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?

Case for the Offense:

• 27th in Runs
  
• 28th in Batting Average
  
• 30th in Slugging Percentage (30 points below #29)
  
• 30th in OPS
  
• 28th in 2B's
  
• 30th in HR's (19% below #29)
  
• 22nd in G/F (some correlation with power)
  
• 21st in GIDP
• A Surprising Stat:
  * 2nd in K's (as in 2nd least) I guess it's not that surprising that we don't K much when we don't hit for power

A case for the Pitching:

• 23rd in ERA
  
• 24th in WHIP
  
• 13th in BAA
  
• 19th in OPSA
  
• 25th in K/BB (the vaunted BB stat!)
  
• 16th in HR's Allowed (amazing given we play 1/2 our games at McAfee)
  
• 24th in P/PA
• From these numbers, you might conclude our offense is worse.  I'd agree with you it is to date, but with Crosby and Swisher coming back and Chavez and Durazo BOUND to come out of their year-long slump, the offense will only get better.  How much better, good question.    

That said, I think the pitching staff is the long-term concern on this club and I think Beane needs to find a servicable Major League starter to help out.  Blanton should probably go back to AAA to get his confidence back (and away from C. Young).  The long-term projections on these guys isn't so great.  Blanton is at most a #3 starter.  Same with Haren.  Who knows about Meyers.  Rheinecker?  Not often you are a prospect, fail in the high minors and suddenly find your stuff again and turn out to be a decent ML pitcher.  We have some guys in the low minors, but none will help out until late next year at the earliest.  So, I think we need to get someone who will help add depth to the rotation for this year and beyond.

Starting Pitchers we should target on teams that have historically been trading partners or have poor records this year:
Dempster (before he became the closer)
Lilly (dare I say it?  he is having a bad year, but is a good pitcher)
Towers (28, decent/good numbers, low salary - probably cost too much)
Robertson/Maroth/Johnson (all good/decent numbers in pitchers park, all "veterans", all cheap except Johnson)
Harang (bring back the donkey)
Backe (young, cheap, limited upside)
B. Lawrence (still has upside)

A few last thoughts:

• The A's have 5 wins in May (3 came in a 4 game stint)
  
• The A's have have been shutout 6 times this year  and scored only 1 run 3 times
  
• The A's have allowed 10 runs or more 6 times  
  
• Since 9/5 last year when the collapse began, the A's are 27-45 (10-17, a .370 winning percentage, last year and 17-28, a .378 winning percentage, this year) for a combined winning percentage of .375.  Makes ya want to cry.  

With our pitching staff depth taking a hit, should the A's take a flyer on Brazelton?  He's apparently AWOL for his minor league assignment and might get designated for assignment (ie, traded or released in 10 days).  Should the A's take a flyer on him?  Probably wouldn't cost much.  

Case for:  

• Young pitcher with good "stuff" who never quite put it together.
  
• Tremendous upside.  
  
• 24 year old with parts of 4 seasons in league (ie, rushed and needs time to mature).  
• Case against:
  
• Possible headcase.  
  
• His stats!  (http://www.thebaseballcube.com/players/dewon_brazelton.shtml)
• I'm not neccessarily advocating he be picked up for a low-A roster fill (even if we could), I'm just curious what others think.  In the end, I think he needs to go the NL and get with a decent pitching coach (Peterson, Maz, Duncan).

The initial market inefficiency identified by the Sabers was the low relative price of OBP in the marketplace.  That combined with the 1000's of regressions showing that high OBP was highly correlated with winning led to a team philosophy that valued patience.  This worked great when we had a mix of patience and power.  But, now all we seem to have is patience and no power.  Can a high OBP team score with low SLG?  I say no.

One of the themes of the early 2000's A's was 2 walks and a 3-run HR.  That was because we had power, walked a lot, and couldn't advance the runners much since we didn't play "smallball".  Now, we have a team that still gets on OBP fine (long-term averages, not just 2005), but has absolutely no power.  So, we walk a lot, but can't score our runners with simple singles.  This leads to a very low RISP.  It also leads to me losing significant portions of my hair watching the A's leave 12 RISP every dang night.  You can't walk a runner in unless the bases are loaded.  If we are to keep a high obp philosophy on this team, we need to compliment it with either more power or more speed.  We don't have much speed in the minors because we haven't really cared about it for eight years, but we do have some power.  

So, the answer that is so painfully obvious is to promote some of the power.  Since most of the power plays in positions where we have OBP players, we need to find a balance.  We can't simply replace all of our high OBP guys with pure power guys because it's all about the combination of the two (not neccessarily in the same player).  The answer is even more obvious when you consider the two players most ready to help could step in and fill the power void (Johson at 1B and Watson in LF with Byrnes as the 4th outfielder he was meant to be).

Will it happen now?  Probably not, but I hope that last year and this year will show Billy that his formula for winning needs tweaking.  This team is not fun to watch (walk, GIDP, walk, K).  Even the loser teams of the mid-90's were at least fun with some power guys and a ton of young players who were learning the game.  

