SB Nation User Blog: jakarta

A's first quarter grades

jakarta — Sun, 20 May 2007 23:01:37 -0000

Well, since nobody has posted a grade/first quarter of the season discussion on the main page, I figured I am not overstepping my place by posting it here in a diary.

Obviously, with the amount of injuries and flux we've had in the roster so far, it's going to be tough to assign these grades with any kind of certainty. It's difficult to know to what extent players have been playing hurt because they are trying to gut it out while their teammates are down.

On to the grades:

The Hitters

Dan Johnson A
He was prepared to earn his job in Spring Training. The hip injury isn't something he can be faulted for. He's been the best nonCustian hitter on the team.

Mark Ellis C+
The extra RBI are nice, he's stayed healthy and taken a few walks. Has the secure contract, blocking Melillo.

Bobby Crosby B+
Looked terrible at the start of the season. As he's played back into shape, he looks like the player we hoped he would be. Hit quite well over the last month. Has been able to stay in the lineup everyday.

Eric Chavez C
Has played every game. 12 2Bs, 18 XBH, and 71 TB lead the team. Defense is still pretty darned good after a few early hiccups. 15 BB to 38 K is not good.

Marco Scutaro D
Bomb against Rivera saves him from getting an F. After starting season 3 for 34, has 7 hits in last 20 ABs.

Todd Walker C+
Was a pro on the bench during the time he was here. Ultimately expendable.

Jason Kendall D
He'll rebound to .270 or so before the season ends. Has had problems with the running game again this year. Gets a bit of credit for the starting pitching performance.

Adam Melhuse C-?
At this point, I have no idea how to evaluate him.

Mike Piazza C
Seems to be a good influence in the clubhouse. Still a smart hitter and nice to have that right handed bat in the lineup.

Nick Swisher B
Hasn't really been hot yet this year. Played hurt, been adequate in CF, .418 OBP and .488 SLG. This year has hit better as a 1B than as an OF.

Shannon Stewart B-
Coming into the season I'm sure few of us figured that he'd play 41 of 42 games for the A's. His production numbers has to take into account that he probably has needed days off that he couldn't take during the great OF plague of '07.

Travis Buck B
.360 OBP .495 SLG. Can play an adequate RF in the majors. Been playing hurt for a month.

Milton Bradley INC
Depends on whether you blame him for his injury trouble or not. Too bad, he really looked focused coming into the season.

Danny Putnam C
He stayed healthy? He didn't mock the A's publicly when they asked him to play CF?

Bobby Kielty INC
Do the A's keep him over Cust when he comes back? Anybody want of half season of our lovable clown?

Chris Snelling C+
He'll be a nice player for the 40 or so games a year he's healthy.

Ryan Langerhans
who?

Jack Cust A+
Ten years from now, Jack Cust is what i'll remember about the May 2007 A's.

The Pitchers

Dan Haren A+
Leading League in ERA and IP. That's always an A+.

Joe Blanton A-
7 or more inning each of last 5 starts. Doing his part to minimize effect of a bad pen Averaging more innings per start than Haren.

Chad Gaudin B+
Has been a little lucky, and hasn't pitched as deep into games as we will need if count on him to be a frontline starter. But obvously he's done super well for being a sixth starter (and really behind Halsey and Windsor during most of Spring Training).

Joe Kennedy A
As a starter, he's allowed 1,1,1,1,1,3,1,3 (today) ER in each of his starts. He probably won't keep it up, he's been a bit lucky, but he has been great.

Rich Harden Fail
Rich gets to take this course on a pass/fail basis. Right now he is failing. If he somehow pitches regularly during the second half of the season, he can still pass.

Dallas Braden C
Has the stuff to succeed up here, has to learn how to work out of trouble. I'd be fine with him as a fifth starter in 08.

Huston Street B+
Come back soon Huston.

Justin Duchscherer D+
Has never been right.

Kiko Calero D
Can't count on him yet this year.

Alan Embree C+
a bit overused this year. Still is mostly solid.

Jay Witasick D+
7 walks in last 6 innings. not reliable.

Lenny Dinardo C+
hasn't been good enough to become a reliable high-leverage guy, still fair though.

Jay Marshall C+
Overused. Too many Plate appearances versus RHH. I still don't think it was worth the roster space to keep him instead of using Flores, but he has pitched a bit better than his ERA would indicate, and would probably get a higher grade if we could afford the luxury of using him as a LOOGY

Kotsay and Loaiza don't get grades here, nor do Robertson, Flores or Bocachica.

Geren I'll grade on a pass/fail basis so far and I'll give him a pass.

