Beaneball

From the fan's/analyst's standpoint, here's the problem with September baseball: there's nothing for us to do. The A's are struggling, particularly on offense, but there's no point in straining our brains to come up with bright ideas for trades or call-ups or anything else because they can't be implemented. Calling for Dan Johnson earlier in the season made us all feel smart because he came up and immediately started out-hitting Scott Hatteberg. Calling for a higher-leverage role for Huston Street makes us look good when he turns into a serious Rookie-of-the-Year candidate. Pushing for the trade for Joe Kennedy makes us feel fuzzy inside because he's been pretty good out of the bullpen. But what are we supposed to do now? Ask for Daric Barton? It isn't going to happen. Demand that the A's spend some money and trade for a big bopper? Obviously not. So we, particularly the bloggers, sit on our hands, unable to type anything constructive or useful, and watch as the A's sink into oblivion for the second straight year. It's particularly hard because Oakland's current futility can so easily be laid at the feet of injury. Bobby Crosby's hurt, and it seems like he's the key to the lineup (he's not, but it seems like it). In addition, Joe Kennedy has been yanked from his spot in the bullpen because of Rich Harden's shoulder. That both of these young cornerstones have been hurt twice this year is worrisome in the utmost. Oakland has little margin for error with its moderate payroll compared to the powerhouse Angels, and they can't afford to be one of the league leaders in payroll lost to injury, or days lost to the DL. You have to think it's a fluke, though, because Oakland's never had injury problems like this before, particularly from its pitchers. Sure, Tim Hudson would strain something in his torso every once in a while, and Mark Mulder had some back problems, but a shoulder? An Erubiel Durazo elbow? Those are the injuries that make me fear that the A's have fallen off the head of the curve in injury prevention, or even that they were never ahead of the curve in the first place, just lucky.

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 08:35 | |

Dan Haren and the bullpen pitched the A's to a huge win last night, beating their Wild Card rival Indians 2-0 while the Angels were being shut down by the Mariners. Making up ground on all three teams they're competing with (the Yankees were idle) is a good day for Oakland, especially since the offense only mustered two runs. I'll still say, though, and not with much creativity, that if the offense doesn't start clicking, the playoffs will be TV material for the second straight year. Come on, Bobby Crosby! Heal up! I've got nothing against Marco Scutaro (who did a good offensive job last night), but he's not quite the threat you are. I went to college in September of 1999, which was the year the A's arrived on the scene before making four straight playoff appearances. I was out of school in the fall of 2003, but the A's held on to get to the post-season, probably because I had just graduated while they were beginning their season and they were a little confused about my status. Last year, though, I spent their entire baseball season as a teacher, so they weren't able to hang on against the Angels. This year, however, I've gone back to school! The question, then, is whether 2005 will be like 1999, where I've entered school too late to actually push the A's into the playoffs, or whether the team will realize that they can't waste this year because I've only got three years in law school to support them with my mojo. Don't believe in all this stuff? The A's struggles at the beginning of the year were because they weren't sure of my status: I didn't announce to my fellow-teachers that I was leaving for law school until the middle of the spring. Figure that there was a two-month-long lag (which is reasonable) for the news to travel from New York to Oakland and you've got your reason for Oakland's June explosion.

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 08:34 | |

Oakland's back on the ball a little bit here, having taken two in a row from Texas in Arlington. Both games could have gone either way, though, so the A's aren't really doing a lot of inspiring work out on the field. This could easily be a three-game lead for Anaheim right now. Since the White Sox are supposedly the best team in the American League (though I'll predict they lose in four games or fewer in the first round of the playoffs. And no, it doesn't matter who they're playing), it'd be nice to see them not get swept, in Chicago, by the Angels. Especially since the A's are matched up against Kenny Rogers today, and all they have to counter him is Joe Kennedy (who hasn't been bad, but I don't see good things happening in Arlington today). With 21 games left for the A's and Angels (and many teams), how close are my predictions from the beginning of the year? The format will bet his (because I don't want to make a table, that's why!): Team, Predicted wins, Wins now, Record needed to match the prediction. Boston, 98, 83, 15-6 Yankees, 97, 79, 18-3 Baltimore, 87, 66, 21-0 Toronto, 81, 71, 10-11 Tampa Bay, 66, 59, 7-12 White Sox, 85, 87, XXXX Cleveland, 81, 81, 0-20 Minnesota, 88, 73, 15-6 Detroit, 73, 64, 9-13 Kansas City, 72, 46, XXXX Anaheim, 91, 80, 11-10 Oakland, 89, 79, 10-11 Texas, 75, 69, 6-14 Seattle, 70, 61, 9-12 Atlanta, 92, 82, 10-10 Florida, 84, 76, 8-12 Philadelphia, 91, 74, 17-3 Washington, 69, 73, XXXX Mets, 78, 70, 8-12 St. Louis, 95, 91, 4-15 Houston, 92, 76, 16-5 Milwaukee, 78, 70, 8-12 Cubs, 83, 70, 13-7 Cincinnati, 70, 65, 5-16 Pittsburgh, 62, 57, 5-16 San Diego, 84, 71, 13-8 Arizona, 69, 65, 4-15 Dodgers, 84, 64, 20-1 San Francisco, 70, 64, 6-15 Colorado, 71, 56, 15-6 The teams that make me look good (likely to be within a few games of the prediction): San Diego, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, Mets, Seattle, Texas, Detroit, Toronto, Tampa Bay. Teams that make me look bad (impossibilities and virtual impossibilities): Colorado, Dodgers, Houston, St. Louis, Washington, Philadelphia, Kansas City, Cleveland, White Sox, Yankees, Baltimore. That's nine pretty good versus eleven pretty bad, which leaves ten in the middle. Would a random chooser do better or worse than this? I'd guess about the same, which means that I'm no better than a dumb computer. I guess I'll stick with law school.

