SB Nation User Blog: johnjahafanclub

Killion & Neyer Slam Wolff

johnjahafanclub — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 07:06:52 -0000

http://www.mercurynews.com/annkillion/ci_11981252?nclick_check=1

Killion makes a bunch of accusations based on Lew's statement that he doesn't want to "cover old ground" and try and stay at the colliseum long term. I don't really say anything wrong with Lew's statement he's just not getting anyone's hopes up or trying to make false promises. Would you rather he give it to you straight or tell you for years he will keep the team in oakland before pulling a fast one and moving off to Oklahoma City (ala Seattle Supersonics). I have some friends who are Sonics fans and they are absolutely devastated, and Seattle politicians have threatened legal action over the false overtures of the ownership group pretending to be interested in keeping the team there.

Killion goes off on a tangent saying trashing the colliseum will cause attendance to decline:

Almost two decades ago, Giants owner Bob Lurie originated the "I hate my ballpark and you should too," public relations campaign.

In case Wolff, busy with hotel development at the time, overlooked Lurie's campaign, here's a brief summary of its effectiveness: an unmitigated disaster.

Lurie, frustrated with his own aging and shared facility, kept trying to move the Giants. To the South Bay. To Tampa/St. Pete. Anywhere but Candlestick Park. He let everyone know how much he hated his ballpark. And, in a stunning development, his words didn't woo fans to games, but rather persuaded them to stay away. In droves.

The Giants' average home attendance steadily declined from a peak of 26,074 in 1989, a year the team was in the World Series, to 19,759 in 1992.

That's about what the A's averaged last season, the fifth consecutive season of attendance drops. The A's drew 27,179 in 2004, the season before Wolff bought the team. Last season, they were down to 20,559.

In our little baseball petri dish, we have proven that you can't expect to draw well if you publicly hate your ballpark.

For all you statistics majors out there, this is a good example of the old truth, "correlation is not causation." Let me give you a more probable cause for the attendance decline for the Giants: their record went from 90-72 in 89, to 85-77 in 90, 75-87 in 91, and 72-90 in 92.

As for her quip at the end there blaming Lew for the A's attendance declines... the A's record was 91-71 in 2004, it was 75-86 last year.

I'm sure Lew wish he had the power to make fans show up or not merely by making propagandistic statements about how beautiful the colliseum is, but unfortunately he does not have said power, sorry Ms. Killion.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/print?id=4015171&type=blogEntry

Neyer doesn't agree with Killion on the fan base thing, but the title of his entry accuses Lew of being removed from his fan base. How is Lew's statement out of touch? I thought it was pretty much well agreed among the fan base that the Colliseum is on the lesser end of baseball stadiums and that Mt. Davis sucks.

A's Halt Ballpark in Fremont Plans

johnjahafanclub — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 20:30:22 -0000

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/02/20/BAAK161PL7.DTL&tsp=1

I am dissapointed if this means the A's might leave or stay in their current park, but I am excited if this leads to a move to San Jose.

Oakland Athletics officials today asked the City of Fremont to halt the planning process required to build a new stadium and move the team there, saying they want to reconsider their options.

The Fremont city clerk's office issued a notice today saying the A's have asked the city to stop the environmental review and notice of preparation processes, which would have paved the way for the team to build a $1.8 billion "ballpark village" next to the Don Edwards National Wildlife Refuge.

"I think this means the A's aren't going to build this here, at least not at that site," said Fremont Mayor Bob Wasserman. "I think it's terrible. Fremont's lost the best opportunity we've ever had."

How Stupid are Sports Agents?

johnjahafanclub — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 20:11:54 -0000

Judging by the quotes from the anonymous agent in Tim Brown's latest column, pretty freaking stupid:

“It’s beyond odd,” said one high-profile agent who’s been crying collusion for two months. “You can put together a pretty impressive team with the guys who are still out there.”

Sure. Collusion. That has to be it. It has NOTHING to do with the economy. Apparently sports agents don't read the news. If they did, they would know that a bunch of major companies announced tens of thousands of new layoffs today on top of all the other hundreds of thousands of layoffs over the last few months. They would know the stock market has lost 40% of its value over the last 6 months.

“Teams are trying to create a system where players are fearful of free agency,” the agent said. “They’re trying to get players to take the bad deal early.”

