Happy New Year!
by Tyler Bleszinski on Dec 31, 2007 9:54 AM PST
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PrintCan you believe 2007 has come and gone already? It's amazing how the older you get, the faster the years seem to go by. Maybe that's just me, but when I was in school the year seemed to take forever. Now I blink and I'm another year older and my daughter will be a surly teenager before I know it.
Regardless, I have a few New Year's Resolutions to offer.
First, I'm working hard on getting myself in the mindset for a last place team. It's been a long time since I cheered for a team that finished in the basement, but the A's definitely seem headed in that direction this year. Although who knows what kind of team Texas might be. It's taking a lot of meditation for me to get in my happy place before the season starts. I'm just going to have to think about the joys of watching Buck and Barton and perhaps watching our own Brad Ziegler potentially get a shot with the team this season.
Second, I have to trust Billy Beane more than ever. I enjoy following the A's minor league system quite a bit, but I don't pay nearly as much attention to other team's minor leaguers. I'm always checking in on our players, but not so much on who else is a top prospect other that who John Sickels and Minor League Ball tells me who to pay attention to. So when the A's front office lets my favorite pitcher walk last offseason and then trades my new favorite A's pitcher this offseason, I'm going to have to rely on that faith to get me through this. I know Beane is as competitive a person as there is, so I understand that he isn't trying to be terrible. No one is going to lose more sleep over a horrible team than Beane. No one. So I understand that the bigger picture is that the team is getting set up for a much better future by restocking a barren farm system. It's just not always easy to feel that way when you're so emotionally invested in a team. I can already hear my family making snide comments about the A's and how bad they are going to be. Ugh. It's tough to lose hope on winning a division before the calendar has even changed to the new year.
Regardless, I expect 2008 to be an incredible year. I suppose it will be like watching a new colt learning to get its balance and trot. Hopefully we'll be watching a thoroughbred in no time. It's just going to be awkward at first.
Happy New Year to you and your loved ones, AN!!! Hope to see you at AN Day 5 in 2008.
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Happy New Year to you Blez, and the rest of AN,
and in regards to John Sickels, the A's are the next team to have the top 20 posted, so it should be up some time this week.
I keep telling myself
that in Haren we lost only one player and he was a pitcher to boot. I remember thinking it was going to be a dreary season after Mulder and Hudson were traded. I keep hoping against hope that it won't be so bad this year too. But of course we didn't suck ass the season before Hudson and Mulder were dealt. The next 3 seasons or so will prove whether or not Beane is the brilliant judge of baseball talent that is generally credited to him. Of course he could abdicate and pass off failure to Forst.
I'm looking forward to the season
I really enjoy a team in transition, there is a lot to like about following young players, and before the season starts I expect a lot more changes to be made. I agree with Blez, BB is much too competitive to accept last place without trying to do something to fix it. There are a lot of interesting stories to watch, the emergence of Barton and Buck, will Denofria be as good as projected a few years ago. Will any of the Diamondbacks we traded for play this year. It will be nice to watch a game and not agonize over every loss because our expectations are so much lower we will savor a win more, should be fun.
by china bob on Dec 31, 2007 10:15 AM PST reply actions
Eveland will play
assuming he's not so bad in spring training that he gets waived. He's out of options, so Oakland has to keep him on the 25-man roster.
I have difficulty imagining how this could happen, given Joe Kennedy's 20 ERA or so in spring last year (and the fact that he still ended up with a rotation spot).
Given who's out of options,
Gaudin's projected recovery by Opening Day, and the inevitable Harden breakdown, the rotation looks to be:
Blanton
Gaudin
Duchscherer
Eveland
Meyer
So, yeah, I'd say last place is about right. :-(
That is still better than the Ranger rotation,
and if Felix is as fragile as Harden, Seattle's rotation isn't that stellar either.
by theblackpearl on Dec 31, 2007 10:58 AM PST up reply actions
True
Other factually true statements:
If Felix is as fragile as Harden, Seattle has the best rotation in the league.
If Felix is as fragile as Harden, then I am Dracula.
If Felix is as fragile as Harden, then this sentence is false.
OK Dracula, but like Harden, Felix has been
injured in each of the last 2 years, so he is becoming an injury risk as well.
by theblackpearl on Dec 31, 2007 12:59 PM PST up reply actions
Yes, but the season is not starting today
WE have not heard the last of BB. The roster we now project is not what the team will look like when the season starts. Actually I kind of like the lineup, some nice young players, the bullpen looks promising, it is just the starters that are a major concern, but I think BB will do something in that area or he is high on someone in the minors not mentioned yet. Pitchers sometimes come out of nowhere and are very effective. And yes, sometimes they fall flat on their faces.
That is what is so intriguing about this year, guys like Windsor, Braden, Meyer will get real shots at the rotation, perhaps even Simmons.
by china bob on Dec 31, 2007 11:19 AM PST up reply actions
Which of Eveland or Meyer
starts the year in the BP for Rich's only start?
