SB Nation User Blog: madmongoose

Duke and the CY-- Pipedream??

madmongoose — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 19:45:48 -0000

Let me begin with the obvious huge caveat. He's at 77 innings-- and has never even hit double that in the bigs (minors, too?). And half the anchors at ESPN still can't pronounce his name. And he missed 3 starts.

Having said that, it's not the craziest idea in the world.

Start with the fact that 3 of the pitchers we would all say are at least his equal this season and perhaps even better-- Kazmir, lackey and Harden-- have missed more starts and have fewer innings thrown than Duke. And Dice-K, the most obvious choice from the best team, has only thrown 65 innings as well.

So we're with left with a panoply of less than ideal choices.

WINS--

still a big deal to many voters, sabermetrics notwithstanding.

Leaders are Saunders (11-3), Mussina (10-5), Padilla (10-3) and Lee (10-1). Obvious breakdown of contenders and pretenders here. Nobody who plays in the hellhole that is Arlington is gonna win a CY in my lifetime, and certainly not a guy with a 3.74 ERA. And while the Cooperstown talk for Moose is probably warranted-- at least as a debating point-- he had better win 20 for the first time in his career to get any consideration, but an ERA twice as high as our boy probably disqualifies him.

But Saunders is winning for a likely playoff team with a decent ERA (3.03) and Lee has been the best or 2nd best pitcher for most of the first half-- current ERA of 2.45. What argues against each are their histories-- Lee simply has no history of doing this well and his team may be bailing soon. Saunders neither but his team is certainly not bailing. I'd rate him highest of these four;

ERA--

Other than the trio of "incompletes"-- Lackey (1.73), kazmir (2.03) and Harden (2.44)-- all of whom pitch for contenders and thus can't be totally discounted, we have another unsatisfying list:

Shaun Marcum and Roy Halladay. Both genuinely good pitchers. halladay is 8-6 with a 2.90 ERA; marcum 5-4 and a 2.65. Halladay has the pedigree-- both are reliant on an underperforming team that has just fired its manager.

John Danks-- 2.80, but only a 4-4 record. Nice youngster. He'd have to win 13-14 games in the 2nd half to have a chance-- nah gonna happen;

King Felix-- 2.87 and a 6-5 record. True stud. and he'll probably win one one day. He's pitching for the worst team in the league and he won't win 27 like carlton did in 1972;

Jon Lester-- my darkhorse. Great story; very good team. 103 IP and he's 6-3 with a 3.13 ERA. Could he win 17-18 if the Sox roll in the 2nd half?? would 16 wins for a pennant winner and a sub 3.00 ERA be enough this year?

Anyway you can see that a guy who is 8-4 and now leads the league in ERA isn't an absurd choice, innings gap or no innings gap.

If i had to say I'd choose Saunders, Lee or Halladay-- or even Kazmir if he can go hard the entire 2nd half. But Duke absolutely will be in the conversation if he keeps this up another month or so.

I Think We Know Who the Team MVP Is

madmongoose — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 05:42:16 -0000

On a night when the Marlins huffed and puffed and almost blew our bullpen down (darn it, Paul Thomas, they did regress. And I feel mean about that), the 1st half MVP of the 2008 Oakland A's clearly emerged. Funny thing-- I think he deserved that honorific even before tonight's game.

Process of elimination: neither of our two best pitchers have thrown 70 innings yet. Our best relievers have all been hurt. Our closer is OK-- but not great.

Up the middle we have two valuable players-- both hitting around 250 and change, however. Chavy's only played for 3+ weeks; Our best all around OFer is coming off an injury. Our best power hitter is under 250, can't field and can't run.

SO.... Kurt Suzuki-- by virtue of playing nearly 90% of the time. By virtue of handling a pitching staff pretty darn well in your first full season. By virtue of the fact that you have gained the manager's confidence and now bat as high as 6th in certain lineups. And by virtue of the fact that you single-handedly won tonight's game and are now hitting close to 280-- you sir are our first half MVP.

And I don't think it's even a close call.

Time to Kill the "We're Not Good Enough" Refrain

madmongoose — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 14:38:15 -0000

Listen up, people. We got a good ballclub here. maybe even a damn good ballclub. The pitching is good and its deep. The defense is strong (A's now rank 2nd in all MLB in Defensive Efficiency, according to Baseball Prospectus). The hitting is coming around, as could be expected with a young team. Geren has finally found a lineup that makes sense-- Ellis and RSweeney up top-- Cust, Thomas (when he returns) and Chavez in the middle-- the others to follow. Brown is now a platoon player. Buck is now in the minors until he gets his head straightened out. Hannahan is the type of role player he should have been all along.