Sure. It's all a big conspiracy by the teams. It has nothing to do with the economy. Additionally, the conspiracies behind the fake moon landing, Roswell, the JFK assassination, and the inside job behind 9/11 are also somehow interconnected to this. Am I forgetting anything? Oh yeah and the fluoride in our drinking water conspiracy to poison us all. That is also connected.

**Update: GDP fell by 5.5% last quarter, worst quarter since 1982.

Canseco Interviewed on Howard Stern

johnjahafanclub — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 19:51:15 -0000

Jose Canseco was recently interviewed on the Howard Stern show and I watched it last night on demand. Unfortunately I do not have a link, but I can give you a quick recap. I think that interview should be shown to every single high school, college, and minor league athlete, as a way of discouraging them from using steroids. As most of you know, Howard Stern is on satellite radio now, so there are no FCC regulations and they can say what they want.

Jose was very open in discussing his recent troubles with steroid use. He said he quit steroids cold turkey for a period of about 8 months last year. He said that his body was producing zero testosterone and that he lost most of his muscle mass. He also discussed how he literally could not get it up in bed during the entire 8 months. It was physiologically impossible. Now he has to take steroids on a doctor prescription in order to produce the natural amount of testosterone that the male body needs, which he can no longer produce himself, because of how messed up his body is.

On a more hilarious side-note, he was promoting an up-coming boxing fight that he will be fighting against Danny Bonaduce (former child star from the Partridge Family, also a huge steroid abuser). As many of you know, poor Jose is almost bankrupt now, after going through 2 divorces and spending most of his money, he had to foreclose his houses last year in the real estate crash and he said he now rents.

He also discussed the "Juiced" book and what he thinks about Mark McGwire not getting into the hall of fame. He said he doesn't think Mark blames him for it. They tried to get him to talk about Tony La Russa's recent article about Mark but he wouldn't bite. He mainly said they need to either let all of the roid users into the Hall or none, but they can't pick and choose guys like Bonds or Clemens who would have gotten in with their pre-steroid numbers. He said he personally thinks Mark should get into the Hall of Fame because he said he thinks he is the greatest right handed slugger of all time, and pointed to Mark's 49 bombs as a rookie. He also said he wished he didn't have to name all of the people he did but that otherwise there would be no point in writing the book because nobody would believe him unless he started pointing to specific users.

Rays to Get Burrell at 2 yrs/16 mil?

johnjahafanclub — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 18:58:42 -0000

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2009/01/rays-close-to-s.html

According to Ken Rosenthal, the Rays are close to signing Pat Burrell to a two-year, $16MM deal. It'd be a solid move, as the Rays can increase his value by not using him in the field. The '08 Rays struggled against lefties (.726 OPS) and Burrell crushes them (.952 OPS in '08).

Wow!

#1: This should significantly bring Giambi's/Dunn's/John Jaha's price down for us.

#2: We should try to outbid the Rays for Burrell at that price!

Eck the Broadcaster (interview)

johnjahafanclub — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 16:23:26 -0000

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big_league_stew/post/Dennis-Eckersley-hates-when-you-call-his-hairsty;_ylt=AsweQiJ_sigWoawRDKUOMSwRvLYF?urn=mlb,113578

Dennis Eckersley hates when you call his hairstyle a mullet

Dennis Eckersley still has a closer's mentality. When you sit down and talk to him it's easy to see why TBS hired the Hall of Fame pitcher to be an analyst. Eck had no fear on the mound and now he has no fear when it comes to offering up an opinion — from the Rays to his long hair — as I found out last Friday during my behind-the-scenes look at TBS' Inside MLB studios in Atlanta.

This is the first interview in a set of Q & A's with the show's personalities.

Gallagher Injury Vent Thread

johnjahafanclub — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 05:53:05 -0000

Word on the street is Gallagher is hurt. Are the A's just running into a string of bad luck (trading hudson for meyer, record DL uses two seasons in a row, and now trading major injury risk Harden for supposedly solid Gallagher) or are they not checking out players enough before the trade for them? I personally think it's just bad luck but it's news like this that makes me second guess myself...

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/08/05/SPK7125IO5.DTL

"Potentially more bad news for the A's, who have lost 17 of 19: Starter Sean Gallagher, obtained in the Rich Harden deal last month, is likely to go on the disabled list today to make room for Gonzalez. Gallagher has had some shoulder soreness, which might account for his four walks and two hit batters in three innings Monday. Dan Meyer is expected to take Gallagher's spot in the rotation, at least initially."

