2009 Oakland A's thread

I dont hate all east bay teams. Big Warrior fan. I grew up in the 70s when the A's and Raiders were good and my teams sucked so I am definitley not a front runner. I just grew up on the peninsula and lived pretty close to Candlestick. My Dad was from Oakland and as kids will do had a big rivalry with the old man. He loved his Raiders and A's.

I really dont hate the A's anywhere near as much as the Raiders. The Raiders make me absolutley sick.

Anyway.. I understand your frustration with the media coverage. San Francisco will always be the big brother to Oakland in every way including sports.

Jack Cust has been on a tear lately

A's sweep, first sweep of the season even though it was a two game series.

Cust continues to hit well as well as Suzuki with another 2 hits.

Cabrera who called a team meeting a few days ago to light the offensive players asses up, maybe it's working with 19 runs scored the past two games since the meeting.

Holliday and Giambi with RBI hits each, too bad it took 5-6 weeks for each to get hot at the same time.

Outman who I ripped a bit yesterday made me eat my words. Still like him long term as that long man/spot starter in this pitching staff because of his ability to make batters swing and miss with 14 Ks in the past 16.1 IP.

Pen has been great as it's been for all of this season. Least that's the one thing that's gone well so far this season.

Wuertz, Springer, Bailey, Casilla have pitched basically lights out. Even the newcomers like Cameron and even Geise have done a solid job. The one guy whos struggling is Ziegler, don't know if people have figured him out or the injury that's shelved him is effecting him.

Like I said earlier... if Cust keeps this up we could see 2 all stars this season in the ASG.

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/unfiltered/?p=1266

Good article about the A's pitching, although the pen should be credited for a good reason why the statistically #s for hte A's pitching so far looks so good.

Although worried that with the A's SP lacking in IPs, they may burn out the pen although again as I posted many times in the fall/winter, nice to have some depth in the pen arms as we've seen with already even with Devine out for the year which IMO was a killer.

Bailey I don't think anybody thought would be here right now and domianting the way he has, ala Devine did last season.

Another arm to watch for maybe sometime this season is Demel the college closer the A's drafted in 07. So far in AA he has a 0.73 ERA in 12.1 IP so far. This after a solid year in A+ in 08 where he K'ed 90 in 67 IP.

Too bad Carignan the other college fast track closer the A's drafted a few years ago along with Demel hasn't pitched yet.

Also interesting series for A's fans against DET this weekend in terms of who'll they'll face.

Jackson who DET got in return from TB was rumored to have been the SP the A's were gonna get way back in the winter of 04 when it looked as they were gonna deal Huddy to the Dodgers. But when that deal supposedly fell thru, he got deal to ATL and we saw what happened in terms of the players the A's got back in return. In hindsight, A's should've dealt Huddy to LAD for Jackson who is still very young, believe he's only 24 or 25 and having maybe a breakout season.

You hope Gallagher whos still pretty young himself at 23 himself can have the same type of breakout season sometime soon in the next year or two as IMO, both are similar type pitchers. Very good stuff but just needs time to develop and it took Jackson what 3-4 years and being dealt twice to get things settled down with him. Hopefully the same happens with Gallagher sometime soon too.

Then the A's face Porcello in the 2nd game and that story has been beaten to death by many A's fans.

Least A's will be throwing out their young guns of Anderson and Cahill although again hate to bring up what kind of pitching trio a Porcello-Cahill-Anderson would look like right now and in the near future.

Looking in the minors.

Just in terms of bats since that's been an issue for this team for really years now as they just haven't done a good job of developing batters the past decade although a few former A's prospects have done well since being dealt like a Cruz for TEX and Ludwick for STL.

But the best A's hitters they've developed since the late 90s with that run of the likes of Grieve, Tejada, Chavez, TLong, Ramon have been average at best I guess with the likes of Swisher, Suzuki, Crosby, and I guess you could put a Buck/Barton in that group too. Who knew a few years ago when that trio of Barton/Buck/Suzuki were mentioned as possibly guys the A's were gonna build this era's lineup around, that Suzuki could end up being the best hitter out of the bench although I still wouldn't give up on the other two though.

But in terms of the hitters the A's may develop over the next year or two or those who could be up in Oakland 2011 or 2012.

I guess you'd list them as Doolittle, C.Brown, Cardenas, Weeks, Donaldson, Carter.

C.Brown, Cardenas, Carter seems to have been doing well for most of this season. Doolittle has cooled off in AAA after a hot start but he's been solid. Donaldson has started to get hot in the past week or two. Weeks as I mentioned previously the A's are holding back until the weather at KC gets better I guess.

But out of all of them, I don't see any of them as the blue chipper. I'd put them on the level of a TLong and Ramon, good hitting prospects, maybe at best a notch above them but nowhere to what the trio of Grieve, Chavez, Tejada were thought to be pre 98 season where most had each of them as the best prospect at their respective positions.

Other players who could be thrown along with those above are Coleman who I mentioned yesterday, Spencer who tore up A+ and who the A's got in the Blanton deal along with Cardenas/Outman and maybe guys who have potential but need to step it up soon in a Sulentic, Desme, Christian/Horton, Herrera and Mitchell.

