Tag Archives: MLB

December 14, 2011

Goodbye Josh

By chappy81

Although Josh Willingham only donned the green and gold for a season, he was one of my favorite A’s players in recent memory, and it appears he’s heading to the Twins. Even if he doesn’t end up going there it doesn’t look like he’s going to be with the A’s either way. Whoever ends up with him, they got one of the most underrated guys in the league. Sure, Josh might miss a game here and there, he doesn’t play the best defense in the world, but he does give you consistency whether you have someone good hitting in front/behind of him or not at all he puts up production. He might be the first guys that came to Oakland, and didn’t bitch once about the hitting in the spacious coliseum. He didn’t bitch about switching to the AL for the first time in his career after being in the NL for five years (looking at you Holliday). He even wanted to stay in Oakland for one of those “hometown discounts” us A’s fans hear other players willing to take to stay with other franchises. While 29 homers and 98 RBI’s isn’t a monster season, in this Oakland offense, it was. I honestly can’t understand why more teams weren’t interested in him or making a push for him when he’s putting up solid numbers in the worst hitting park in baseball. I mean, didn’t Jayson Werth get a kings ransom last year for doing less than what Willingham did this past season? Why aren’t teams trying to offer him what he’s worth? There’s tons of defensive deficient outfielders out there that produce far less (see the entire overpaid Anaheim outfield). At least the A’s will get a couple compensation picks out of it or some money to bid on Yu Darvish with, since that’s all we really seem to value these days…

8 comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Sports

December 8, 2011

Winter Meetings Bringing Some Winter Depression

By chappy81

As I heard the Miami Marlins making it rain with their signings of Reyes, Buerhle, and Bell simply because they’re moving into a new stadium and now have more money. It couldn’t help make me wonder if the A’s could do the same thing if they were moving into a new stadium as well. Maybe they won’t spend on that same level, but it does give me some hope that they will be able to spend like the big boys one day. Unfortunately that we won’t really know if that day exists anytime soon because the MLB still hasn’t made any rulings on the A’s stadium situation and possible move to San Jose after three very long and frustrating years of waiting. All the 1,000 A’s fans have had to look forward to is if Andew Bailey or Gio Gonzalez gets traded for a bunch of minor league guys this off-season. At least last year they were throwing offers out there to Beltre and other free agents. This off-season it’s back to standard operating procedure. Our spending has gone down for three straight years, and even when we are in the free agent market nobody wants to come to Oakland unless they’re a semi-washed up pitcher or reliever. Even guys that want to stay in Oakland like Josh Willingham for a discount nonetheless, which is unheard of, since no hitter ever wants to stay in the spacious Coliseum can’t sign with the team because we’re waiting on the MLB’s ruling. I don’t fault Billy Beane like some have in recent years, because it’s impossible to build a team or plan for the future when you don’t know where you’ll even be.

Then the news broke that CJ Wilson and Albert Pujols will be joining the division rival LAAAAAAA for about $325M. No big deal for Moreno, just a couple additions to get more people in LA waving those game changing rally monkeys. I do hope whoever runs the CJ Wilson is a douche site keeps it going. It makes a ton of sense for the Angels to do this to try and take over the LA market while the Dodgers are in a rough downtime, and while doing so they also stole the division rival Rangers #1 starter. Weaver, Haren, Santana, and Wilson is a ridiculous rotation that was already good last year. Trumbo and Pujols makes for a solid heart of the order. The A’s haven’t spent as much as Moreno did in one day on payroll for the last four years combined made me even more depressed. While I’m not overly worried that Pujols will live up to his humongous contract, it will suck to see him playing against Oakland for 18 games a season. Another thing for A’s fans to be depressed about is the fact the Astros are joining their division which means we have more even competition to get that 3rd place finish next year. Fortunately you need 25 guys to play well to win, so there’s a little hope, but a more likely scenario is having to hitch more of my rooting interest on the Warriors and Raiders for the next couple years…

6 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , | posted in Sports

November 22, 2011

Kemp Got Robbed

By chappy81

Back in August I got to sit in the Dodgers dugout while working with the Fox Sports production team. Finally had the right time to pull out this picture I took!

So today Ryan Braun was named the NL MVP. It came as a complete shock to me for a few reasons. Maybe while I was living in LA, I just heard too much hype on why he was a slam dunk choice for the award, but the more I thought about it the more I didn’t see why Braun had the “better” season. Yes, the Brewers made it to the playoffs and won a lot, but since Kemp played with literally nobody else helping him on offense it made Kemp’s year that much more impressive. Make no mistake Andre Ethier and James Loney are no Prince Fielder or Corey Hart. Some might argue Ethier is good, but despite some of his numbers early on, he had a crappy year. I watched more Dodgers games last season than I’d like to admit, but honestly unless Kershaw was on the mound, the only thing worth watching in thier games was Matt Kemp’s atbats. I suffered through half hour periods of other players batting basically to watch Kemp bat. He finished with the NL lead in homers (39), RBI (126), and was third in BA (.324) in one of the closest attempts at the triple crown in years. To put Kemp in a little better perspective; his team scored a 644 total runs on the season, and he accounted for nearly 20% of his team’s offense even though pitchers were pitching around him all season long (trust me I saw how few pitches he had to hit, and it was Bonds-esque). Oh yeah, and once on base Kemp did another thing better than Braun, which was steal bases. Kemp had 40 thefts to Braun’s 33. Was it Kemp’s fault the rest of his team wasn’t able to score more runs for them to win more games? He came through every time he could and then some. You know what else was impressive in Kemp’s stats that I came across, is he has five walk off hits, and three were homers. Braun had three walk off hits this year, and only one was a homer.