"The A's have not announced that Gallagher will be placed on the DL, but after Tuesday's game, manager Bob Geren confirmed that the right-hander has some shoulder discomfort. Earlier in the day, he had mentioned that Gallagher's next start might be pushed back but he did not explain why that might be."

*** UPDATE *** A'sfaninNC points to some rotoworld news: "Sean Gallagher is expected to go on the disabled list with a sore shoulder. That explains the wildness Monday. A source told the San Francisco Chronicle that Gallagher felt a “pop” in the shoulder in his July 25 start against Texas."

Why the hell would he go out and start again 5 days later after feeling a pop? I'm going to give the medical staff the benefit of the doubt and assume that he did not tell them about the pop. Geren needs to sit the team down and tell them if they are hurt they need to tell the training staff (hint, hint huston street) and that hiding it always makes it worse.

Ziggy Pitch Trajectory Breakdown

johnjahafanclub — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 15:43:50 -0000

Interesting Breakdown of Ziggy's mechanics over at Hardball Times...

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/brad-ziegler-al-rookie-of-the-year/

"The vertical difference between the straight-line trajectory and the actual trajectory is 11.5 inches, almost an entire foot! A batter used to adjusting his swing down by four or five inches for a Blanton fastball will swing right over the top of a Ziegler fastball."

Obviously opposing batters know by now that Ziggy throws a lot lower than normal pitchers. I assume that they are trying to adjust their swings downward. Even with them getting second and third looks at him it will probably still be hard to fully adjust because of all the built up muscle memory etc. It will be interesting to see how things go these next two months.

On a sidenote, question: will Ziggy break Hersheiser's record this season or next season? Follow-up question: will ESPN give him 15 seconds of coverage or 20 seconds of coverage after he breaks said record?

Street or Blanton to Philly Rumors

johnjahafanclub — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 15:14:41 -0000

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/16/SPHC11PNK3.DTL

" The Harden deal increases the chances that the A's could make more moves before July 31, with Street and starter Joe Blanton potentially on the block. Rumors about Blanton and Philadelphia gained speed Tuesday, and there were also rumblings that teams have interest in Duchscherer. There's still a chance, even with Oakland six games behind the Angels in the AL West, that the A's will move to pick up a big right-handed bat, a need they have this year and beyond."

What does everyone make of this?

Philly has pat burrell but no way are they trading him slash no way can we afford his salary. Is beane going for jayson werth? He seems kind of old at 29 and not a good power bat, just a mediocre one, but good obp.

Not many righty power prospects in philly's system. Dominic brown is a lefty. I'd be stoked on getting adrian cardenas, a future mark ellis replacement, but he bats lefty. Lou Marson has good obp but is a catcher which we don't really need.

A's Sign Rajai Davis, Demote Saarloos

johnjahafanclub — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 07:42:33 -0000

Am I just really tired and out of it or does espn have an article up titled "A's claim OF Davis off waivers, designate Saarloos for assignment"???

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3364298

I guess I'm not surprised we demoted Saarloos because we have good ol' Lenny D (ps: lenny d haters can go to hell... dude is my hero for outpitching the bosox's 100 million dollar pitcher June 5th last year). But obviously with all the reports about Big Hurt one would have figured we would be replacing Saarloos with Hurt, not Rajai Davis. Rajai is a nice player but is very anti-moneyball... pure speed and no slugging... although he does have a decent obp. I am extremely shocked we claimed Rajai.

pps: BB: dump rajai asap and sign Hurt!

ppps: Hurt detractors: you can't use Mike Sweeney's first home run of the season today as an excuse for not needing to sign a better power hitting DH. One homer doesn't mean Sweeney all of a sudden developed .540 slg% pop (Hurt, 2006), or even .480 slg% pop (Hurt, 2007) for that matter. We need Hurt asap.

pppps: "Meanwhile, Oakland right-hander Rich Harden threw off the mound for the first time since going on the disabled list April 3 with a strained throwing shoulder. He is slated to pitch in a simulated game Saturday in Seattle as his next step."... what is the over/under on whether harden hurts himself saturday and doesn't resume throwing for 3 months???