Let's have a diary to talk about the Mitchell Report as names are released today.

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Why is it that there seems to be a consensus here that the A's should trade Dan Johnson?  

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No more Rickey comeback jokes as he's the hitting coach for the Mets.  

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This isn't a "Kendall sucks" diary, but an attempt to see if his decline in performance is a trend or noise.  

I wasn't a big fan of the Kendall acquisition, but I was always hopeful that he would turn out to be a good player since we were stuck with his contract.  With his struggles this year, it got me to wondering whether it was simply a deterioration of skills for a catcher on the wrong side of 30 who's played a ton of games or simply a run of bad luck.    

One statistic that struck me was his strike out rate.  Let's take a closer look.  

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With Buck tearing it up, should he make the team out of Spring Training?  If so, should he be the starting RF?    

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When you watch this team, do they strike you as a winner?  Not even specifically in the playoff/no playoff sense, but just as winners?  The injuries have hurt, no doubt, but is this team fundamentally a winning ball club?

I want to say yes, but I'm not 100% sure.  We all know they were built for 2006+ and anything this year is gravy, but can the young guys learn to want to win?  Does this team have the fire?  We brought Kendall and Kotsay in for that reason, but do they provide it?  Anybody can be pumped up when you're up 12-0, but can they maintain their edge down 4-0?  

If it's the 4th inning and we're down, we lose.  How does that happen with a young ball club?  They should be fighting for every at bat.  Instead, they seem content to call the games in.  Seems to happen every game.  You can even script what will happen from then on:

Kendall - ground out to 2B with the weakest swing in the majors (swings like a girl)
Kotsay - swings at first pitch ball and hits a pop fly to CF.
Chavez - swings at first pitch ball and fouls out to 1B.
Kietly - K's with the longest swing this side of Adam Dunn
Johnson - (ray of hope) battles and might get a hit, but left stranded
Payton - might hit a homerun or flies out to LF
Swisher - looks overmatched at the plate every time and they throw him a slider breaking in on his hands and he swings EVERY SINGLE TIME for the K.
Scutaro - hits ground ball to 1B.
Ellis - hits ground ball to 2B.

Obviously, I'm sure they'll heat up again, but why does this team seem content to lose?  Why don't they fight and fight for all 27 outs?  They seem to lack the fire that made the teams with Miggy and Giambi so good.  

So, the question is, does this team look like a winner?  We're hanging in this year against a weak American League, but if you compared this team to good teams of the past decade, do they hold up?  I don't really see a winning formula in the lineup and I hope that some of the talent in the minors or to be acquired in the next couple of years has some fire and who know to wait for a strike before swinging.    

On August 6th, I posted a diary about the A's August Offensive Woes.  And then they went out and scored 27 runs in two games.  So, in an attempt to reignite the offense, I've posted the same diary, but with updated August stats.  

Please, do your best to tell me what an idiot I am, how the sample size is too small, and how we just have to stay positive.  The more comments, the better the odds they'll break out of the slump.  I'll do my part by eating an entire bucket of chicken before today's game, ala Wade Boggs.

Here's a month-by-month breakdown of our Runs and OPS (AL rank in parenthesis):

April    Runs: 89 (12)   OPS: .657 (14)
May      Runs: 112 (12)  OPS: .672 (13)
June     Runs: 148 (4)   OPS: .820 (4)
July     Runs: 155 (1)   OPS: .809 (3)
August   Runs: 69 (7)    OPS: .743 (10)
August1  Runs: 42 (14)              

August1=If all runs scored by all teams on August 6th and 7th are removed.  Yes, I think it's kind of bad science to remove those, but the drop in rank is clearly significant and August 6th and 7th are clearly outliers.  The only bright spot is that the White Sox have only scored 43 runs in the same game set.  

Our August OPS has dipped significantly.  The main problem?  No one is on fire leading this offense.  It was Crosby in June.  Chavez in early July.  Johnson in late July.  Who's going to step up?      

At least our pitching staff has stayed hot:

April   ERA: 3.65 (2)    OPSA: .684 (3)
May     ERA: 5.43 (13)   OPSA: .784 (12)
June    ERA: 2.83 (1)    OPSA: .629 (1)
July    ERA: 3.66 (1)    OPSA: .705 (2)
August  ERA: 3.73 (4)    OPSA: .689 (1)

Here's a month-by-month breakdown of our Runs and OPS (AL rank in parenthesis):

April    Runs: 89 (12)   OPS: .657 (14)
May      Runs: 112 (12)  OPS: .672 (13)
June     Runs: 148 (4)   OPS: .820 (4)
July     Runs: 155 (1)   OPS: .809 (3)
August   Runs: 15 (8)    OPS: .626 (13)

Our August OPS has dipped significantly.  The only hot player right now is Johnson (and man is he on fire with a post-June OPS of 1.074).  Is there reason to worry?  

At least our pitching staff has stayed hot:

April   ERA: 3.65 (2)    OPSA: .684 (3)
May     ERA: 5.43 (13)   OPSA: .784 (12)
June    ERA: 2.83 (1)    OPSA: .629 (1)
July    ERA: 3.66 (1)    OPSA: .705 (2)
August  ERA: 2.62 (2)    OPSA: .577 (2)

ESPN mentioned a rumored Piazza to Oakland deal this morning, but I haven't seen anything about it.  Does that make any sense at all?  The guy will be 37 before the end of the season and makes $16MM+ (don't know about 2006+).  Also, check out his OPS numbers the last few years - notice a trend?

2000 1.012
2001 .957 (-.055)
2002 .903 (-.054)
2003 .860 (-.043)
2004 .806 (-.054)
2005 .749 (-.057)

Also, his OPS after the all-star break last year was  .615 with Jason Kendall-esque power numbers.

So, does this make any sense or is it just NY media being their usual selves?  I would think we would have to be able to unload some salaries to pick him up (Durazo, Hatteberg, etc - wish we could get Dotel off the DL for 1 day to trade him).  Also, we know Minaya loves his latin players and we don't have many.

So, what's the verdict?

In 25 years, after all the players in the A's organization have played out their careers, which one will we point to and say had the best career?

Will Chavez take the next step and finally put up the numbers his early projections indicated or hill he linger as a .270-.290 with 25-35 HR hitter (good, but not great)?  Will it be Harden who probably has the highest upside of any player in the organization, but is still young and fragile?  Will it be any of the current crop of young position players who will get plenty of playing time in the near future (Crosby/Swisher/Johson)?  Or, will it be one of the prospects in the minors?  Barton?  Ethier?  Putnam?

Here are my guesses with odds:

Harden - 40% (most upside, but a pitcher - will he be clemens or andy benes?)
Chavez - 15% (good career numbers to date, but will he take the next step?)
Street - 15% (good slider, but will need to learn another pitch to fool hitters for years)
Suzuki - 10% (maybe a shock, but figure he's a .300-.320 10-15 hr hitter for a decade as a catcher)
Herrera - 10% (5 tools, but who knows)
Barton - 5% (hot bat, but small guy who might not do much against advanced pitching)
All Others - 5%

So, who's your pick and why?