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 11:58 | |

As ugly as it's been for the A's (losing too often to the 'roided up Mariners), at least the Angels haven't been any better. Each team is 4-6 in its last ten, so with tonight's win and Anaheim's loss, the A's are still just half a game back, though that game is in the loss column, so the Angels control their destiny in those regards. The Yankees and Indians have been a little better, so the A's have slipped to third in the wild card, 1.5 back of New York (two losses). The A's schedule isn't exactly soft down the stretch, either. They've got Texas six times, sure, and the Mariners for the final three (in a series in which I'd bet King Felix will already be shut down for the year), but they've also got seven straight on the road against Boston and Cleveland, which could be really tough. In addition, despite the whole "play your rivals down the stretch," the A's have only one series left with Anaheim, also, though it's a four-gamer and it's at home. Any bets which series will determine who's going to the playoffs from the West? Of course, it might be over by the time that series is played, because for the seven tough ones the A's face out of division, the Angels get seven against Detroit and Tampa Bay, and those series are in Anaheim. If the A's go into their series with the Angels needing to win three of four just to stay alive for the final weekend, they'll be in trouble. They need a strong showing against Cleveland and Boston, like shocking everyone and going 5-2 or something. 2-5 is unacceptable. Something in between and they might survive it, so long as Vlad Guerrero doesn't go nuts and hit 12 homers down the stretch or something.

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 23:47 | |

Since the A's persist in being awful and inconsistent, maddeningly so, I'm going to indulge in some quick liberal politics. On CNN.com, I see this blurb, with regard to Hurricane Katrina: "Bush to lead probe to find 'what went wrong'." Oh, you mean like the one you led to find out what went wrong with the whole Valerie Plame thing? 'cause that one worked real well.

Posted by jason in News at 13:44 | |

With the A's currently tied with the Yankees in the American League standings (and thus for the wild card), I wondered about the tie-breaker scenarios. Apparently, the season series between the two teams would be the first tie-breaker. Unfortunately for the A's, they lost five out of six to New York earlier this season. They've got three games left against them, starting on September 2nd, but even with a sweep, they can't take the season series. In some sense, then, the Yankees have a one-game lead on the A's, because the A's have to actually beat the Yankees to get to the playoffs, while New York just has to tie. The situation is a tiny bit better, but not much, if the Yankees push ahead of the Red Sox and put Boston into a race with the A's, because, while Boston won four out of six against Oakland earlier in the season, the A's have a four-game series in Fenway in a few weeks. If the A's swept that series, they'd win the season series. If they won the series 3-1, they'd tie the season series. Any other outcome means they lose the season series and find themselves in the same position as they're in against the Yankees. Unfortunately, I really don't think the A's will pull out a four-game sweep of Boston at Fenway. Boston's been slipping a little bit in recent weeks, alternative poor pitching with poor hitting and occasionally putting both together, but it's not like they've been like Oakland circa May. Besides, they haven't suddenly become a mediocre team. They're still very tough and that date in Fenway certainly looms ominously. Of course, none of this matters if the A's can regain the lead in the West and hold onto it. After last night's events, when the A's blew out Baltimore while Tampa smacked Anaheim, the A's are just 1/2 a game back of the Angels.