THE ANSWER: BILLY, WE NEED MORE POWER EVEN AT THE COST OF YOUR PRECIOUS HIGH OBP BUDDIES.  LET HATTEBERG START HIS CAREER AS A BENCH COACH NOW.  
 

A while back, a number of us realized we lived in/around Boston and shared a passion for the A's.  Are any of you planning on going to the May 9-11 series?  I have tickets for the 10th.  

So, I wanted to see if people were interested in catching some A's games at local bars or if people are going to the Red Sox games.  If you're interested, reply with where you live and maybe we can organize a group or two.    

I know, I know only two games, but the boy is stuggling big time.  First two games:

Game 1: 3IP, 8H, 5R, 3ER, 1BB, 1K, 2HR
Game 2: 5IP, 8H, 7R, 7ER, 1BB, 1K, 1HR

So, in two games, he's got a 11.25 ERA with a total of 2K's.  Yikes!  Has anybody seen him yet?  Anybody know anything that would explain this (ie, he's working on a new pitch or something?).  Atlanta has a long history of fleecing other teams and this doesn't look good so far.  If nothing, it means he's probably in AAA for the year unless he absolutely dominates the 2nd half.  

So, here's a question.  If Saarloos struggles or his elbow problems return (highly likely), who steps into the rotation?  Rheinecker?  Etherton?  Serrano?  I imagine it would be Etherton, but I've never been a big fan.  Would much prefer giving Juan Cruz another shot at starting.  The dude's stuff if filthy.  So, share your thoughts on who'd you want and who you think the A's would use (might be different).  

Do you ever read an article and realize you know more about baseball/sports/life than the sports writer?  I know ElephantsInOakland blog likes to rant on the subject a lot, but I see it more and more.  Do baseball writers even follow their own sport?  Are they too busy covering the hockey lock-out?  Did they graduate from high school?  

To give you an example, here's a quote from Boston Herald today:

Speaking of center fielders, there is still every reason to believe the Oakland A's will trade Eric Byrnes, especially after A's manager Ken Macha refused to name Byrnes his starting center fielder.

Good thing we didn't pick him up.  I'm shocked by this, because I thought he was doing well.

From ESPN.COM

Breaking News
Ankiel Done As Pitcher
Rick Ankiel is ending a pitching career and will try to make the Cardinals' roster as an outfielder. Ankiel, 25, had yet to appear in a spring training game as he tried to revive a career plagued by control problems.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=1991342

Santana just got 4 years, $40MM from the Twins.  Since Harden is also a young, fireballer, his price just went up.  You could argue that his price went up this offseason during the crazy spending, but this is the first instance of such spending on a young player.  Granted, Harden isn't the same as Santana.  Who is?  I was hoping we could do a 4/$24MM deal with him, but I bet it takes at least $8MM/year now.  

In the tradition of the "I met Michael Lewis diary", I thought I'd share my experience of meeting Bill James yesterday.  

Bill came in to teach a section of a short 3-day class I'm taking in sports management.  The first day of the class had been about ticket pricing schemes with the Celtics and was cool.  But, yesterday we switched to player evaluation and James made his appearance.  He came off as kind of shy and looked surprisingly like my father-in-law.    

He discussed in detail the decision to put Manny Ramirez on waivers last offseason.  It all came down to $ per Win Share.  It made total sense coming out of his mouth.  And the reason nobody picked him up is that even the Yanks agreed he wasn't worth the money.  So, that was cool and then we got to do Q&A.  I can't remember most of the questions, but the few take aways were:

• He doesn't have any impact on the way the game is managed for the Red Sox.  He doesn't tell Francona not to steal or hit and run.  He thought some of that may have gone into selecting Francona, but wasn't sure.
• He doesn't pay attention to other people's work.  Everyone kept asking him about the "next thing", but he didn't know because he just doesn't follow other people's work.  (and defense might be the next thing, but it's actually how he started)
• He doesn't do much with Voros McCracken (the other Red Sox stat guy).  I was shocked about this one.  
• He thinks that some of the inefficiencies in the market are due to the importance of post-season play.  Since his evaluations are done on long-run averages and the post season is win 11 games or go home, he thinks that throws the whole system into disarray (with regard to measuring players by $/win share).  Also agreed that there were no such thing as clutch players.  
• Everything else was stuff that if you've read James before you'd have known.  It was very fun and no, he doesn't have a job for me.

PS:  I met Peter Gammons in November at a conference my school held and he thought that both Mulder and Hudson would be gone and that the A's would be completely rebuilt this offseason.  So, for all the crap people give him, he nailed that one.  

Please feel free to post comments about fond James moments or theories.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?id=1953008

Makes your mouth water just thinking about him in an A's uniform in 2 years.  

Merry Christmas, Happy Festivus, and Feliz Navidon'tknowhowtospellit.  

At first I didn't think we were getting enough for Hudson, but if you really believe the hype about Jackson, he should be Harden II.  If that's the worst we end up with, that's great.  Think of what people usually get for salary dumps (McGwire for 3 pieces of trash ring a bell - and to think we employ Alderson's kid).