Putting the all the offensive numbers aside that clearly point to Kemp over Braun, doesn’t playing a harder position much better than the other guy playing a weaker position give you an upper hand in voting? I go back to the rookie of the year race last year, and how Buster Posey won the award over Jason Heyward. Heyward had slightly better numbers and had played more games, but Posey won the award because many cited he played the tougher position. Is Braun an above average outfielder with a great arm? Yes, but he plays left field, the spot usually designated for the worst outfielder on the team. Matt Kemp plays center field at a gold glove level. Sure I get it winning means something, but after I took a closer look at it today, I don’t understand how the BWAA made thier choice. Maybe they hate McCourt as much as Dodgers fans, and decided they couldn’t have the Cy young winner and the MVP under his watch. Anyways, congrats Braun you are a great player, but didn’t deserve the award this year in my eyes. At least Kemp can sleep well on his nice pile of cash money!

9 comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Sports

November 3, 2011

Doin Headline Ramblings

By chappy81

I don’t really have a direction for this post, but it’s been awhile since I wrote something, so I felt the need to put up a few random thoughts in no particular order.

Raiders sign TJ Houshmandzadeh - I’m just glad it wasn’t TO. TJ might not be what he was back in 2009, but at least it doesn’t seem like he’ll be a distraction the way TO has been with every team he plays on. I’m not sure if I should be worried about the signing as I see two possible scenarios. A) Raiders receivers haven’t gelled with Palmer or B) my hopeful reason for the signing. Outside of Ford and Heyward-Bey, they don’t really trust the third receiver on the team between Schillens, Moore, and Murphy. Can’t say I blame them, since all of them have missed significant time this year and years past. Plus, anything to make Palmer a little more comfortable with his new team is a plus, and a familiar face always helps. TJ had his best years with Carson, and that went both ways. If Carson has TJ to bail him out as the ultimate possession receiver on a couple third downs each game, this signing was 100% worth it regardless of TJ’s stats on the season. Plus we have plenty of speed, so he won’t be stealing any routes from our deep guys, and can be the guy that goes across the middle without getting alligator arms.

McCourt tells us what we knew would happen – The Dodgers fans can finally start representing their team in LA again. Get those car flags out again, Frank is selling the team! The Angels run was short lived as people will once again flock back to the team of LA. If they actually get a good owner this team isn’t nearly as bad as some view them. A few improvements around Kemp and Kershaw should put them over .500 at the very least. I guess it all depends on who ends up with the team and how deep their pockets are, but anyone will be an improvement over Frank, well unless Selig finds someway to puts someone with McCort’s qualifications in charge again. Hell, even the mayor of LA wanted the guy out of town. Good luck Dodgers fans on your new era, I remember the feeling of hope when Chris Cohan put the Warriors up for sale!

The NBA Lockout rolls on – Seems like we’re in the 4th quarter of negotiations, but it’s like the time of the game when the score is close and there’s six timeouts called to advance the ball to halfcourt with lots of fouls and free throw shots in between. I’m still holding out some hope they’ll be playing by Christmas, but that hope is waning a lot lately. It sounds like all the little things have been settled, but the major issue is still the BRI. I can’t tell you much about BRI except it’s the first three letters in my name, and it doesn’t seem like any reports are good about it whether you read it should be 52/48 or a 50/50 split. Much has been made of the recent riff between Fischer and Hunter, and if the reports are true and Fischer is trying to talk players into a 50/50 split, I’m actually on board. I hella care how much each side makes, so if he can convince the players to take a worse deal hooray for us all, because we’ll have basketball again. The more I read about Hunter, the more mad I get. Who cares if he has a job in the grand scheme of things when this is all said and done, he’s costing games this season by simply walking out on meetings when I could be watching the Lakers-Warriors game tonight!!