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 11:25 | |

This started off as a comment over at Chris Lehmann's site, but it grew so long that I decided to bring it here and trackback it instead. It's in response to this post, where he talks about a CBA team that's hired Dave Bliss, the former coach at Baylor who told his players to lie to investigators of the death of one of his players. The key phrase in Lehmann's post, the one I'm really responding to, is, "Sports can be embody the best of who and what we are... and sadly, too often it embodies the worst." This is one of those places where professional sports crosses that line between "sport" and "business," where "business" really means "make money at any cost to ethics or downfall of society." Bliss coaching this team doesn't do anything to the actual sport of basketball, thankfully, because those kids at Rucker are going to play their hearts out whether he's coaching or not. That is the nice thing about professional sports, in some sense: no matter what awful things they do, they can't touch the sport that's at the heart of how they make their money. Now matter how crummy the experience is at your average major league baseball stadium these days ("Clap now, mindless drones!"), the game, the sport itself, remains pure and unchanged at the center. In that sense, then, I don't think that this actually is an example of sport's embodiment of the negative aspects of our culture, but rather the commercial world's doing so. Enron and WorldCom also reflect poorly on us, and I think the Dakota Wizards, in this situation, fall more into their category than that of, say, the power of the Little League World Series to introduce a bunch of kids from Louisiana to a little place called Guam. This doesn't mean that Lehmann's statement is wrong, of course. Sports certainly can reflect negative aspects of our society: ultra-competitiveness, for example. You play sports to win, usually, and too often people forget that you live life to do more than just beat other people. That said, I think it's helpful to remember that professional sports leagues and teams exist to make money. That sounds obvious, but too often (and I'm not accusing Lehmann of this, I want to note, because he's quite notably not hysterical in his writing in general) people decry something or other that a league is doing as the downfall of that sport. "They're ruining the game!" they cry on their national sports networks. No, they're not. Maybe they're ruining their league, though that depends on whether people will still pay to see it. Whether baseball's performance-enhancing drug policy is effective or not (for example), the game itself, the sport of baseball invented in mysterious circumstances who-knows-how-long-ago, is not ruined.

Posted by jason in Baseball at 02:03 | |

Ok, I can declare an end to the boycott now. The A's have won their last two, against the Tigers and Orioles, and now lead 8-0 in the third inning against Baltimore. Joe Kennedy has apparently been tabbed to start in Rich Harden's place. This, I think, is exactly why the A's wanted to acquire him. He has some talent, and can be an asset out of the bullpen, but he's also a starting pitcher. He can make that spot start that they need from him, and, if they can get him straightened out to their satisfaction, could be in line for a starter's job next year. How's law school, you ask? Going swimmingly. I'm scared out of my mind for Monday. So, exactly what I expected.

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 18:39 | |

Via Offwing Opinion, here's a brilliant idea to "help out" T.O. in his quest for less hunger for his family.

Posted by jason in Football at 20:07 | |

Every LLWS team has to have a weird kid. The last player to introduce himself on the Mexican team lists as his favorite player Johnny Bench. Johnny Bench! Awesome! You've got to like kids whose favorite players retired before they were even born.

Posted by jason in Baseball at 19:00 | |

What's up with the little kid on the Guam LLWS team whose favorite player is John Hattig, Jr.? Ok, so after looking it up, I'm a little embarassed, because it turns out Hattig is from Guam, so it makes sense. On the other hand, none of the rest of the kids had any problem rooting for guys like Manny Ramirez and Alfonso Soriano like kids anywhere else in the world.

Posted by jason in Baseball at 18:42 | |

History is made! Jeff Francoeur walks! Of course, as predicted, it's an intentional pass. Mom and Dad appear to be cracking up in the stands.

Posted by jason in Baseball at 23:29 | |

ESPN just showed a little clip of the Little League World Series, specifically the kid from Southern California who struck out eighteen batters (remember, that's in a 6-inning game, so that's all the outs possible). First, I don't buy that kid's age, whatever he's claiming it is. How old is he allowed to be? 12? 13? He looks like he's 15 or 16. Really, he looks like the kids I was teaching last year, and those are freshmen and sophomores in high school (and not normal ones, either: I had plenty of kids who'd been held back a year or three). Second, can we please officially declare the straight-brim-of-the-baseball-cap thing over? I've said it before and I'll say it until it goes away: I guess it looks fine when you're just walking around. When it's what you're wearing on the baseball field, it looks awful. Especially on these little white boys in the LLWS. You know those commercials where major league players teach little kids the various skills of the game, and it always ends in hilarity? They should have one where someone, preferably one of those "filthy hat" players like Steve Kline, teaches kids how to prepare their hats for a game.

Posted by jason in Baseball at 22:32 | |

I'm boycotting the A's. They let the Royals break their streak. They lost a series to the same Royals in Oakland. Ugh. On to the Braves, then. John Schuerholz was in the booth with Jon Miller and Joe Morgan tonight and Morgan asked for a reason why the Braves have won 13 division titles in a row and only one World Series. Schuerholz responded, "In the playoffs, you have to have health and luck." Particularly with the word "luck," is this new? Of course not. Is it nice to hear such a Beane-like statement out of a guy who'll never be confused with a so-called "Moneyball" GM? Absolutely. Next step? Convincing Joe Morgan, who didn't sound like he especially liked the answer.

Posted by jason in Baseball at 21:59 | |

The new Bitty you see in the sidebar takes the Google News RSS feed for the search term "Oakland A's" and displays all the recent news it can find on the team. It's already paid dividends by showing me the story that Adam Johnson was signed by the A's out of Southern California's Golden Baseball League (the same one Rickey Henderson is playing in and, if I'm remembering correctly, the same team as well) and sent to Sacramento. Johnson's pitched in nine major league games, all with Minnesota, and hasn't really fared that well (ERA over 10, lots of homers and walks, few strikeouts), but his minor league career showed that he might have some talent (0.68 HR/9, 8.17 K/9, if a few too many walks), and he's still just 26. Besides, he must have been showing something to catch the A's attention in San Diego.

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's, The Blog at 17:48 | |