What prospects maybe 2-3, maybe 4 years down the road could we see in the system right now. Well it's the trio of Rosario, Leyja and Dixon with Dixon as the hitter probably most A's fans are excited about long term for this org after his very good start at the rookie leagues last year as a 17 year old.

A's have to add some quality bats this draft and international signing period. They need to land as many high ceiling players they can get.

I think the pitching will be just fine. I like what I'm seeing out of both Cahill and Anderson. Braden IMO can be a solid back end arm and he's only 25. Just have to hope Gio/Gallagher/Eveland that one or two of them makes it as quality arms. And either a Mazzaro or Simmons who've yet to pitch in the bigs can be solid mid rotation arms.

DLS and Ynoa both will break out in the near future.

Looking in the minors.

Just in terms of bats since that's been an issue for this team for really years now as they just haven't done a good job of developing batters the past decade although a few former A's prospects have done well since being dealt like a Cruz for TEX and Ludwick for STL.

But the best A's hitters they've developed since the late 90s with that run of the likes of Grieve, Tejada, Chavez, TLong, Ramon have been average at best I guess with the likes of Swisher, Suzuki, Crosby, and I guess you could put a Buck/Barton in that group too. Who knew a few years ago when that trio of Barton/Buck/Suzuki were mentioned as possibly guys the A's were gonna build this era's lineup around, that Suzuki could end up being the best hitter out of the bench although I still wouldn't give up on the other two though.

But in terms of the hitters the A's may develop over the next year or two or those who could be up in Oakland 2011 or 2012.

I guess you'd list them as Doolittle, C.Brown, Cardenas, Weeks, Donaldson, Carter.

C.Brown, Cardenas, Carter seems to have been doing well for most of this season. Doolittle has cooled off in AAA after a hot start but he's been solid. Donaldson has started to get hot in the past week or two. Weeks as I mentioned previously the A's are holding back until the weather at KC gets better I guess.

But out of all of them, I don't see any of them as the blue chipper. I'd put them on the level of a TLong and Ramon, good hitting prospects, maybe at best a notch above them but nowhere to what the trio of Grieve, Chavez, Tejada were thought to be pre 98 season where most had each of them as the best prospect at their respective positions.

Other players who could be thrown along with those above are Coleman who I mentioned yesterday, Spencer who tore up A+ and who the A's got in the Blanton deal along with Cardenas/Outman and maybe guys who have potential but need to step it up soon in a Sulentic, Desme, Christian/Horton, Herrera and Mitchell.

What prospects maybe 2-3, maybe 4 years down the road could we see in the system right now. Well it's the trio of Rosario, Leyja and Dixon with Dixon as the hitter probably most A's fans are excited about long term for this org after his very good start at the rookie leagues last year as a 17 year old.

A's have to add some quality bats this draft and international signing period. They need to land as many high ceiling players they can get.

I think the pitching will be just fine. I like what I'm seeing out of both Cahill and Anderson. Braden IMO can be a solid back end arm and he's only 25. Just have to hope Gio/Gallagher/Eveland that one or two of them makes it as quality arms. And either a Mazzaro or Simmons who've yet to pitch in the bigs can be solid mid rotation arms.

DLS and Ynoa both will break out in the near future.

Hello fellow A's fans. I don't post a lot, but I watch this thread often. Big ups to Ninerpride for keeping it alive.

I have to vent about what happened last night. I'm glad the A's won, and I'm not complainin' about that, but I hate the way Geren uses the pitching staff? I mean Outman had only thrown like 77 pitches in the seventh inning, and they take him out. I think Geren coddles the starting pitchers too much. I know it was a tight game, and he walked the first batter on 4 pitches, but to me you gotta let the pitcher grow up. Let him try and get out of his own jam. Especially if his pitch count is low. It may cost you some games now, but in the long run it will be worth it. The bullpen is not going to last long if they have to pitch 3 to 4 innings a game. What do you guys think? Was he right to take Outman out when he did?

Agreed.

The way the A's pen is being used so much early on the first month plus into the season, could've let Outman pitch more than 6 innings WED night.

Now who knows what would've happened if he did. But Outman was dealing although I guess Geren thought with a one run lead, he wanted to let the pen close it out the last three innings as I've mentioned before, the pen has been great other than a couple of blowups this season.

I know a lot of A's fans aren't happy with Geren ever since he was named the manager which included me as I was a huge Wash backer in him getting the A's managerial job.

Geren has shown he isnt' the best game day manager and I wasn't here during that SEA finale two Sundays ago but that was as horrible of a managerial job as you could get when he left Gio out there in that 13th inning when he clearly showed he had control issues 3 or 4 batters in yet Geren only had one guy up in the pen and he sat him down shortly afterwards letting Gio whos thought to be sort of a head case to go down and go down hard. He had a couple of arms available and he did NOTHING allowing Gio to throw around 100 pitches in that relief appearance.

I could go on and on with his "small ball" managerial decisions where it seems as he doesn't know when he should bunt but if you go to places like AN to either follow the game or read the recap, you should know what I'm talking about.