Lenny Dykstra agrees to fight Jose Canseco – So there’s a celebrity boxing event this Saturday featured on an internet stream with the featured fight consisting of Jose Canseco vs. Lenny Dykstra. Not on the weekend agenda for a $20 fee. Some of the other matchup on the card were interesting, which should make for some good youtube clips to check later. Amy Fishcer gets a chance to knock around the Octomom. Michelle Bombshell and all her tatoos should be able to pound Tila Tequila into oblivion. Coolio takes on Jeremy Jackson (a guy I’ve never heard of). Kato Kalen takes a shot at politician Tareq Salahi. All I can say about these match ups is they seem like they’ll be more entertaining than the heavyweight division has been over the last decade…

Tim Tebow sucks again – I can’t remember a time when a 2-5 team has had so much press, but Tebowmania is ruling the land, and the verdict seems to now be that he sucks after last weekend. I like Tebow as a guy. He seems like someone you’d want to hang out with, lives with a general code of conduct that few have, but the football player isn’t something I root for as a Raiders fan. I actually enjoy his on-field failures. I kind of hope he does well at the end of the year, so they keep him on-board longer, thus keeping the Broncos at the bottom of the AFC West. One big question I have for this weekends tilt against the Raiders is; if he jumps in the black hole, does he still come out a virgin? Tough call there, but I’ll go out on a limb and say no, and Carson will outplay him this weekend even though Tebow’s best game of his career was last season against the Raiders.

1 comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , | posted in Sports

October 22, 2011

A’s Bring Back Pitching Coach Curt Young, And Hope For 2012

By mceezy

Curt Young ditches his team of drunks for younger kids who aren't old enough to drink

With a football resurgance going on in the Bay Area – the Raiders and 49ers are both off the great starts in the NFL season – Northern California baseball fans are wondering what it would be like if their MLB teams returned to contention next year. Sure, the Giants are, for a few more days, the reigning World Series champions, but they took a step back this year. But, if you know us, you know Doin Work is more about the A’s anyway. Over the second half of the season, it became clear that Oakland is not too far off from being competitive again. The pitching was clearly there, they just needed to find the offense to go with it, which has been a problem since the A’s went to the ALCS in 2006. But after we finally got rid of manager Bob Geren, the hitting finally came around. Problem is, the pitching suffered. Injuries were a factor, losing guys like Dallas Braden and Brett Anderson certainly hurt, but even ace Trevor Cahill had a down year. While I’m not so sure pitching coach Ron Romanick was the problem, there’s no denying the fact that the A’s pitching staff had much success under his predecessor, Curt Young. Young was let go last year to take the Boston Red Sox position, but we all know what happened there last year. With the Epstein-Francona regime ousted from power, Curt was left looking for a new team. Fortunately, the A’s wereright here waiting (as Richard Marx once sang in 1989 when Young helped pitch the A’s to a World Series pennant). Before he left to coach the Red Sox beer-drinking, fried chicken eating, video game playing bums, Young led the A’s staff to a 3.47 ERA, the lowest for an AL team in 20 years. It’s pretty much the same staff he left, with Braden and Anderson set to rejoin Cahill, and perhaps the new ace of the staff, all-star Gio Gonzalez. So, if Curt Young can help return the rotation to top form, it will allow the A’s front office and coaching staff to focus all of their attention on the offense, where it absolutely belongs.

 

5 comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Sports

October 19, 2011

What’s your problem Bud!?!

By chappy81

With the first pitch of the World Series only minutes away, I ran across the story about Dallas Mavericks finals MVP, Dirk Nowitzki’s bid to throw out a first pitch at one of the games in Arlington Texas was denied by Bud Selig. Apparently he’s an avid Rangers fan that goes to the games, and has thrown out a first pitch before. The decision apparently wasn’t because of the lockout or anything like that, but more so because he’s not a recognizable enough of a figure. I’m sure the country singer they decide to put in there every sports fan will know…

Well, let’s start with the girlfriend test. Could my girlfriend (who doesn’t know much about sports) tell you who he is? Yes, she could pick him out of a group of awkward looking tall white guys. Maybe there’s more recognizable players in the NBA you could put out there, but where are most of the people that will be watching one of the lowest rated WS in recent history? People in Texas, where Dirk is a god. To top it off saying Dirk doesn’t have national appeal is very shortsighted. Didn’t he just give every white boy with hoop dreams hope after winning the finals MVP during the highest (TV) rated finals ever? It’s funny how the NBA finals will easily outproduce the MLB World Series in the ratings. Maybe that’s how much Selig hates Cuban. He doesn’t even want his employees around baseball even if they aren’t a threat to buy a team.

Even if Dirk did throw out the first pitch, how many times do we even see the unofficial “first pitch” televised? The only times I actually see that celebrity “first pitch” is on youtube clips when the person throws the ball 20 feet short of the plate or into the backstop over the catchers head. When I go to games I can’t even remember a time that I ever saw the first pitch, let alone cared that much who it was throwing it. It might be a 15 second event at most. Seems like if the Rangers wanted Dirk, they should’ve gotten to put Dirk out there. Maybe Selig is making some of his last attempts to keep baseball’s pre-historic thinking in tact. Man I hope he retires and we have a new MLB commish in 2012. Maybe then we’ll actually hear what the verdict is on the A’s territorial rights…

15 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Sports

October 13, 2011

Doin ALCS Thoughts…

By chappy81

As I was watching the Tigers put up some runs on CJ Wilson today, it hit me, I genuinely hate the Rangers. I hope anyone BUT them wins the World Series. I guess I had so much respect for my favorite A’s coach over the past two decades, Ron Washington, that I was blinded that they were in the same division as my favorite team and was inexplicably rooting for them to succeed. I can comfortably say the A’s are now under the Curse of the Wash, and I’m no longer rooting for the Rangers to do anything good ever again. Under Nolan Ryan, they’ve been a well run organization that makes solid decisions with trades, signings, and draft picks (sucks, sucks, and sucks). I’m guessing there’s a little jealousy mixed in there. My disdain for CJ mostly came from his comments in August about how A’s fans suck, and that was the tipping point. Since then I’ve been rooting for injuries to the guy, and I can’t say that about many. Especially since he’s one of the main guys helping keep Hamilton off the junk.

