I love day games.

If you’ve ever read something I’ve written and thought to yourself: What the...? Has this guy ever even seen the team play? Well, then you’d be correct. I haven’t. Nope. Not since last August.

You see, I’m currently living in Spain, which means a 7 o’clock game in Oakland doesn’t get underway until 4 AM local time in Madrid. I’d love to take a look at likes of Holliday, Giambi, Nomar, Cahill and Anderson, but at this point there’s not point getting greedy. I’d probably settle for Edgar Gonzalez throwing a simulated game to Jack Hannahan.

Sure, checking the boxscore gives me a little extra incentive to get out of bed and make it to class on time in the mornings. But sleeping through almost every game? Well, that just pretty much sucks. So how about you? Do you have any experiences/horror stories as a non resident A’s fan, or a NRAF as us baseball nerds like to refer to ourselves as? Feel free to share below.



Oh yea, and one more thing. Jackie Robinson: you sir, are the man.

Moneyball: The art of how the hell am I going to pay for seven first round picks?

One of the things that bothered me about the book Moneyball was the overdrafts of Jeremy Brown and Steve Stanley-type proportions. I appreciate the fact that Billy Beane was using radical, and what ended up being trend setting methods of statistical analysis, but why bother spending a first and second round pick on a couple of guys who nobody else had on their boards? That just doesn’t make any sense.

Well, actually it does. As Billy himself discusses, the team didn’t have the money to sign 7 legit first round picks. To be fair, there were probably only a handful of teams that did. Now look. I’m not trying to suggest that the famed 2002 draft was a bust. That would just be false. The first round alone yielded three big leaguers, and that’s not even including Jeremy Brown and his .864 career OPS.

But still, talk about a missed opportunity by ownership. Seven picks in the first 39? That’s insane. So if ever there was a time to not be cheap as hell, well, that was probably it.

And so it contiues...

Tonight at 7:05 PT Brett Anderson makes his major league debut at home against the Seattle Mariners. I’d love to be there to watch it, hell, even to just catch a couple of innings on TV, but unfortunately, due to a prior engagement—my being asleep—I will be unable.

As I might have mentioned once or twice in the past, I’m not particularly fond of the idea of Trevor Cahill and Brett Anderson starting the year in the big league rotation. Out of the duo Anderson is the one I am less concerned about, but that's not to say I’m not worried about the young lefthander. Just that I think he has a slightly smaller chance of getting carpet-bombed out of Oakland.

I’m feeling good about Anderson’s start tonight. I really am. Seattle will be without Ichiro, and it’s only logical to assume that the Oakland offense will put up 14 singles, so Anderson should be good to go. But just for fun, let’s revisit why it should probably be an Edgar Gonzalez starter we are getting ready for instead.

The case against the young guys:

• Holding these guys back in the minors for the month of April would probably buy the team an extra year of club control
• Neither guy has pitched more than 37 innings in Double-A, and only Anderson has been to Sacramento
• Based on the number of innings they each pitched last season neither figures to eclipse 160 innings pitched in ’09, which would seem to suggest one of two scenarios:

1) Beane is banking on them not being very and thus not being around all season anyways, which begs the question: what are they doing here in the first place?

2) The team is planning to shut them down sometime around mid to late August, pennant race or not. That would be weird.

• The possibility of wrecking the development curve of two of the organization’s most valuable prospects. Of course, this might be a bit of an exaggeration. A few disastrous starts probably won’t permanently ruin Anderson/Cahill mentally, but I’d really prefer it was Gonzalez’s psyche that Beane was toying with

The case for:

• Billy Beane said so. I think.
• Edgar Gonzalez.

So how do you see ’09 playing out for the pair 21-year-olds? Will they spend the entire season in Oakland? I see Anderson winning between 10-12 games with a mid-4 ERA, but expect Cahill to spend at least two months in the state capital.

An update to the post below

I made a mistake in the previous post that I am embarrassed to have made. I paid my respects to Mr. Adenhart, yet failed to even mention the names of the other two who died (or the fourth passenger who is currently in critical condition). I think my error is instructive on how this situation is being dealt with/processed at large.

I'm sure that what I write next will offend some people, but I think it's a worthwhile thought so I'm going to express it nonetheless. I appreciate the outpouring of grief over the senseless passing of a 22-year-old man. His death is a terrible, terrible tragedy. But fuck that shit you are missing the point.

