rid of when he was struggling, small sample size still rules all.

I guess for a comp, maybe John Wetteland? I'm only 21 so my visions of baseball only really go back to about the mid-late 90s, so I didn't see much of Wetteland or his stuff, but the numbers look pretty similar.

Eveland can haz new mechanics?

iamawesomer — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 23:11:52 -0000

I saw some of this was addressed in the Saturday Gameday thread, but I know a lot of people don't read those (they're quite massive) so I thought this could be useful here. On with the show.

Disclaimer: I know next to nothing about pitching mechanics. I am currently studying the Mike Marshall school of mechanics on the advice of Kyle Boddy of Driveline Mechanics (a very good site, I recommend checking it out). That said a few of Eveland's changes are pretty obvious so I thought I'd highlight them here.

Dana Eveland made his return to the Oakland A's rotation on Saturday, after 3 starts in the minors where he threw 21 IP, 2.57 ERA, 2 HR, 4 BB, 21 K.

One thing that did not return with Eveland though was his old pitching delivery. It's been replaced by a much cleaner delivery.

Here's Eveland's older fastball as seen by his strikeout of Rays 2B Akinori Iwamura:

Notice how he brings the glove and ball back from behind his head before bringing it behind his back. He also has a very slow extension of his right leg, it looks like he has a hitch when his right knee straightens out (though this may just be the gif quality).

Compare this with this fastball thrown to Ichiro Suzuki Saturday:

Now Eveland starts with the ball in front of his chest before dropping it behind his back. This is a much easier delivery to repeat and cuts out unnecessary movement. This should be a much easier motion to repeat perfectly than before. Eveland still appears to have a hitch in his leg step but it appears earlier and his right leg extends much smoother.

Eveland's new delivery seems to cut out a lot of the unneeded parts of the old one. But has it affected his pitches at all? I'll be using the numbers from my old Eveland analysis as a comparison (partially because it's easy and already done for me and also because my pitch database is being a, let's just say it rhymes with pitch, and isn't working right now.

Remember, we only have one start with Eveland's new delivery so small sample size applies, especially to the offspeed pitches. The first number is the old data, the second is Saturday's start

Pitch	Movement in x (in.)	Movement in z (in.)	Average Speed (mph)
Fastball	7.77 6.29	8.20 5.29	90.99 90.19
Curveball	-5.92 -6.00	-7.68 -7.71	79.58 78.74
Slider	-6.86 -6.13	-1.17 -2.83	83.96 83.44
Changeup	12.04 10.86	7.70 5.59	83.64 83.93

Well, the new delivery has had little effect on his velocity, his fastball may have lost a little juice but again we're only dealing with 46 fastballs.

The more interesting numbers are his movement. His fastball looks like it has a lot less "rise" to it, almost 3 inches worth. It also doesn't seem to break as much horizontally. The same can be said for his changeup, though the differences aren't as large (though this is only 9 pitches). His slider dropped a lot more, more than an inch and a half, which can be very useful. His curveball hasn't seemed to change at all.

Verdict

Eveland's mechanics might be easier to repeat and simpler, but it may have cost him a lot of movement (only 1 start of data though). Normally this is probably a bad thing, but it may have helped with his control as Eveland threw first pitch strikes to 18 of the 26 "batters" (very loose term with regards to the .264/.319/.388 2008 Mariners) he faced. It's difficult to come to too many conclusions after just one start, but Eveland's new delivery is probably a plus and hopefully will help him stick in the rotation this time around (with the injuries he's almost certain to for the rest of the year).

As always, if you want more A's info stop by Oaktown Awesomer's.

A's Draft Review: Deadline Passed Edition

iamawesomer — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 09:13:28 -0000

The 2008 MLB Draft signing deadline has ended. A lot of people feel the A's are cheap as an organization because they read Moneyball and learned the A's don't spend money. Hopefully the signing of Micheal Inoa and the large over slot money the A's handed to some of the draft picks will help put an end to that notion.