All hatred aside, I honestly don’t see the Tigers being able to win the next two in Texas to take this series. They have a ton of injuries, and even home run swings are painful at times. They seem to be hanging on by a thread every inning as the Rangers constantly have men in scoring position, but one can only hope that Texas collapses and they slowly get labeled playoff chokers. If the Tigers can get to Fister for a game 7, you never know what can happen. He shut them down the Rangers offense in game 3, but I’m not entirely sure he can duplicate that in Arlington’s launching pad of a park even though he’s a ground ball pitcher.

The bottom of the 6th was the most enjoyable inning of game 5, which started with a single by Raburn. Then Miguel Cabrera bounced one off third base which went over Beltre’s head (who used Oakland’s offer as a bargaining chip this off-season) gave me a little feeling of vindication for shunning us. V-Mart’s triple was pretty solid, but the one that really got me going was Delmon Young’s second homer of the game. Maybe it’s also a little because I said the Tigers wouldn’t be where they are without Delmon about a month ago, but watching the Rangers miserable inning made me happiest I’d been all playoffs. I wasn’t sure what my point was when I started this post, but if it gave you any reasons to root against the Rangers, I think I did my job!

12 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , | posted in Sports

September 28, 2011

How good was tonight for baseball?

By chappy81

I don’t even know where to start with all the wild games that just went down, so I won’t try to tell you since you’ve already probably seen the highlights by now, and if you haven’t you better flip on the TV, and check out one of the wildest last days of the season in MLB history. Everynight in baseball you can see something you’ve never seen, but I doubt I’ll ever see something that will duplicate tonight. The Rays alone could probably write Moneyball II about this season after their biggest signings in the off-season were Damon and Manny. They also lost pretty much their entire bullpen along with a handful of quality players. I’ve always liked Dan Johnson (grew up with the A’s). Mceezy and I definitely had a texting frenzy when he went deep to tie the game. The Cards were in the least exciting game of the day, but they survived tons of injuries and pushed their way into the playoffs. Are the Red Sox back to being cursed? Doubt it, but I bet we’ll hear Boston start complaining about being cursed again if this becomes a trend or maybe even if it doesn’t. I think the Braves are much more cursed of the two losers on this wild Wednesday. In the end, the Braves relied a little too much on rookies, this won’t be the last we see of them. The first thing I thought about tonight was, they better do a 30 for 30 on the two 9 game comebacks, and this crazy finale on the last day of the season. It has to be better than the Bartman crap they gave us this week (which I gave up on after 15 minutes).

Having one of the craziest days in baseball history has me more fired up for the playoffs than I thought I’d be with relatively no rooting interest. I guess I kinda like Detroit, but that’s not even set in stone. I really tuned out for a few weeks and wasn’t paying attention at all except for an A’s update or Matt Kemp’s triple crown watch, then BAM the wild card races were actually interesting last week. I guess this means we don’t need to add another wild card spot to the mix, Bud. It also shows that every game does matter. Even the game Matt Kemp won’t play because it’s not being made up after a rainout against the Nationals, could’ve been the game that got him to be a 40-40 guy. Also, Reyes is weak for leaving in the first today after he got a bunt hit. Any thoughts or comments are welcome, because I think I’m just rambling after what I just saw!

24 comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Sports

September 22, 2011

MLB’s Meanest Players

By chappy81

Last week Sports Illustrated released this list of baseball’s meanest players voted on, by 215 of the players. Some guy decided to make a spoof of it, so I thought I’d share since it was mildly funny, and I couldn’t think of anything to write about when I sat down to write a post today. My favorite was probably the Jason Kendall impression. I was highly disappointed we didn’t get to see an impression on the #3 meanest player, Milton Bradley, it seems like he’d be one of the easiest guys to make fun of!

10 comments   |  tags: , , , | posted in Sports

September 14, 2011

Detroit’s Delmon Deserves Some Love

By chappy81

Over the past couple weeks there’s been a lot of buzz on how good the Detroit Tigers are, and I agree with the sentiment that they are a very good team. Usually the conversation goes something like Verlander is amazing, Cabrera is a great hitter, and Valverde hasn’t blown a save all season, but that doesn’t explain this recent 11 win hot streak at all because those three have been on the team all year. Could you point to Doug Fister’s addition to the rotation? Probably a little, but since they were still playing just .500 ball since he was acquired to when they got the real piece that has had them on an offensive tear, I’d say no. That piece offensive piece was Delmon Young.