I'd have to think really hard about what to give Beane and the front office at this point. Who are the other PTBNL? Why did we feel we could trade McBeth for Denorfia who is out for the season? Sure would be nice to have grabbed Joakim Soria or Josh Hamilton instead of Goleski. But sticking with DJ all the way, getting Cust, trusting Kennedy even after the scary Spring, starting Gaudin, and recognizing that Buck was ready enough are all positives in the front office's favor. Now about those injuries though...

What do you all think?

Roster Implications

jakarta — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 23:22:41 -0000

So the Outfield is in tatters and the bullpen is shaky. We've tried to triage as best we could, but have done so by adding Braden, Buck, and Putnam from outside of the 40 man roster. Now that we have no healthy CF on the ML roster, there will be implications if we want to add a good fielding CF to the roster.

Also, shaky performance of the bullpen to date gives rise to the question of what we could do there if we were so inclined.

We've already removed some of our AAAA roster filler by demoting Bocachica, Perez, and Thomas from the 40 man roster, so who else could/should go if we want to make further moves? And how does it impact the future state of the 40 man roster?

Here's our current 40 man roster:

Pitchers:
Blanton, Braden, Calero, Casilla, DiNardo, Duchscherer, Embree, Flores, Gaudin, Halsey, Harden, Haren, Kennedy, Komine, Loaiza, Marshall, McBeth, Meyer, Shafer, Street, Windsor, Witasick

Position Players:
Brown, Kendall, Melhuse, Chavez, Crosby, Ellis, DJ, Murphy, Scutaro, Walker, Bradley, Buck, Herrera, Kielty, Putnam, Stewart, Swisher, Piazza

60 day DL (not currently on 40 man roster):
Kotsay

Guys not on 40 man:
Bocachica, Antonio Perez, Stokes, Furmaniak, Mitchell, Charles Thomas, Stavisky, Barton, etc...

Additional guys in minors who we likely will want/need to add to roster for rule 5 draft at end of season:

Powell, Barton, Robnett, Mike Mitchell, Suzuki, Melillo, Gray?, Robertson?, Petit???

This is in addition to Windsor, Putnam, Braden, Buck who have been accelerated to having a presence on the 40 man. So this season the future implications of protecting our young players is looming over the roster moves in a way which didn't happen last year due to the lackluster draft class we had in 2003.

So, here's what I see right now.

Javier Herrera is the only choice to come up and play CF for the A's without dropping someone off of the 40 man roster. Problem is that Herrera is not ready to hit at all, as he is struggling to a .179/.286/.239 line in Stockton right now.

1A) Bring up McBeth to play CF and add another power arm to the pen. A neat idea, though I think someone already asked the A's brass about this and they said they were not considering that at all.

McBeth, Flores, and Halsey are pitching the best out of the pen guys on our roster. Shafer is out of sorts, Casilla has been just so so, Komine and Windsor are the other possibilities here.

But Embree and Marshall are probably just overworked, so adding Halsey or Flores, i.e. another lefty, seems less than ideal. The right handers Witasick, Duke, and Calero seem like the big issue right now. So McBeth might be an obvious choice. But either we eat Witasick's salary, or D.L. Duke or Calero and drop someone else from the 40 man roster.

It seems like much of this hinges on the organization's feeling/plan as regards DiNardo. Also what happens when/if Loaiza comes back, Kennedy, another lefty to the pen, or Gaudin to strengthen the pen but perhaps weaken the rotation.

If you put another OF on the DL to make room for someone else, that person would either be DJ which doesn't solve the defense situation, Herrera, or someone else who is not on the 40 man roster.

The guys who seem the most expendable right now: Shafer, Dinardo, Walker (once position players are a little more healthy), Witasick (if you eat the money), Jeremy Brown (because you have to put Suzuki on the 40 man at the end of the season anyway), Dan Meyer, or one of last year's Komine, Windsor, Casilla, Halsey, Flores grouping.

There's much more to all this, but I'll stop it here for now, already a long enough diary.

another piece of the July roster puzzle

jakarta — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 07:22:50 -0000

Okay. Windsor is now up and did a decent job in his first start. Zito could be traded for the right young players, and is very likely gone for 2 draft slots after this season. Harden is great but unable to be relied upon. Haren is with us for another three or four years, Blanton another four, Loaiza another two. Kennedy is likely gone next year, but Windsor, Saarloos, Halsey, Gaudin are all in our control for the next few years. Many of you know this roster and are trying to figure out whether we have enough this year and in the near future without Zito, and not counting on Harden.

But the name I haven't seen come up in discussions is Shane Komine.

He had a rough start to the season, after riding a nice comeback from Tommy John surgery to an Arizona Fall League appearance. He was 3-7 and had a brutal 6.10 ERA at one point.