Let's review the draft: (Round, Name, Position, Signing Bonus)

1. Jemile Weeks, 2B, $1.91m

Weeks was considered an overdraft at the 12th pick, but I feel the positional scarcity of middle infielders helped make the A's take him over the numerous 1B/DH types available at the time. Weeks responded to the high pick by posting a .297/.422/.405 line in 74 AB in Kane County A ball before going down like a true Athletic with a hip flexor on July 29. Hopefully nothing too serious but with the minor league season nearly over no need to rush him back now.

2. Tyson Ross, RHP, $694k

Ross was considered a possible first round talent with his 6'5'' frame and powerful delivery, but dropped after scouts were worried about his 2008 season at Cal Berkeley. The A's happily took him 58th overall and like Weeks started at Kane County A ball. He made 3 appearances, throwing 7.2 IP, 5 H, 3 ER, 0 HR, 0 BB, 7 K before being shut down with arm troubles. Unlike the Weeks injury, some people like Driveline Mechanic's Kyle Boddy may have seen this coming. Ross too is done for the rest of the season.

3. Preston Paramore, C, $430k

Scouts raved about Paramore's defense before the draft as well as his plate discipline/contact combo, walking 17 more times than striking out in his collegiate career. He continued the trend in the minors, posting a .234/.422/.338 line good for a .188 ISO-OBP and 20:24 K:BB ratio. He'll finish out the season at Kane County as well.

4. Anthony Capra, LHP, $260k

Capra too has started at Kane County, 7 starts with 33 IP, 30 H, 14 ER, 3 HR, 14 BB, 27 K. Capra features an average fastball with a decent changeup. He's gone 6 innings pitched three of his last four starts.

5. Jason Christian, SS, $182k

20 years old from of the University of Michigan, Christian has hit quite well at Short Season A ball in Vancouver, .292/.408/.422 in 185 AB. He's also sporting 10:1 SB:CS and 58:35 K:BB ratios. Not a large sample but a very encouraging bunch of numbers, if he can stick at short there is some good potential here.

6. Tyreace House, OF, $130k

A Junior College pick, House has shown great speed and plate discipline so far, 12 SB without getting caught and 13:15 K:BB in 76 AB in the Arizona Rookie League. He has displayed no power though, literally. His .263/.380/.276 is 1 double, no triples or home runs, mostly due to his 69.4 GB% if Minor League Splits data is right. With his speed he should be able to stick in CF and may turn out to be a Rajai Davis type, which does have its uses.

7. Brett Hunter, RHP, $1.1m

This is the big story and the main reason for this post tonight. Today it was announced that the A's signed Hunter to the largest seventh round bonus in history. Hunter was projected to be a first round talent before the 2008 college season started, but he hurt his elbow in his second start of the year for Pepperdine (also the alma mater of former Athletic Danny Haren). He would come back to pitch for Team USA (Collegiate) in the summer, striking out 26 in only 18.1 IP. That display of health earned him the huge $1.1 million bonus he received, about a million over slot for a 7th round pick.

Hunter features an above average fastball in the 92-95 mph range (yes that range is quite wide but coming back from injury I'm not sure where it really stands right now), and a nice slider. His delivery requires a lot of effort, which combined with his injury probably scared most teams off. But if he reaches his full potential the A's will have quite the coup for only a little over a million dollars.

8. Jeremy Barfield, OF, $92k

Teams are often concerned with a player's makeup, and one of the way's they often look for good makeup is in family background (this will continue later for the A's). Barfield is the son of former major leaguer Jessie Barfield and brother of Indians 2B Josh Barfield. While he doesn't have the prospect status his brother Josh had, he's currently hitting .293/.347/.413 in 184 AB in Vancouver while playing RF.

9. Mitchell LeVier, OF, $75k

He's hitting .237/.274/.280 in Vancouver. He was drafted as a catcher but has been playing CF, but that hitting line won't cut it at any position.

