2009 Oakland A's thread

Yeah, Chavez's body has broken down to the point where I doubt he could even play half a season at this point.

Sad thing is he NEVER had any surgery during his MLB career up until last season and he played thru nagging injuries and that effected his whole body not getting those problem areas fixed in the offseason.

See Crosby may get his shot after all getting a lot of ABs this season, course he hasn't play 3B before, or any other position other than SS it seems, but if A's fans had it their way, at least the majority of them the A's would've kept Tejada and dealt away Chavez and kept Tejada at SS and moved Crosby who came up in 04 to 3B as looking at him with his size, you'd think he was a 3B instead of a SS if you didn't know it.

For those who care, Urban will on KNBR at 9 PM PST here I guess talking A's but you know they'll get into SF probably as much of the time.

Ynoa, first time he's thrown a pitch at least on video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHRLLbSfnwA

Search for months on youtube to find info on the kid and only found one and it had him signing autographs for kids in the DR.

http://oakland.athletics.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20090309&content_id=3954508&vkey=news_oak&fext=.jsp&c_id=oak

Basically all the reports on Ynoa are the same.

-threw 25 pitches during a 10 minutes pen session.

-threw about 75% but still the ball came out of his hand well and clocked around in the mid 80s.

-Ynoa thinks he could arrive in the bigs in two years. I seriously doubt that even though King Felix did it. I think the A's will take it very slow with him and with the amount of pitching talent the A's will be bringing up and what they have now in the bigs with...

Gallagher
Eveland
Gio
Braden
Ross
Cahill
Anderson
Simmons
Mazzaro
DLS
Hunter

...I think the A's will keep it slow with Ynoa and maybe if a group of those guys above are legit and can make a very good rotation...that Ynoa will be like a Harden type prospect when he came up. Remember the A's had that established rotation already of the Big 3 and Lilly and brought up Harden in 03 midway thru the season.

So lets hope a rotation of lets say a Anderson-Cahill-Gallagher-Mazzaro-Simmons for instance is the rotation in 2011 or 2012, why not bring up a Ynoa as a huge boost to that pitching staff as Harden did when he first came up and dominated in his first month of starts in the bigs.

A summary of what Urban thought...

-thinks Eveland who lost about 10 lbs could be the breakout candidate for the A's this season.

-the hype for Cahill, Anderson, Mazzaro is legit. Mazzaro maybe the least talented of the three but could be the first one to make the bigs, maybe by the end of ST. Cahill I guess he thinks has the highest ceiling.

-thinks Crosby wants to get dealt and he doesn't get the Cabrera signing is what I got out of him.

-signing Nomar made some sense off the field with him being a name fans will recognize and that like I posted previously, he kills LH pitching.

Guy from the Denver Post in an entry at MLBTR said the A's agreed not to offer Cabrera arb next season so the A's won't net any draft pick at all if and most likely Cabrera leaves after this season.

Oh well...

Just to let you know for those who have MLB Network, the A's 30/30 hour long segment for the team is next TUE at 2:30 PST.

Thank god for MLBN, now don't have to sit thru ESPN fawning over everything NYY/BOS, hopefully MLBN doesn't follow suit with that garbage.

Oh man... for some reason... this season im excited for the season to start. Man I can't wait to see our final starting lineup. I actually hope the young guys get a chance to start this year pitching wise. We'll see how it all turns out I guess.

[ Edited by socalfan21 on Mar 10, 2009 at 07:48:07 ]

Im sure MLBN will be better than ESPN with regards to the bosox/nyy nut hugging. hard to imagine them being any worse about it.

With Duke possibly and it's not a lock but possibly starting the year on the DL, wouldn't shock me to see the A's promote one of the "MAC" in Mazzaro-Anderson-Cahill to the opening day roster.

As of now without Duke there are really only three other locks for the rotation with Eveland, Gallagher and Braden.

The other two spots would come from the group of Williams, E.Gonzalez, Outman and the "MAC" trio.

Williams so far has been decent, his last appearance was skewed a bit because of shoddy defense behind him that made his last start worse than it really was. E.Gonzalez the kid we got from ARZ has done very well in his two starts so far in ST going 6 IP, 6 hits, 2 ERs, 6 Ks and maybe most importantly 0 BBs. Outman has been alright but I think the first two would be more likely to make the big league rotation while Outman I really think ends up more of a bullpen guy be it in the bigs if he makes the roster or starts in AAA as the AAA rotation looks at it maybe the deepest part of the team.

With the way Beane has rebuilt the offense, I don't think they'll stay clear of letting these youngsters pitch knowing they'll have a much better offense supporting them then previous A's pitchers have had over the past few seasons where the offense just disappeared at times and that had to put a ton of pressure on the pitchers, now with an improved offense and a stacked pen potentially, the rotation and youngsters in the rotation most importantly can pitch with a bit more relax.

Originally posted by ninerpride:
Ynoa, first time he's thrown a pitch at least on video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHRLLbSfnwA

Search for months on youtube to find info on the kid and only found one and it had him signing autographs for kids in the DR.

haha, we have to keep our prized possessions from prying eyes.

A's at least thinking according to Slusser about moving both Duke and Gio to the pen?

I don't know about that especially the former. A's need a stable vet in the rotation which without Duke would be made up of...

Gallagher, Eveland, Braden, E.Gonzalez, Williams, Mazzaro, Anderson

...that doesn't inspire much confidence heading into a season where you wanna compete.

Gio Gonzalez is too f*cking good to leave in the pen. How many bullpen arms do we really need?

Well I don't know if it's sure or long term. With the A's only having Blevins, they need another pen arm and Gio at this time maybe doesn't have the mental makeup to be a full time SP.

At this point he has nothing to prove in AAA. So sending him to the pen this early in his MLB career isn't the worst thing in the world. I agree I would love to see him as a SP but maybe not this soon at this stage of his career.

He could be that long man or spot starter in the mode of so many other past pitchers like a Saarloos, Kennedy.

A's fans believe that Gio can look good for a few innings but then starts to struggle, he wears his emotion outward and that will kill him when he's giving up 3 or 4 runs in a inning after he was cruising.

Gio in a small sample size did handle LHs well last season with the A's with a line of .194/.302/.278.

Maybe the A's will use Gio this way his first year and hopefully if and when he matures during this time he'll be allowed to challenge for a rotation spot.

I'm still surprised as it looks as the A's won't even bother bringing in another veteran arm.

I wouldn't be all that upset to see Mulder brought in for a incentive laden deal.