Somebody argued yesterday in a different thread that it would basically be luck that would propel the A's to the playoffs, and that it was silly to count on that. And, by extension, stupid to pass on a good deal for one of our pitchers-- defined as getting some quality hitting in return. The core of this argument is that the Angels and Yankees-- and possibly the Rays-- are simply better teams than the A's (The Red Sox are out of the conversation, obviously)-- and that banking anything on this team-- this year-- is foolish.

Well as to the Yankees, we'll see, since the team you see in June is not the same one we'll be watching in August. But as to our rivals to the South, I agreed with that view for a long time. In fact, until now. I still respect them-- their ability to win close games-- their resourcefulness in how they play the game and force the action. But at some point you have to trust the fundamental stats. We're nearly 45% into a season and our boys have a run differential that is +69-- essentially tied with the two Hoses for best in the league-- and the Angels are +3.

That difference-- as others have been arguing for a while now-- ain't peanuts. And can't simply be explained away by the A's annoying habitnof exploding for 10+ runs and then going cold for several days. (Knock on wood and hope it ain't true again today) You know what?? I think we're better than them-- Lackey or no Lakcey. Vlad or no Vlad. K Rod or no K Rod. Scioscia or no Scioscia. I think we pitch better--I know we field better-- and I think over the long haul our system produces more runs than theirs. And being 3 back with 90 games to go over a team that I think we're superior to means, in terms of how BB approaches the next 6 weeks-- green light, baby!! Trade Blanton or Street if you must-- but doing so in part for this season, not just the future. If Casilla can close-- and we can get another bat, then make Huston someone else's problem. If Gaudin can start and Harden seems healthy, then trade Blanton or Gaudin for another bat. Or trade Anderson or Cahill plus another prospect for another, even bigger, bat.

MY point being is that-- whatever anyone thought heading into this season-- this team-- not next year's team-- but this team-- has a legitimate chance to win. NOW. Rich Harden may not be healthy or still here in the future. Justin Duchscherer ditto. But this year they are two of the best 5 pitchers in the league-- and they could pitch 3 of 5 or 4 of 7 games in a given playoff series. Mark Ellis, Bobby Crosby and Eric Chavez are all performing about as well as we could expect-- they are veterans who will help balance out the kids in October. As will Frank Thomas. And Gonzalez and Sweeney are ballplayers. And Cust is a freak.

Strap it on, folks. We've got a fun summer ahead.

2001 At the BOB-- Dejavu all over again??

madmongoose — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 14:42:53 -0000

It does seem like yesterday. 20 games out of first place and sporting a humdrum 41-43 record, the 2001 Oakland A's travelled to the Arizona desert to face a DIamondback team led by two of the greatest pitchers of this era, Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling. We would miss the Unit in that weekend series, and little did anyone know that this team was destined to stop the Yankee streak of 3 straight WS titles, sending them on a journey to postseason oblivion that has yet to end.

But don't you remember??

Mulder flirting with a no-hitter on Friday night and the A's winning 3-0.

Hudson throwing another gem as the A's won 5-1 on Saturday.

Zito besting Schilling 2-1 (and remember this was the Zito who had a horrendous first half that year) on Sunday afternoon, completing the sweep and propelling the A's to what i believe is the best 2nd half of baseball in the post WWII era-- including that Arizona series they would go 61-17 in their last 78 games, an incredible winning percentage of .782.

Haren and Webb ain't Johnson and Schilling.

Blanton-Duke and Smith ain't the Big Three.

But neither are we 20 games behind the Angels as we were the Mariners then. In our heyday in the Beane era it was always the interleague stretch that set up the great runs-- could we be in the middle of another one??

Is the Cream Finally Rising to the Top?

madmongoose — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 05:55:44 -0000

Wanted to take everyone's temperature around here.

A's are hanging in 6 games above .500-- having played essentially .500 ball for more than a month now, despite a variety of injuries.

Angels are 3.5 games up, but still very shaky in the runs differential department.

Boston a league best 15 games over .500 and their rotation seems very strong and has been bolstered by Lester and Masterson;

Rays +11 though they've been on the W-L train for a few weeks now.

