The dawn of another Oakland A's blog

I've decided to break up the blog to provide more focus in particular areas - for now this will be on Travel and the Oakland A's.  I'm going to commit to at least one entry a month on the A's for the rest of the season.  The below write-up was done at the start of the 2011 season, so I will be updating this over the course of the next week for where things stand in 2012.  


Let's go Oakland!!


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Admittedly, there is no rhyme or reason to the sports teams that I have the utmost passion for.  I have always disliked the vast majority of NY/Philly teams and this is largely due to the fact that I can’t stand the vast majority of their fans.  I have been able to appropriately proportion good friends by their favorite sports teams, so I never have to deal with “Giants night” or “Yankees night” or anything related to “Philly night”.  You try to distinguish one of those as worse than the other.  I dare you. 

If you put a gun to my head, I would rank my favorite teams as follows:

1.     Oakland Athletics baseball

2.     Minnesota Timberwolves basketball

3.     Seattle Seahawks football

Given the national appeal of the NFL, I’m probably ‘loudest’ about the Seahawks, but in reality, the A’s and T-wolves top the list and I’ve liked/followed both since grade school. 

Now, given the current state of each franchise, I have to wonder, “what the hell was I thinking?!”  Let’s delve right in … I’ll start with what is currently in season, the Oakland A’s. 

(Plus, I want to wait for the T-wolves to screw up the June draft again before killing the entire state of that franchise in 3,000 words or more.  Here’s a hint, it starts at the top with Glen Taylor.)

Oakland A’s Baseball

The “Moneyball” era of Oakland A’s baseball was preceded by the greatest stretch run of any of my favorite teams and I don’t care if the entire era was driven by performance enhancing supplements.  Walt Weiss was not on steroids and he isn’t here to talk about the past, he just wants to look towards the future.  OK? 

Beane’s approach at running a team deserves a lot of credit, especially given the various ownerships that have provided him with limited support throughout his era.  By support, of course I mean dollars.  The early 2000’s were a great run that led to a lot of painful Fall collapses.  When pitchers admit to having weak knees when pitching in Yankee Stadium in the playoffs, chances are, you aren’t going to succeed in the playoffs (see: Hudson, Tim).  And they didn’t.  Time and time again.  Nevertheless, it was fun while it lasted and you had hope that the A’s would be hot at the right time and run into teams that hit a wall.  They weren’t and/or they didn’t. 

After the Big 3 of Hudson, Mulder, and Zito were traded away, there has been a run of mediocrity.
A few big name/game pitchers and a lineup that struggles to produce runs; which leads to .500 baseball, no playoffs, and a hope that the front office can convince a star batter to take slightly less money to come play in Oakland and watch their batting average drop at least .030 points due to the team’s stadium (you know, McAfee-the Coliseum-Overstock.com-The O state park, or whatever they are calling it this week). 

This season, Beane has managed to put together a nice run of young, very talented pitchers and has managed to sign most of them to long term contracts.  I really like Cahill, Anderson, and Bailey.  I like what I’ve seen so far in Brandon McCarthy, excluding that injury bug.  You could talk me into Gio and Tyson Ross, as well as Ziegler and Balfour.  So the current pitching staff is in good shape.  They could use a lefty in the bullpen because Blevins and Fuentes are absolutely atrocious.  Blevins was just sent down to the minors (again) so that seems to have worked itself out already, but we need Bailey back.  Like, right now.    

Unfortunately, this year’s roster has absolutely no power bats whatsoever.  This was abundantly clear all offseason.  After gunning for and missing on Adrian Beltre, Beane seemed to give up on the big bat in the middle of the lineup and settled for a few low risk, medium reward players; Matsui, Willingham, and Conor Jackson.  These guys are all OK on their own and are ‘nice to haves’, if they didn’t make up the entire heart of the A’s daily lineup.  Aside from this, there isn’t ANY power in the lineup; Ellis, Barton, Sweeney, Crisp, Pennigton, on and on.  Kurt Suzuki looks like he’s lost a step offensively (hopefully the birth of his daughter creates some sort of good karma down the road) and I can’t speak rationally on Kevin Kouzmanoff … he sucks.

I’ve gone this far talking about the A’s and I’ve yet to make mention of the biggest problem of all; the coaching staff.  Are we sure Bob Geren was a catcher?  Mike Scioscia has more feel for the game in the dead cells of his left, pinky toenail than Geren does in his entire body.  He handles the pitching staff as well as I handle dancing in a club.  At a bare minimum, I’ve probably watched at least part of five games a week since returning from my honeymoon (read it below!) and there are at least five times a week that I wonder, “what the hell is he thinking/doing?!” aloud.  That isn’t a good average/frequency for the non-math majors out there.

I hate to do this to myself, but the base running blunders that consistently seem to occur with the A’s is astonishing.  At least a part of this is coaching … or a lack thereof.  Pick-offs, run downs, caught stealing, getting thrown out at home without sliding (Gatorade commercial anyone?), not sending runners in clear situations (“Ugh, Gallego?!?!”), the list goes on and on.  This lack of discipline, teaching, whatever you want to call it, is at least in part due to the lack of schooling that is being done off the field and outside of the game and it must be improved. 

The A’s continue to bounce around the .500 mark with an inability to make a good (or bad, thankfully) run over the course of a full week.  Win 2, lose 1, win 1, lose 2, repeat.  I’m hoping to see the A’s in the playoffs this year, you’ll see why if you care to read about the Twolves and Seahawks (coming over the next few weeks), and they need to take advantage of a weak division that is up for grabs.  In other words, we need a midseason trade to sign a big bat, even if said player is a 6 or 18 month rental. 

Win or go home!  Let’s go Oakland!