IF the Hudson trade goes down, we'd probably have 9 rookies or 2nd year players on the team:

RF Swisher
2B Perez
SS Crosby
1B Johnson - assuming Hatte is discarded
SP Blanton
SP Jackson
RP Street
RP Duke
RP Garcia/Lehr - at least one of them will probably be in the pen.  

That's a lot of rookies/2nd year players.  Now, I always get excited by young players because I dream of potential (something to do with growing up in the early-to-mid 90's when the only thing to follow about the A's were the minor leagues), but it's got to worry Beane.  Maybe he packages a couple of rookies/prospects for an affordable veteran or two?  Maybe this is the economic reality of the cost of keeping keeping Mulder/Zito/Chavez.  What do other people think?  

PS:  I still vote for trading Zito to the Orioles for Bedard, Maine, and $2M and then signing Mags to play LF for 1 year.  We'd be stacked with hitting and pitching prospects and at least a few of them should pan out.    

Steve Phillips reported on ESPN that the Braves have traded for Danny Kolb for Capellan and will move Smoltz to the rotation.  This means either:

1. the Braves are out of the Hudson derby or
2. they will use Kolb as part of the package for Hudson.

Here's the link:
http://msn.foxsports.com/story/3238930

That said, here's what I might do if I was Beane.  

First thought: The Angels will soon spend on par with Boston and NY and become increasingly better.  The Mariners will also increase payroll and the Rangers will get better as their crop of hitting studs improves.  So, the division will become much more competitive.  Over the A's run, the division has been fairly weak with even the Mariners 116-win team and the Angel's WS team not that good on paper.  

Second Thought: There's no way we can keep 2 of the Big 3.  Just not enough budget.

Third Thought: The A's lack any high-ceiling starting pitchings in the mid-to-high minors.

Conclusion:  This is the year to shake up the team and get the pieces for another run.

Take the following actions:

Trade Hudson to St. Louis for Marquis, Haren, and Ankiel (substitute Calero for Haren if need be, but need a veteran like Marquis in return, also if Ankiel struggles in AAA, put in relief and set him up to replace Rincon).

Trade Zito to Atlanta (Leo Mazz will right the kid so fast it will make us cry - he'll win 95 games over the next 5 years) for Giles and Capellan.

Trade Capellan and Hatte to Diamondbacks for Connor Jackson and AA roster fill.  If Beane didn't think he could do that, then substitute Marte from the Braves for Capellan.  

Sign Mulder to a 2/$20 extension (through 2008) - shows immediate commitment and he might be wiling to do it since he might not know about his arm either.

Sign a veteran closer with some of the budget savings like Nenn or trade for Hoffman.  Someone to let Street get wet in the majors as a setup man, rather than closer.  Rooks don't close.  

The team may drop a little in 2005, but they'd be fun to watch.  And in 2006, they'd score 900+ runs and could probably win 100+ games.  It would be like the Indians of the mid-to-late 90's when Thome hit 7th.  Here's the awesome lineup in '06:

Kotsay CF .850 OPS
Kendall C .900 OPS
Chavez 3B .950 OPS, 40 HR
Giles 2B  .950 OPS, 25 HR
Durazo DH .950 OPS, 25 HR
Crosby SS .900 OPS, 30 HR
Swisher RF.900 OPS, 30 HR
Jackson LF.950 OPS, 25 HR
Johnson 1B.900 OPS, 20 HR

(put young players at the end of the lineup to keep pressure off, but could easily move up)

Rotation - like the A's of old:
Mulder 20 Wins
Harden 20 Wins
Marquis 16 Wins
Blanton 14 Wins
Haren 12 Wins

Bullpen - like the Angel's pen the last few years:
Duke Long
Bradford RH Specialist
Ankiel LH Specialist
Garcia Setup
Dotel Setup
Street Closing

Now, granted, this is a little crazy, but it's what happens when one plays too much MVP baseball on Xbox.

Atlanta:
Giles would be a nice pickup, but he's only had one pretty good season and one decent season.  I've long thought he'd be a good fit here, but not as the primary piece of a package for our #1 starter.

Baltimore:
Bedard has serious control problems and I'm not convinced Curt Young is the man to correct them.  Also, BJ Ryan had awesome numbers last year, but never before put up what I would call "good" numbers.  Also, he pitched 87 IP last season,50% more than his previous career high of 57 IP.  Bullpen arms are easy to find in other organizations (remember Mecir and Bradford - stolen)  

I agree that both would be nice additions, but not for Hudson.  Maybe flighty Zito, but not the bulldog.  We need a top RH bat and pitching prospects.  Look at what the diamond backs can get for a 40-something year-old pitching who's staring down the inevitable cliff of old age.  Beane needs to look at 3-team deals to get Hudson's true worth.  

Gammons says Spivey may be non-tendered.  He's had some injuries the past couple of years, but he's always put up decent numbers and he would be fairly cheap (probably $3M or so).  I think a 2-year deal would be nice and let Omar mature.  Thoughts?