Beaneball

The A's lost Chris Snelling on waivers to the Devil Rays yesterday, which is an indication of how far Snelling's career has gone (Tampa!). On the other hand, it's too bad to have lost him. Sure, he's yet to stay healthy, but there's always that tantalizing "if": everyone knows he can play if only he can keep from getting hurt.

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in Oakland A's at 10:48 | |

Lee Sinins' email today carries the long-awaited news that Don Wakamatsu has been hired as the new A's bench coach. The speculation is that this will open a position in Texas for Ron Washington to bring in Bob Schaefer. As for the still-open third-base coach position, the Chronicle says that there are at least three candidates: "Pete Mackanin, the Reds' interim manager this season, and Bucky Dent, who was a Cincinnati coach in 2007, have interviewed with the A's. Sacramento manager Tony DeFrancesco will interview with the A's today." See here.

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in Oakland A's at 12:28 | |

The A's lost a couple of players off of waivers today, clearing next year's roster picture a little bit. First, and somewhat surprisingly, Jay Marshall was claimed by the Red Sox. It seems like other people around the interblogwebs were assuming that Marshall would be in the picture for next year's bullpen, or at least to be sent to AAA and be available to come up in case of disaster (i.e. in case 2007 repeated itself), but he's gone now. Further, Kevin Thompson is now a Pirate. I'm not sure anyone should be all that surprised about the A's not keeping him around - Quad-A outfielders are a dime a dozen.

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in Oakland A's at 11:29 | |

What do we have to look forward to this winter and next year, as A's fans? A quick list of things from the top of my head:

• The universal knowledge that Rich Harden is made of glass. Lots of us used to have expectations, or at least hopes, that Harden could stay healthy and have a full season of his always-dominant performance. Now nobody thinks this will ever happen. Any innings we get from Harden will be gravy. And they'll probably come, a la Kerry Wood, out of the bullpen.
• Eric Chavez's descent into Mark Kotsay-dom. He's just had, or will soon be having, back surgery, apparently of a similar (or even the same) type as Kotsay had. Kotsay, of course, sucks. His bat sunk to levels that shouldn't have justified him being in the lineup. Look forward to more of this with Chavez, even if he is still a world-class defensive third baseman.
• Rampant trade speculation about Joe "Cupcakes" Blanton. A lock for 200 innings of above-average starting, still young and cheap ... how much could he fetch on the "young offensive players" market? What about those ridiculous surpluses of offensive talent combined with little starting pitching in Arizona and Tampa Bay? Expect the names of Mark Mulder and Tim Hudson to be bandied about often this winter.
• Daric Barton's dominance of the American League despite playing in what's quietly become one of the worst places to hit in all of baseball.
• A million spring training stories about how Dan Haren worked out all winter to ensure that he'd build up enough stamina to pitch at a Cy Young level all year, instead of for 2/3 of the season.
• Andrew Brown and Jerry Blevins becoming one of those fantastic relief tandems that only the team's own fans have heard of.
• Kurt Suzuki playing the 1998 AJ Hinch to Landon Powell's Ramon Hernandez. (That's not a great comparison, because Powell's older than I thought he was - he'll turn 26 before the start of next season! Suzuki just turned 24 three days ago, by contrast.)

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in Oakland A's at 20:51 | |