Delmon had a terrible year in Minnesota. I was one of those fantasy owners that held onto him way too long hoping he’d show some glimpse of what he did last year. On August 15th the best thing that could’ve happened to him did happen when he was traded to Detroit. He was instantly inserted into the 3 hole in the lineup, just in front of Miguel Cabrera and Victor Martinez. His bat has reeked of burnt wood since the move. After making that lineup adjustment, they are an impressive 22-6. While Young was playing in Minnesota he had no protection with Mauer and Morneau always being hurt and out of the lineup, now he has a ton of protection, and is not only getting good pitches to hit, but isn’t missing many of them. Since the trade  on August 15th Delmon has hit .313 with 5 homers, 20 RBI’s, and 19 runs scored over 28 games. Is it a coincidence that Detroit has scored the most runs in the league since he joined their team? Not in my opinion since this offense was average at best before he arrived, and now it seems like everyone is hitting in thier lineup, even Miguel Cabrera has picked it up after his arrival as hard as that may be to believe. With Delmon on this team they’ve also increased their division lead from 2.5 games all the way up to their now 12.5 game lead in just a month of his presence. I just wanted to give Delmon some love since it seems like he got lost in the media when they talk about Detroit and the Verlander for CY and MVP…

10 comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Sports

September 2, 2011

Kershaw, The Diamondbacks, and Milwaukee’s Best

By chappy81

I have to admit, I haven’t been watching a ton of baseball lately. Maybe having the A’s out of the picture before summer was in full swing is to blame. I have however, seemed to catch all of Clayton Kershaw’s starts over the past month and a half, and the scruffy faced kid has won me over, and for the record he can blow one helluva bubble. He reminds me of Lincecum a little, but bigger and more imposing on the hill. He’s gone 9-1 with a 1.18 ERA since the All-Star Break, and has looked filthy every time he takes the hill. Not even Cliff Lee’s dominant August can help him match what Kershaw has done over the past two months. Maybe he hasn’t gotten that much hype, because there’s only 10 people showing up to Chavez Ravine these days. Some argue that when you’re pitching on a losing team in meaningless games it makes it so much easier to put up great numbers. Personally, I think it’s probably harder, because you get less run support, but that’s a whole other argument. Plus let’s face it, nobody wants to lose anywhere in life, most players are competitive and aren’t simply mailing in these games, they just have inferior talent. Kershaw currently outpaces Halladay (the yearly Cy Young favorite), in wins, K’s, WHIP, IP, and ERA. Sure, Kershaw has had one more start than Doc, but it’s a lot closer race than you might think. Kershaw is starting to be the Jered Weaver of the NL. Great pitcher, but for some reason not considered the best by many, yet that is…

The Diamondbacks have been a HUGE surprise this year. I’ve heard people trying to decipher whether Kevin Towers or Kirk Gibson deserves the credit for their success. I’d say it’s Towers hands down, and not because I’m still bitter from the homer Gibson hit off Eckersly in the 88 World Series, ok so maybe I am, I’m sure you’d hold onto the grudge too if it happened to your team. Anyways, if it weren’t for Towers, Gibson would never have had the “interim” tag taken off his “coach” title. A lot of newly appointed GM’s like hand pick their own manager, but he’s being rewarded for sticking with the guy he saw had some passion for this team. Also in his first week in the office, he sent strikeout/home run king Mark Reynolds to Baltimore for David Hernandez and Cam Mikolio. Winning trade right there for the D’backs adding their setup man in Hernandez, for the overpaid Reynolds. Shortly after that trade, he signed JJ Putz. Not many people outside Seattle really knew much about Putz or his skills, but he has always been a good option out of the pen, and came pretty cheap considering he was injured almost all last year. I’m not sure he knew at the time, but in two quick moves he secured the 8th and 9th innings of games. Sound familiar? He did the same thing with the Padres for many years, believing in having a strong bullpen, and making the game a little shorter. What’s the result? Last year their bullpen ERA was 5.75, this year you ask? 3.19 ERA. He went on to sign Joe Saunders, Miguel Montero, Kelly Johnson, and Micah Owings to one year deals. What was his best move this year you may ask? NOT moving Justin Upton. It sounded like his phone was ringing off the hook with multiple offers for him, and to his credit he stood pat, which looks like a wise choice since he’s now an MVP candidate.

I think I’ve been a closet Brewers fan since CC was going on three days rest every start for their playoff push in 2008. Or maybe it was the Prince walk-off bowling pin celebration that did it. I’m always drawn to those loose creative type teams that seem like they want to have fun. Maybe those images from that year were ingrained in my mind, so that’s why I picked them the last couple years in our pre-season MLB predictions to win the Central. Whatever the reason for the sudden infatuation with them, they played some great baseball in August going 20-7. It’s been amazing that they’ve kept building a lead in the division when they were without All-Star 2nd baseman Rickie Weeks. They’ve pretty much done it all with pitching now that Greinke is finally showing them his Cy Young form, and is giving them what they hoped they’d get out of him when they sent a lot of prospects to KC. Is it just me or does this team feel a little like the Giants last year? Not necessarily how the cast was built, but more so in the timely hitting department backed by solid starting pitching every night. I guess this offense is a little more intimidating than the Giants O was last year, especially with Hart finding his stroke lately they truly are starting to resemble an AL lineup. With Weeks coming off the DL within a week this could be the team to beat! Even if they happen to get a little tight down the stretch, they always have Nyjer (Bryant Gumble) Morgan to loosen up the locker room. For some reason I feel so confident in them at the moment I just put a futures bet in at 20/1 odds to win it all. I’m sure I’ll celebrate a $400 win with a post if it all works out….