But over his last six starts in Sacramento:
40 IP
28 H
5 R
3 ER
1 HR
8 BB
36 K
0.68 ERA during that stretch

His record is now 8-7, his ERA is 4.17

He has been outpitching Windsor for over a month, and is back to being the guy the A's protected on the 40 man roster.

He's a factor again, he's a factor in how the front office feels about what they have going forward. Many of us have been hoping for a Dan Meyer resurgence, but a Shane Komine resurgence might accomplish the same thing by letting Beane safely trade away someone like Blanton, Windsor, Guadin, etc...

Article on A's prospect Richie Robnett

jakarta — Sat, 23 Apr 2005 01:03:39 -0000

The Visalia Times Delta had a story in today's sports section about former local prep star (and 2004 A's first round draft pick) coming back to the park he played his high school games in. Puff-piece article, but interesting if you are an A's prospect hound.

here is the article

and a quote:

"[Oakland farm director Keith Lieppman] wanted me not to worry too much about the statistics.

I've had a lot of bad luck with some well-hit balls.

They told me, as long as I'm hitting the ball well, you can't worry about what the numbers are," Robnett said. "I was kind of anxious at first, but I'm starting to slow down, and trying to take it one day at a time."

impressions from seeing the Stockton Ports

jakarta — Wed, 20 Apr 2005 20:59:14 -0000

I posted this in the comments at athleticsminors.com and wanted to subsequently offer it here to anyone interested in some of my (not professional scout worthy) impressions of some of the A's best prospects at play in Visalia last night.

I went to the Stockton-Visalia game last night and came away with some impressions.

Daric Barton, despite his 0 for 5, still looked like the best hitter up there. His K in the first inning was on two questionable calls 3-1 and 3-2, he hit a 380 ft out, and hit two hard ground balls at second.

He looks like he doesn't know what to do with himself when he is DHing, he kept on sneaking looks to the pen when there was warming up going on in the middle innings. During warmups when the rest of his team was playing catch, he was holding his glove and half-heartedly stretching. He looked like a guy who couldn't find any friend to play with and always seems to be checking out our pitcher warm-ups.
He has huge thighs and a wicked swing, he'll be fine.

Suzuki is tiny. He hit his homer on a 2 strike off speed pitch, adjusting well. He fouled off a ton of nasty 2 strike pitches during the night. At least several times during the game and warm-ups he brushed off the coaching staff, wanting to be the one to be in control of communication with the pitchers. He got dinged up a couple of times and one hopes that his body wil hold up to the rigors of catching. He has great flexibility in his crouch and has great mechanics getting his throw off. he hurried it a couple of times during this game and gave up some accuracy.

Putnam can clearly hit, the ball jumped off his bat. His arm is playable but no better than that. His instincts in OF are very good, he caught some line drives at tough angles by getting good breaks. He and Robnett were inseperable the whole day and game (they have the same birthday even). He has that special swagger.

Robnett was hardest to get a read on. He loves to show off his arm. His swing looked like a work in progress, sometimes short, sometimes long. He laughs a lot, and is short but ripped out. I'll have to watch him more to have more of an impression.

other short takes:
Vasili Spanos can hit. He is huge and looks more like a mafioso than a ballplayer, but he has control of his swing. he runs the bases well enough, though he looks more like a 1B than a 3B.

Francis Gomez has a great arm, swagger (from displacing McCurdy?), and some hitting skills. Was hard to get much of a swing sense form him.

Majewski is stressed about his hitting clearly. He was practicing his swing in the outfield during warm-ups and was seemingly taking his outs harder than the other players.

McCurdy has the look of a baseball player, commanding presence with his team-mates and all, but I saw nothing in his swing to make me think he might someday turn it around.

Appert is a scrappy 2B who plays well but is instantly forgettable, even after he just scores.

A's talk on KNBR now (9PM)

jakarta — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 05:08:38 -0000

the promo is Susan Schlesser(sp?)at the top of the hour and then Barry Zito at the bottom of the hour.

no idea if it will be interesting or not

Okay, I guess I'm supposed to do three hundred words or so minimum in order to make this an acceptable diary entry.

So, I'll type as quickly as I can in order to be able to post this ASAP. This'll be another in the series of Hot Stove League shows where the offseason exploits will be discussed.

No word on whether Zito will be asked about his break-up with Alyssa Milano, though he certainly will be asked about being the remaining big dog in the A's rotation.

And they'll certainly start riffing on the Canseco stuff too. So it's on now. Come listen, I hope my diary has made the needed word minimum.

listen at 680AM or KNBR.com

this is what the message is saying to me:

One-line diaries are prohibited on Athletics Nation. Give your diary a bit more thought, then give it another shot. If you have nothing to add to your proposed diary, then it probably belongs as a comment under another appropriate thread.