White Sox +8, off from their +11 peak, and clearly in need of another rant from Ozzie.

These 5 teams have been the only squads consistently sniffing the roses for more than a month now-- Toronto, baltimore and even Texas have flirted with an over .500 record, but then fallen back.

but now... the Tigers have won 7 of 8-- are only 6 games below .500 and 7 behind Chicago. And the offense is perking up, finally.

The Yanks have won 8 of 11 and are 3 games over .500 and only a game and a half behind the A's.

Questions-- are these the 7 teams from which the AL playoff teams will come? (Is Cleveland dead/ Toronto? Texas?) Will Detroit finally have enough pitching with Rodney and Zumaya back? Ditto for Yanks with Joba in rotation??

Is our best opportunity within the division or as a WC? Are we the least likely of these 7 to go to the ball in October?

What Have We Learned Lately??

madmongoose — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 14:49:58 -0000

In this most fascinating of A's seasons since 1999-- because it is a team still in formation-- I think a lot of things are coming into clearer focus.

1. The damn Angels know how to win. I understand what Pythagoras makes of them-- but we are almost 40% of the way into a season and they are playing basically .600 ball despite having not had their best pitcher for much of the season and with their star having a subpar year. I don't see mediocrity (sorry-- had to do it) here-- but instead a team with a very good chance to win 90 games, and a pretty good chance to win 95-- either of which are probably beyond our squad's grasp;

2. We have two plus members of our rotation, and knock on wood about their availability the rest of the season. The two rookie lefthanders have hit an expected wall (who is our All-Star now? Harden or Duke if they can get enough innings?? Street?? Which seems ludicrous given his velocity issues but why not? I don't see a position player, that's for sure) But the bullpen depth cures many ills-- we have at least 8 perfomers in the bullpen now or on the shelf who can pitch effectively. Street might be the least dependable of them until his groin heals. But with Brown back, and Ziggy, Foulke and Embree; Casilla not too far away, Gaudin waiting for the rotation opening again, and Devine should he return in the not too distant future, you've got a deep and dependable bullpen. They may not always be pretty but they get the job done. Witness yesterday;

3. The young outfielders are all showing something-- either at the plate, in the field or both. Emil Brown won't play much once R Sweeney returns, and that is a good thing;

4. Chavy is back better (or Chavy's back is better) than almost any of us thought he'd be. All of a sudden the middle of the order of him, Cust and the Hurt (though Frank won't get a chance to become a regular again for another three weeks given the interleague play) is pretty imposing.

5. Suzuki, Crosby and Ellis should all be hitting a little better, but none of them are the drags that Kendall or the old Crosby were, and their up the middle defense is impeccable;

6. Daric Barton takes too many pitches;

7. Bob Geren pinchruns way too often;

It is certainly, barring serious injury, a 85 win team. And it could be a bit more with a little bit of luck. The Yankee series may be instructive-- the Bombers are Bombing again and I suspect Tampa is ready for a bit of a fall, meaning that the WC fight could come down to these three teams. Playoffs?? Playoffs?? Maybe;

Barton, Granderson and Brown-- Anatomy of a Play

madmongoose — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 13:16:58 -0000

It's been 7-8 hours, and i know a bunch of us discussed it in the game thread, but I thought this play deserved a bit more attention. it was one of those classic "you've think you've seen everything, but you haven't situations.

Set the stage-- Bottom of 8th-- tie game after Buck has looped a hit; one out; Brown on third (taking the extra base after Pudge dropped the ball in the collision with Chavy), Buck at first, Barton at the plate.

One inning earlier I had been talking with my buddy about Greg Maddux' theory about pop flies. I believe I read a story once where Maddux-- crazy genius that he is-- said that a 7 second fly ball should always be caught; a 6 second fly ball should be caught by competent outfielders, but occasionally isn;t, and a 5 second fly ball could find a seam. I think Barton's ball was somewhere between 5 and 6 seconds (love for someone to review the tape and time it).

So presuming that Brown-- or any human-- cannot react within the first 5 tenhs of a second after the ball is hit-- he has at most 5 seconds--- and possibly less-- to do whatever he's going to do before the ball drops on ground or in glove. I confess to not watching Brown-- so I don't know what his first move was-- but clearly he must have been moving down the line by the time the ball was dropping toward shallow right center field. And as for the notion that Granderson could decide what to do after spying what Brown was doing and only go for the catch if Brown was, as he was, halfway, i defy anyone to show me that Granderson can run all out essentially aimed at first base looking at a falling ball and still see what Brown is up to more than 90 degrees to his right.