7 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , | posted in Sports

August 31, 2011

A’s Get Robbed In Bugtown USA

By mceezy

I guess it doesn’t really matter, so I shouldn’t be crying over spilled milk, but the A’s got robbed in Cleveland tonight. For a while I thought the bugs were going to dictate the outcome of the game, and we’d be able to blame it on the insects, like the Yankees did in the playoffs a few years back. Instead, we can blame it on BRUCE DRECKMAN.  YOU blew a call tonight Dreckman, all because you wanted to go home. The A’s and Indians were deadlocked in a 3-3 tie in the 16th inning. A run hadn’t been scored in 10 innings, but it was just passed midnight in Cleveland, and you wanted to hit the hay. Well I’m not gonna stand for this. This aggression will not stand, man. Kurt Suzuki clearly made the tag on the ass no less than 6 inches ahead of the plate. I know the bugs must be a pain in the ass, but let’s at least let the players on the field determine the outcome of the game. This was the biggest blown call since Jim Joyce ruined Armando Galarraga’s career. There was only one out, so it’s not like the Indians probably wouldn’t have scored. But to send a team home on that play, is no doubt a low point in the season. It may not seem like a big deal now, but for all you fans of playoff teams, just hope that you don’t get dealt Bruce Dreckman for one of your series. His blown call will sail under the radar, but it won’t go without notice on Doin Work. F*** YOU BRUCE DRECKMAN.

10 comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Sports

August 23, 2011

A’s Stuck in Purgatory…

By chappy81

Over the past five years, the A’s have been in a state of regression as they struggle with just about everything from facilities, to players, to attendance. They can’t get players to sign with them even when they do put out the best offer on the table, because they have crappy facilities. Players like Beltre and Furcal just use them as leverage for other teams who are offering them smaller or nearly the same contracts. The A’s want a new stadium yet Lew Wolff refuses to negotiate with the Oakland officials anymore than he already has, and they have been pushed to the back-burners by the MLB committee looking into their situation of moving. Their lineup is scattered with quadruple-A players, and there’s probably only a dozen A’s fans left (judging by attendance). I figured I’d break down the key issues with the team, and help get the word out on how dire our situation is. I know I’ve ranted about these issues a few times, but I figured I should put them all together to let everyone know what is what and draw your own conclusion on who is to blame. It’ll be my last post about it for awhile, I swear!

The Facilities

It’s strange how you come to different conclusions as time passes. Personally I enjoy the coliseum, and feel it has a little charm left even after they built the funny looking Mt. Davis for the Raiders games. It’s not a problem that they share the stadium with a football team, the problem is that the coliseum is in the ghetto, and there’s not much around the stadium. Jack London Square is cool and all, but it’s not the city. Many residents would rather go to a Giants game and talk about garlic fries while sending out e-mails on their blackberries. Can I blame them? Not really since they don’t care about the game anyways. Seriously, would you rather sit at PacBell or O.co Coliseum if you don’t care about the game? Easy answer. A’s fans at the games are great fans. The problem is there’s barely any fans going, and there’s nothing to do in that area, except maybe unload a few freight containers. In a time where your stadium needs to be connected to a mall and be in a thriving downtown-like area, the A’s don’t stand a chance in increasing attendance. Will the A’s move to San Jose to get a stadium built? After reading this brilliant piece by Howard Bryant on ESPN, I doubt it will happen anytime soon, and may never happen with the Giants trying to force the A’s into contraction (that’s what it feels like at least).

Pre-Mount Davis Coliseum

Nowadays players want to be treated like Mark Cuban treats the Mavs (state of the art training equipment and state of the art electronics everywhere). The coliseum was built back when players were allowed to smoke during the game in the dugouts. That should say everything about how dated the facilities are. Maybe that’s a reason why we seem to set records yearly for DL usage. As I said, I don’t dislike the coliseum, but if we need a new stadium to get our guys healthy and help us attract offensive players in free agency, I’m 100% for it.

About three years ago we thought we were heading to Freemont in what seemed like a done deal. I wasn’t excited, but wasn’t totally against it since we didn’t seem to have any other options. The deal fell apart for a few reasons, and from what I heard it was because there wasn’t solid BART access which put the A’s back to square one. This was probably the only time I really felt bad for Wolff during the process, because he spent around $30M of his own money getting that proposal in the works.