10. Rashun Dixon, OF, $600k

This was the A's first over slot signing and quite a good one I feel. The big bonus was needed to lure Dixon away from a football scholarship at the University of Mississippi. 6'2'' and 210 lbs, Dixon has outstanding speed and arm strength as well as power to all fields. He's been outstanding in Rookie ball thus far, hitting .286/.357/.563 with 8 triples and 6 home runs in 126 AB. He has struck out 47 times, but has walked 14. He's still quite raw but he's shown all the tools that made him what many scouts considered to be a 2nd or 3rd round talent.

I had trouble finding signing bonuses for any picks after round 10, they should be assumed to be around slot money with the exception of Dusty Coleman. I'll list the rest of the picks signed and the stats of any that have received significant playing time and noteworthy lines.

11. Chistopher Berroa, CF

13. Daniel Thomas, RHP

14. David Thomas, LF

.273/.378/.370 in 154 AB, most of them in Vancouver. Yet another player in the A's organization whose ISO-OBP is greater than his ISO.

15. Nino Leyja, SS

.317/.395/.468 in 139 AB along with 27:19 K:BB and 10:1 SB:CS. Those are very impressive numbers for any 17 year old in the AZL, much less from a shortstop. It is a small sample from a 14th round draft pick, but any production in the organization from the SS position is quite welcome.

16. Matthew Fitts, RHP

24.2 IP, 23 H, 9 ER, 1 HR, 7 BB, 12 SO, 65.1 GB% in relief at Vancouver

19. Michael Hart, RHP

25 IP, 12 H, 3 ER, 1 HR, 6 BB, 34 SO. Dominating numbers and he may make an appearance at Kane before the end of the year.

20. Rodney Rutherford, 3B

21. Mathieu Leblanc Poirier (had to mention the full name because it just looks awesome and more like a French poet then a baseball player), RHP

21.2 IP, 34 H, 19 ER, 1 HR, 6 BB, 18 SO in the AZL. Maybe he should be a poet instead.

24. Kenny Smalley, RHP

25. Trey Barham, LHP

26. Ryan Doolittle, RHP

Brother of A's minor league 1B Sean Doolittle (who is struggling in his move to AA .232/.279/.377 after his breakout .305/.385/.560 in the California League), Doolittle is another example of being drafted based on family background. Unfortunately his 30.2 IP, 41 H and 20 ER don't indicate he has much of the talent his brother has.

28. Dusty Coleman, SS, $675k

The A's second large over slot signing, Coleman hit .314/.401/.510 in his sophomore season. Considered to be a 4th-6th round talent, the A's needed to shell out the cash to get him away from his junior year at Wichita State. He's only had 27 AB in the AZL hitting .222/.300/.333. Shortstop talent is hard to find (look at the minors and majors to see how shortstops have been hitting) and I'm all for the A's going over slot to increase their SS depth.

29. Justin Murray, RHP

30. Kevin Jernigan, 2B

31. Mickey Storey, RHP

32. Ben Hornbeck, LHP

27 IP, 22 H, 11 ER, 2 HR, 15 BB, 33 SO in Vancouver.

33. Shawn Haviland, RHP

Totals: 26 picks signed, $6.15 million + the other 15 unknown bonuses, 1 C, 2 2B, 3 SS, 1 3B, 6 OF, 10 RHP, 3 LHP. The Hunter signing coupled with Inoa and Weeks gave the A's the equivalent of three first round picks. The A's system is loaded with 1B/DH types (Chris Carter, Sean Doolittle, Daric Barton) so they passed over most of those players in the draft, instead looking to load up on middle infield depth. I think this is a good idea, especially considering the dearth of middle infield talent present in most top 100 minor league lists.

It would have been nice to lure 12th round pick 1B Zac Elgie away from Kansas, but they weren't able to get him to sign a deal. Despite this, I still think it was a solid draft for the A's and will help one of (if not the best) farm system in baseball even more. As always if you can't get enough of the A's here find more news and analysis at Oaktown Awesomer's