So did Brown blow it? Was the correct play, as my buddy suggested, an immediate move back to the bag followed by a shorter lead once it appeared the ball would drop-- that still might-- and i underscore the word might-- have allowed Brown the chance to retag the bag in case Granderson did what he did and make a circus catch? Could Brown-- within 5 seconds-- had the presence and time to go back, forward, and back again? theoretically, yes. But you''re asking a lot in real time.

The more I think about this, the more I think Brown actually made the right play and was doomed by a spectacular catch. It sure sppeared as the ball began to drop that it had found the opening-- but not so much that it wouldn't bounce immediately up to an onrushing fielder (and remember ordonez who has a great arm was in the vicinity as well) and make it difficult for Brown to score if he was hanging at the base ready to tag. I think he made the right play for a 90-10 situation-- granderson or any CFer makes that catch 10% of the time and brown can;t score. 90% of the time it falls and the A's take the lead. Whereas if he plays back at the bag I'm not sure he scores more than 50-60% of the time if the ball bounces cleanly to a fielder-- and he's probably out the rest of the times-- a worse outcome than the one that actually occurrred since runners would wind up at 1st and 2nd, not 1st and 3rd.

But what do you think? what was the role of the 3B coach? have at it folks-- we may not see another one like that for--- well, maybe a couple of weeks.

Are We Allowed to Face Facts About Blanton?

madmongoose — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 02:56:28 -0000

I've been pretty amazed at the lengths people are going to defend him-- wish you all manned some of those 29 other teams' GM positions.

FACT: He is having a season best described as fair bordering on poor. He now is in or near the bottom third of AL starters by whatever metric you want to use.

FACT: His career has always been typified by not missing bats-- low strikeout rates, lots of hits. That is not changing and this year, for whatever reason, as league-wide ERAs drop, his is rising. It may be that he simply does not compare to the new crop of talented young pitchers.

FACT: But for one very good extended stretch in his rookie season, he has always been-- in now his fourth season-- a run of the mill starter. I used the word mediocre and had my head taken off a week or so ago-- i still think it is pretty much the best description of his talent.

FACT: He's still here, which strongly suggests that heretofore the market has been less than BB hoped or believes justifies a deal.

OPINION: I don't think the market will change much. I simply don't think he adds much to virtually any contender. The supposed Blanton strength-- "innings eater"-- can be looked at two ways. For an entire season when bullpen arms are of varied health and other starters break down of course there is value for a guy who can throw 200+ innings. But in any given game-- and particularly in a shorter stretch of games that pennant contenders will face in the last two months of this season-- one can argue pretty effectively that Blanton hurts a team by being able to throw 6 or more innings. He's eating innings that a competent bullpen could do better with-- he's hurting his team's chance to win. And given that many current contenders are either offensively challenged to begin with or not the powerhouses people felt they would be going into this season, Blanton getting knocked around to the tune of 3 or 4 runs-- or more-- most starts-- reduces his attractiveness.

I think he's the worst of our 6 starters. Borderline with Gaudin but if you ask me which one I would want starting any given game over the next four months, it would be Chad. So I believe that BB should wait until the offseason and see if he can package him with someone more attractive in a multi-player swap that makes sense. A straight one for however many deal ain't gonna give us much in return.

Ziggy, Kiko, Buck and CarGon Up-- could that be true?

madmongoose — Fri, 30 May 2008 18:05:30 -0000

Somebody who says he's a friend of Brad Ziegler reported this.

It does seem like a stretch. For it to be true it would mean one or both Sweeneys being DLed. Cust shifts to DH when it's not Chavy; Emil reverts to a platoon option. And Petit could now be unnecessary with Chavez up and Hannahan and Murphy providing backup. So that is certainly plausible. It could also mean Barton being sent down.

As to the pitching piece of this, it might mean that Braden is getting outright released (is he out of options?) and that with Casilla out for an extended period of time and Brown still out with appendicitis, they want to deepen the pen.

Which means we may see Barton, One of the Sweeneys (DL) and Petit all disappearing for now.