The Giants and Media Marketing

With the World Series win last year the Bay Area is owned by the Giants at the moment. They’ve always had more fans than the A’s, but now it’s ridiculously lopsided as all the sort of fans have jumped on their bandwagon. It’s almost impossible to find info on the A’s in the papers or on TV. The Giants are dominating the market as much as you can in a two team market. Hell, at the beginning of the year I could barely find a radio station that even talks about the A’s. Is this Lew Wolff’s plan to slowly make everyone not care about this team by spending $1 on advertising for every $100,000 the Giants spend? Seems like the strategy is working as attendance keeps dipping. It’s not like Lew Wolff is poor, I hear him and Fishcer have a net worth over a billion, but they don’t seem to put a dime of that into marketing this team. I’m not sure what I hate more about this fact that the Giants are the Bay Area team or that Lew Wolff isn’t really putting up a fight.

It’s no secret Lew Wolff desperately wants to move out of Oakland and preferably to San Jose, but the Giants own the territorial rights. A little over a decade ago when Pac Bell park was in the works, the A’s then owner gave them the rights to the south as a gentlemen’s agreement to give them some leverage to get their stadium built. Unfortunately the same situation has come up for the A’s, yet the Giants refuse to relinquish those rights back to the A’s. How does moving from 15 miles away from the Giants to 60 miles away from them hurt their market more? Tough for me to answer that as I’m no financial guru. I do know that the Giants want to be big spenders like the Yankees and Red Sox, which at this point seems like it could happen if Wolff keeps tightening his wallet and the Giants keep the A’s out of San Jose. Seems like the Giants could return the favor, and maybe that would even open Oakland back up to the point where they negotiate again. Right now with no real ability to threaten to leave, the city of Oakland doesn’t have to scramble and put together a good stadium deal…

Billy Beane

I’ve found it comical how people are blaming Billy Beane for the A’s lack of success on the field. Maybe it’s because the movie Moneyball is coming out, and people want to knock him off the proverbial pedestal, but it’s got to be tough to build a team when you’re constantly in limbo. Sure we could’ve kept Ethier and Cargo, but almost all Beane’s moves at the time made sense to me, so he gets a pass for those two. In any kind of business you need a plan, and as of right now there are no long term plans with this team, so it makes his job nearly impossible to succeed at, which is why I’ll give Beane a pass until we know more than a year into the future. Hell our contract with the coliseum agreement is up after this season, so we might not even have a stadium next year! Hopefully they don’t play in the parking lot… When you’re a GM and have no idea what the future holds, it’s impossible to map a team strategy out. We’ve always done a lot of one year contracts, but we usually lock up a couple guys, and that hasn’t been happening. Personally, I blame the unstable future. Based on some of the contracts that Beane has offered to top free agents, he is serious about fielding a good team. Unfortunately, we end up with a lot of new guys or castoffs, because the “premium” free agents don’t come here because they can get paid the same elsewhere where they have better facilities. Even with all the Dodgers problems, at least they know they’re staying in LA. The A’s have relatively no idea when or where this team will be in three to five years. Hopefully it’s not still at square one where they are today or I might be forced to give up on baseball all together.

Side rant: The only thing I’m still pissed about with BB is the fact he let Ron Washington go. I said a couple years ago before Texas started being the class of the AL West, losing Washington might curse us. He was a players coach and instead we got a non-players coach in Geren. How could he let go of the coach that EVERYONE in the locker room loved? He made the players want to play, and kept the locker room relaxed and loose, you can’t put a price on that. If I could only ask Billy one question, it would be why we let Wash go instead of giving him the keys to the car.

The MLB

I guess this is who I blame at the moment for our purgatory status. The MLB made a three man committee that Bud Selig appointed to sort out this whole mess over two years ago. According to Selig, it might take awhile longer to make sense of all the options in this dispute. I’ve already vented about it, so I won’t tell you how ridiculous it is that it’s taken over two years since he appointed the committee. Yes, there’s tons of issues, involved in crunching the numbers and projecting the effects on each community, but they’re building Farmer’s Field in LA without even having a team here! You’d think he could give everyone in the A’s front office an update or two on the progress at least. If you needed another reason to hate Selig here it is. 75 CEO’s in San Jose wrote up a letter telling him why he should approve the A’s move to San Jose, and how it would work financially. They are currently the 10th largest city in the US (surprising to me), and seem to want to help fund the building of the stadium. So what does Selig do when he recieves this letter from some of the richest men in the US? He ignores it, and doesn’t respond. Is it because they aren’t Jewish? Is it because he loves the Giants? Is it because he’s senile and doesn’t even remember reading the petition/letter showing where and how they would acquire land and funds to build the park? Only Selig could answer that, and based on how he’s treated us the past couple years, I doubt we’ll ever hear an answer to that petition.

Conclusion

It feels like there’s a lot of people to blame for this mess. Again, I wrote this more to inform everyone out there of our situation rather than blame a certain person or people, it’s been a group effort to ruin this proud franchise. The A’s have some great fans, but unfortunately I’ve heard more than a few recently say “it’s just easier to follow the Giants”. I don’t like bringing up the movie Major League when it’s referencing my team, but it feels like all the forces in the league are against us, and one or more of these crooks is trying to get rid of the A’s in Oakland at least. We can’t attract free agents because our facilities suck, our owner doesn’t want to stay in Oakland or negotiate with the city for a new stadium, Selig and his merry men don’t seem to give two craps about us, and the Giants would rather see the A’s die a slow death than give them the territorial rights that the A’s gave them for nothing less than two decades ago. Talk about the odds being stacked against you! It will be a Billy Beane led miracle if this team makes the playoffs anytime soon.