This story is not about Nick Adenhart. That much is obvious from the fact that two others died along with him. This story is about our society and the drunk driving epidemic that we face. Somebody dies in a drunk driving crash every 22 minutes. Do you know how many other anonymous individuals have died since Nick lost his life? I don't either and I really don't feel like doing the math.

The fact is, the only reason why any of us is even aware of this story is because it involved a dude who happened to be really freaking good at throwing a little white ball. I'm not saying we shouldn't honor the memory of Nick, or that we should stop what we are doing every 20 minutes and think about the poor man, woman or child who just died. In fact, I don't really know what I'm saying. I guess I just want to say RIP Henry Nigel Pearson and Courtney Stewart. You too will be missed.

Sad Day

Was going to post something about tonight's game, but then I came across this. I'm not sure yet whether the game will be played, but either way I most likely won't be posting anything.

Something about death, baseball and life in perspective. Ugg. This makes me sick. RIP Nick Adenhart.

Trevor Anderson

Before Spring Training began I figured that if there was one young pitcher the A’s would risk putting in the starting rotation it would be Vince Mazzaro. My logic was really quite simple.

One. Mazzaro had the most professional experience of the trio. Sure, not a whole lot more, but at least he’d spent an entire season above A-ball.

Two. Relatively speaking, Mazzaro is the least valuable prospect of the three. Which is to say that if for some strange reason one of these guys were to just so happen to implode, suffer a serious loss in confidence and never again regain their 2008 form, I’d prefer it be Vince. It’s not that I have anything against Mr. Mazzaro, but just a simple matter of ceilings. Vince’s is by far the lowest, and I don’t think that it's really a debate.

And up until about 1:05PM on March 17 it looked like that just might happen; that Mazzaro would force his way into the Opening Day rotation. But then the game happened. And then this game happened. And then Gio got hurt. And then Duke got more hurt. And then Gallagher sucked.

And suddenly Brett Anderson and Trevor Cahill had pitched their way into the rotation. Well, not really pitched so much as to be the only guys who were healthy and hadn’t been totally awful.

Having all of one’s limbs attached, and being better than Edgar Gonzalez, however, are hardly compelling justifications for rushing two of the organization’s most prized prospects to the Major Leagues. But I swear, I’m not utterly horrified of the possibility that Anderson and or Cahill could have their development curve permanently retarded.

I mean, come on. This is Billy Beane we are talking about. Dude knows pitching. He would never take such a foolish risk. However, there have been conspiratorial whispers that the promotion of the pair of 21-year-old’s hasn’t been purely a baseball decision, but rather the result of a mandate forced on Beane from above.

I don’t really buy this theory and let my explain why. As a fan, I would certainly hope that Lew Wolff would want to field the most competitive team possible. The thing is, I’m not convinced that starting the year with Anderson/Cahill on the team is the surest way to go about doing so. If Lew really wanted to field the best team possible then Beane surely would have explained to him that it would make more sense to add a few millions dollars in payroll to sign/trade for a veteran innings eater and slide Gallagher into the final spot, then it would to risk the development of the kids.

That way you give Gallagher the month of April to see if he can straighten things out, Anderson/Cahill get some more minor league seasoning and you probably even gain an extra year of club control by holding them both back.

So how are you feeling with the Trevor Anderson Era set to begin tonight? Terrified? Bullish? I think I’m somewhere in between. I see Cahill going six innings and giving up one run. Either that, or he doesn’t make it out of the third. Predictions below please.

Where are they now

The final week of Spring Training can be an exciting time for fringe types. Of course, it can also really suck. So let’s take a look at which ex-Athletics made the cut, and which ones didn’t.

4/1
Emil Brown, Padres: reassigned to Minor League Camp

4/3
Brooks Conrad, Braves: reassigned

4/4
Kiko Calero, Marlins: contract purchased
Mike Sweeney, Mariners: contract purchased
Mark Kotsay, Red Sox: DL, take a guess why
Esteban German, Cubs: released
Tim Hamulack, Royals: reassigned
Angel Berroa, Yankees: reassigned

4/5
Chad Bradford, Rays: DL, elbow

The selection process here was thoroughly arbitrary as I passed over a number of players who only spent time with the organization in the minor leagues or during Spring training, yet nonetheless felt compelled to include Tim Hamulack. As a result, feel free to add guys that I might have missed. Intentionally, or otherwise.

According to the sidebar, Trevor Cahill will be the day-after-Opening Day starter.