SO Gonzalez, Buck, Ziegler and Calero replacing

Ryan Sweeney, Petit, Mike Sweeney or Barton, and Braden. Let's all wait to hear.

Rays or A's-- Who Has the Brighter Future??

madmongoose — Tue, 27 May 2008 06:02:18 -0000

And let's see if the devil is to be found in the details-- for certainly the Tampa squad "exorcising" their right to be free of that assocation has paid off big time.

But seriously-- these are the two big stories-- positive, that is-- of the AL this year. And to be utterly fair and without any coastal bias, the blazing hot Rays are the better story of the two.

I will try to do this fairly broad-brush, honing in on a few key areas but not analyzing every single player in depth.

Pitching

Well they have an ace who seems to be more healthy than ours-- though he too has missed much of this season. But Steve Phillips must still shudder to think that the talent of Kazmir (dah-dah-dah...dah-dah-dah-- can't write that name without thinking of Jimmy and the boys playing one of the great riffs in music history) was exchanged for the fleeting talent of Victor, not Carlos, Zambrano. EDGE TO RAYS

The rest of their rotation consists of another potential stud-- Matt Garza, who i believe arrived via the Delmon Young (don't flip your bat at me!) deal. Garza is one of those top notch pitching prospects who sometimes take a while to gain command-- or sometimes never find it at all. He is joined by former Dodger uberprospect Edwin Jackson (it is amazing how many once highly-touted top prospects the Rays have collected), their own reclamation project in James shields and also Andy Sonnestine from their own system. I don't think the depth is as strong as our rotation, but the talent is clearly there. SLIGHT EDGE TO A'S GOING FORWARD-- but these guys are young too and it wouldn;t shock me to see their batch outperform our batch in the next couple of seasons.

The bullpen is, like many inckuding our own, a collection of various parts accumulated along the way. The most surprising, of course, is Troy Percival-- who seems to have found a fountain of youth in Florida. Miller and Howell are LOOGYs-- Howell came in the gathright deal; and Dan Wheeler is a good set-up guy who started with Tampa, got good in Houston and came back to the SunShine State in exchange for Ty Wigginton. Again I thinkwe trump them with depth, but it's not a bad pen.

The lineup is intriguing-- lots of stories here.

Dioner Navarro was of course the one "get" coming out of the Yanks farm system-- position players, that is-- and the Dodgers got him in the Randy Johnson-Shawn Green three way deal-- then unloaded him pretty unceremoniously 18 months later for Toby Hall. Navarro hasn't really been all that special at the plate until this year, when he has broken out and is hitting .350. No he can;t keep that up but he is a notch above our guy;

Carlos Pena-- we all know this story. Will Barton get the patience that Pena did not? He is hitting for low average this year, but he has become a genuine 30-35HR threat; Only Thomas on our squad can supply similar power, and he's 10 years older than Pena.

Eric Hinske-- a spot starter and DH-- but he can hit, too;

Jonny Gomes-- their Pronk. Not much average but decent power.

Iwamura is a Japanese signee (from the Yakut Swallows) who seems OK at 2nd. Bartlett came in the Young-Garza deal to help shore up the defense-- he seems to be doing that but can't hit a lick;

And then there are 3 studs that we simply cannot offer any comparison to. Carl Crawford can do everything but hit for power-- he's actually off to a bit of a slow start-- but this is a guy who will hit 300, steal bases, play fabulous left field, and throw in 12 to 15 triples. He's only 26, if you can believe it'

BJ Upton-- they finally converted him to a full-time OF last year. and got 300-386-508 from a 22 year old as a result. 303-395-433 so far this year-- his power is down like everyone else's. But make no mistake this is a perennial All-Star talent.

Evan Longoria-- considered by many the #1 prospect in baseball entering this season. he is struggling below .250, but has already shown the flashes of brilliance with some late-inning heroics (or extra innings in one notable game, alas) of late. He is as close to can't miss as anyone-- remember that in a couple of seasons we could be seeing a MVP candidate.

These last three separate the two organizations in my book-- for at least this year and next. We simply don't have a player who can match any of the three. maybe Gonzalez will-- or maybe Beane will acquire a similar talent with a deal later this year or after the season ends.

But if you throw me up against the wall, a team with young talent the likes of Kazmir, Garza, shields, Upton, Crawford and Longoria gets a slight edge over our guys. Yes we have more pitching depth but that's not enough to make up for the star deficit.