IMO the A's won't win anything with Geren as the manager, my thought is if he were available a couple of years ago on the open market, I don't think he'd get a managerial job in other than Oakland. Some A's fans will always put Geren on the radar because of his relationship with Beane and Beane also being criticized that he's sort of an Davis-Raiders mode where he won't hire a big name to manage the team.

From the chron...

Quote:

The A's radio channel, KTRB 860, is going all-sports Monday. Thestation will have syndicated shows on the air whenever the A's are not,beginning with "Todd & Tyler's Radio Empire" from 6-10 a.m.weekdays. Later shows include "Myers & Hartman," with Chris Myersand Steve Hartman. The shows will be live except from 9-10 a.m.

Good thing for getting 860 to maybe a alternate to KNBR in this area which I'm been pleading for years to happen, to get an "east bay sports" KNBR here.

Even though 860 is supposedly 50K watts, it doesn't sound so clearly I don't know why. Maybe because there are so many stations close to the channels on the radio that the signal isn't as big as it should be.

Still small steps.

Hopefully they can market it out for A's/Raider fans and actually have individual weekday shows specifically for those two teams since you know KNBR rarely talks about them and those shows actually have hosts who A are either A's/Raider fans or KNOW about the team which even those on KNBR even when they wanna "talk" about the A's and Raiders, barely know whos on the team.

Originally posted by ninerpride:
Agreed.

The way the A's pen is being used so much early on the first month plus into the season, could've let Outman pitch more than 6 innings WED night.

Now who knows what would've happened if he did. But Outman was dealing although I guess Geren thought with a one run lead, he wanted to let the pen close it out the last three innings as I've mentioned before, the pen has been great other than a couple of blowups this season.

I know a lot of A's fans aren't happy with Geren ever since he was named the manager which included me as I was a huge Wash backer in him getting the A's managerial job.

Geren has shown he isnt' the best game day manager and I wasn't here during that SEA finale two Sundays ago but that was as horrible of a managerial job as you could get when he left Gio out there in that 13th inning when he clearly showed he had control issues 3 or 4 batters in yet Geren only had one guy up in the pen and he sat him down shortly afterwards letting Gio whos thought to be sort of a head case to go down and go down hard. He had a couple of arms available and he did NOTHING allowing Gio to throw around 100 pitches in that relief appearance.

I could go on and on with his "small ball" managerial decisions where it seems as he doesn't know when he should bunt but if you go to places like AN to either follow the game or read the recap, you should know what I'm talking about.

IMO the A's won't win anything with Geren as the manager, my thought is if he were available a couple of years ago on the open market, I don't think he'd get a managerial job in other than Oakland. Some A's fans will always put Geren on the radar because of his relationship with Beane and Beane also being criticized that he's sort of an Davis-Raiders mode where he won't hire a big name to manage the team.

I remember watching that Seattle game, and you could tell Gonzalez was gassed. I was thinking 'there's no way he brings him back out' and of coarse, he did. As far as the small ball thing goes. I don't know about the decision making on that, but the execution is horrible. Most of the time it's unproductive because the players don't seem to know what they're doing.

BA did a mock draft in next month's MLB draft.

They got the A's picking another SP...

Quote:

13. ATHLETICS. Oakland is rebuilding its big league rotation around high school products Brett Anderson and Trevor Cahill. The A's have scouted Matzek heavily, and he'd give them a third potential prep ace. He'd also be a nice value pick if he slipped this far, which he might because of all the college arms available. If Matzek is gone, Oakland might pop the exceedingly polished Minor.

Projected Pick: TYLER MATZEK.

BF.net has him rated as the 9th best prospect right now...

Quote:
09 Matzek, Tyler LHP L/L 6-3/185 High School Capistrano Valley (CA) Projectable, athletic lefty with good repertoire and clean mechanics

Doesn't look like it'll be a good year for bats and the A's need as many high ceiling hitters in the system as they can get but if Matzek is by far the BPA over the top rated hitter available at the 13th spot, I wouldn't be all that upset.

Although without a 2nd round pick, how many good quality bats will be left when the A's 3rd round pick comes up unless they again go over slot like with they did with Hunter, Dixon, and Coleman.

As for small ball, well I think that's an org problem.

In this day and age, maybe SLG and OBP isn't the stat to live and die by and you actually should get all around players who can do the small things or play "small ball" and it may happen soon with them drafting a Weeks last year who fits the mode of a all around player who can play fundamentals over a Wallace who probably is more of a slugger and won't be able to do the "fundamentals" I guess as well as a Weeks.

Although I think Wallace being a two time Pac 10 hitter of the year I believe even though he's not doing all that well in STL's system right now thru the first month of the minors, IMO he'll end up being a very good bat especially in the NL.

http://www.ktrb860.com/

New site for the A's radio station.

Glad to see Townsend's sports show airing at nights, too bad it was about a year too late as previously he had cohosted with former KNBR personality Krueger who now works for XM radio.

Out of all the KNBR hosts, he and Tolbert are the only ones who I respect because they actually gave some credit to the A's orgs and fanbase for going thru the s**t they've been thru.