By Jason Wojciechowski on December 21, 2011 at 12:45 PM
A new episode of Tarp Talk, the A's sabermetric podcast, went up. The topics are potential Gio Gonzalez and Andrew Bailey trades. Also a topic is the hilarious pronunciation of Travis D'Arnaud's name.
Grant Brisbee brings his usual panache and an approach I like (listing all the possible teams and their current situations) to bear on the question of whether the A's and Royals will be able to trade their young (and useless to them given their current places in their divisions) closers for a pile of prospects. I think Brisbee overrates the settledness of certain teams' closer situations (Javy Guerra? Also the Rangers), but the general point seems right -- there aren't ten teams who will want Andrew Bailey and have little other recourse the way that might be the case if you're dealing a starting pitcher. Link via Justin Bopp.
On the rumors side of things, here's Marisa Ingemi's summary of some Ken Rosenthal tweets about Andrew Bailey.
Also, Jon Morosi says that Brandon League might be available, which increases the supply of closers even more.
At the flagship SweetSpot blog, Supreme Commander David Schoenfield writes about prospect hype, prompted by a Rany Jazayerli piece at Grantland that I haven't read yet. The trade that kicked the whole thing off is the Trevor Cahill deal, which I kind of quibble with on the grounds that the "what did the A's dooooo" analysis seems to be premised on the idea that Cahill is a very good young pitcher. Billy Beane doesn't seem so sure about that. Heck, Kevin Towers doesn't seem so sure about that either, given the relatively light package he gave up.
Either way, though, I like Schoenfield's piece on the more general grounds, particularly the point that you cannot just think about upside.
You may remember former Athletic Andy LaRoche:
#Indians sign Andy LaRoche to minor league deal with invite to big league camp
— Jerry Crasnick (@jcrasnick) December 21, 2011
That tweet is via Aaron Gleeman.
Cody Wiewandt at NotGraphs mentions Hammer, so of course I'm linking.
Bill Ladson says that Brad Peacock and Derek Norris are two guys the A's are looking at in a potential Gio Gonzalez deal with the Nationals. Link via Satchel Price.
Joe Pawlikowski passes on Jim Bowden's idea of Gonzalez to the Yankees for Dellin Betances, David Phelps, and Austin Romine. I'm not a prospect hound, so the best I know is that Betances is one of the better-regarded pitchers around and that Romine is a catcher. I have zero words to say about this David Phelps character.
Mark Sheldon has some quotes from Gonzalez from a radio appearance. Gio wants to "shine like a star." That's sweet.
The tiny Luis Martinez trade between the Padres and Rangers involved ex-Athletic Ryan Kelly.
Dan Strittmatter has an incredibly comprehensive look, using historical comparables at Gio Gonzalez vs. Trevor Cahill. I'll admit that I haven't read the whole thing yet, but I'm going to, so I'm passing on the link anyway.
I guess you can go answer the question of "who is the A's core player at Athletics Nation, but it's just a product placement-based giveaway, so whatever.