6 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Sports

August 16, 2011

Elephants and Seals

By chappy81

It’s been a little while since we did our A’s and Giants updates. As always, By is covering the World Champs and Chappy is covering the A’s.

San Francisco Giants (66-56, 2nd) Oakland A’s (53-68, 4th place)

Three Up

Oakland A’s – The A’s won back to back road series for the first time since April. Upon coming home, they were promptly swept by the Rangers. The A’s bats have come alive since the All-Star break scoring the 5th most runs post AS break. Josh Willingham is one home run shy of giving us a 20 home run hitter for the first time since Cust did it in 2009. Is it a positive that we are already calling up prospects like Brandon Allen to see what they got? I guess so, but that just means we are way out of it. At least yesterday he went 6 for 8 over his last two games. Since all of our outfield will be free agents this year I’m not sure why we haven’t seen more youngsters. The Willingham, Matsui, Dejesus, and Conor Jackson projects should come to an end soon, and maybe we’ll see how Choice, Carter, or Taylor does.

SF Giants - As bad as the offensive woes have been for the Giants, they’re still only 2.5 back from Arizona, when they could and should very well be out of the division race by now.  They’ve lost 12 of their last 17 all the while the D’Backs seem to never lose.  Our starting pitching has been superb and consistent, and all Giants fans know that our chances at repeating hinge on our staff.  That’s not, and never has been the problem.  The good news is, Sunday’s game against the Marlins, and Monday’s game at Atlanta showed a bit of inclination that our offense has started to turn a corner.  Unfortunately Brian Wilson blew the game against the Braves.  Easily the most painful loss of the season for the Giants.  If the bats can produce 3-4 runs a game going forward, I have much confidence that the Giants make the post season and do some serious damage towards claiming another title.

Three Down

Oakland A’s – Where to start. Oh yeah, our defense. What was thought to be a strength coming into the season has been a glaring weakness. We continually shoot ourselves in the foot committing errors every game, and thankfully Melvin is pissed about it. There’s no way this team should be third in the league in errors backing up a great pitching staff. This also got me thinking, is our team ERA just good because they give up a lot of unearned runs? Even Trevor and Gio look pretty average as of late. CJ Wilson talked crap about how the A’s suck and so do their fans before Texas came to Oakland, and kinda backed it up after one of the most disappointing series of the year for the A’s.

SF Giants - Well, the fact that at one point last month we looked to be smooth sailing towards winning the division, then added perhaps the best free agent bat to help bolster our lineup, and now, we are slipping out of contention and that big bat we added can’t even suit up for us.  Yeah that’s pretty lame.  Losing the series to the Pirates hurt.  Losing 3-4 at home against the Phil’s stung.  Letting Arizona take the last series against us at home wasn’t helpful.  Getting swept by the Reds flat out sucked.  I can’t even write a reasonable “Three Down” segment for this post, I’m just a little upset, but by no means have I lost faith in the Giants.  But I won’t lie, I’m very nervous right now.

4 comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Sports

August 4, 2011

Stairway To Retirement

By mceezy

Dominating headlines today was the retirement of 43 MLB journeyman Matt Stairs. I know the only reason I even care is because he’s a former Athletic. But apparently he’s played for thirteen different teams in his career, so there’s a good chance you might care as well. Stairs’ legacy will be as the all-time leader in pinch hit home runs with 23. I could’ve sworn he had quite a postseason legacy as well, but looking back at his stats, he’s just 3-24 in the postseason lifetime. He does have one postseason home run, and I KNOW that was a big one for the Phillies.

It’s been 11 years since Stairs wore an A’s uniform, so it was easy for me to not realize that he spent more years in the green and gold than any other team. He hit 122 of his 265 career home runs in Oakland. Get this, in 98 and 99, he even had back to back 100+ RBI seasons. In that 99 campaign, he finished 17th in the MVP voting after a monstrous 38 HR, 102 RBI season. Fun fact: he got one more vote (2) than teammate John Jaha (1). To the A’s credit, Jason Giambi finished 8th in the voting. Don’t go thinking Stairs and Jaha were the best hitters on the team.

The Washington Nationals released Stairs today on account of his .154 batting average with just 2 rbi in 65 at-bats. Check out this list of teams he’s played for….

Montreal Expos, Boston Red Sox, Oakland A’s, Chicago Cubs, Milwaukee Brewers, Pittsburgh Pirates, Kansas City Royals, Texas Rangers, Detroit Tigers, Toronto Blue Jays, Philadelphia Phillies, San Diego Padres, Washington Nationals.   Impressive.

2 comments   |  tags: , , | posted in Sports

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 50 other followers