Rich's start
will come mid-season, causing a big controversy about who gets "demoted." Whichever one goes to the 'pen will view it as an insult, take it out on the medical staff (since they're both caucasian; would have been Billy himself otherwise) via the newspapers, and either fade into minor league obscurity or be traded for someone who fades into minor league obscurity.
minor league ball
sickels is an amateur, check out this guy:
Browsing the Sickels link,
this comment from Sickels (from a couple weeks ago) caught my eye:
"Lately, I have been spending over half my work days policing this site, dealing with trolls and hateful behavior. I am now, thanks in large part to the bullshit posts by a few people, seriously behind on the book, and at this point we will be hard pressed to get it to the printer in time. "
I've never heard of such a thing!
The trolling, name calling
and rude hateful behaviour that some posters engage in on Sickels' site is way beyond even the worst stuff that has happened here.
Trolling? Seriously?
Unless you consider McCovey Chronicles taking over that Todd Linden poll "trolling", I can't recall having seen any in the past several months.
As for "hateful behavior," while a couple of my arguments with grover may have reached the level of "truculent and insulting," I don't think anything ever got to the point of being "hateful."
That was the final straw, before he found
moderators, it was getting very bad over there. It is hard finding someone you trust to make decisions for your site. I'm sure it wasn't easy for Blez to relinquish power to our guys.
by theblackpearl on Dec 31, 2007 2:37 PM PST up reply actions
Blez made GREAT choices -
it was only when they all declined that he asked me.
rooting for a last place team?
I've been there before...all I ask for from the team is effort, and for me to be able to get to the games.
All I ask is that they take the opportunity
to stop taking borderline pitches for strike 3, unleash the running game and the trick play, and get back to some 1981 Billy Ball (with the starters on a pitch count this time). If you know you're not going to win the division, at least play a game where no one knows what's going to happen next. I'm talking Jack Cust steals home, Chavy beats the shift with a bunt single down the third base line, and Ellis pulls the ol' "hidden ball trick - what you saw me throw back to the pitcher was actually a peeled potato". BRING IT ON!
Don't forget promotional gimmicks!
We need at least one midget on the active roster. A petting zoo or skate park ought to replace the right field bleachers. And, our relievers need to be chauffeured to the mound on the back of Harley-Davidson or maybe a unicorn.
How high is the wall on that petting zoo?
I'm pretty sure both Bay Area teams
should be recruiting his "fanhood"...
It will be like watching a young colt
develop so that it can go to the Yankees
by 3Chavy3 on Dec 31, 2007 11:47 AM PST reply actions
2008 Resolved:
To take pleasure in the small-v victories, even when not matched with capital-W Wins.
by FreeSeatUpgrade on Dec 31, 2007 12:19 PM PST reply actions
If we lead the league in "small-v victories,"
do we get the Wild Card?
Perhaps the Oscar Wilde Card
This could be our 2008 motto:
"If you pretend to be good, the world takes you very seriously. If you pretend to be bad, it doesn't. Such is the astounding stupidity of optimism."
by FreeSeatUpgrade on Dec 31, 2007 3:04 PM PST up reply actions
"To lose one playoff berth
seems like misfortune - to lose both seems downright careless."
strike "playoff berth," replace with ...
... "touching home plate."
And make it "all three."
I've long ago learned
. . . that all you really can ask for is that the A's be competitive. If the start losing 6-1 or 11-3 on a consistant basis it's going to be a long season. I don't think that will happen. In fact, the A's may do better than last place. If the young blood in the A's lineup come through they will be fun to watch.
by jarforcefatherofforce on Dec 31, 2007 4:00 PM PST reply actions
Happy New Year!
I'm off to my parents house to eat prime rib and usher in the new year to the sound of gunfire.
You live in Kabul?
or Richmond?
by gigglingone on Dec 31, 2007 11:59 PM PST up reply actions
Sure sounds like Kabul
Yeesh. I'm home this year and we've got three neighbors within a block (including one adjacent) setting off illegal fireworks. Not just little stuff either. I won't be surprised if someone's house burns down.
On New Year's Eve 1999
i was part of the team of intrepid journalists who had to work overnight to report on the devastation caused by the Y2K bug. Of course by the time it got around to the West Coast it was obvious (as it really had been for weeks beforehand) that the world's computers were not going to melt down, the power grid fail, and civilization come to a screeching halt, but we had to stay up just in case. So as we were sitting around the newsroom finishing our last hand of gin rummy at 12:05, preparing to pack it in, the overnight announcer came running in to say that her mom had called to let us know they lost power in her neighborhood at 12:01. Scoop! We found the only place in the world that was victim to Y2K! So my colleague called PG&E as I prepared to run back to the studio and roll tape on this exclusive. The PG&E guy said, "Yeah, some idiot shot out the transformer. Happens every year."
Like a new colt...
...readying itself for a stable out East.
by zachmiller on Dec 31, 2007 4:30 PM PST reply actions
Not just you, Blez
It's a common phenomenon that years seem faster as you get older.
Our perception of past time periods is relative to their proportion of our total life. So when you're 10, a year is 10% of your total experience, and it seems like it. When you're 50, another year is only 2%, and it seems like it. As you get older, years will seem faster still.
Presumably for a 50-year-old who spent 15 years in a coma, years don't go by as fast as they do for a normal 50-year-old. (And presumably they go by even faster for Jean-Luc Picard, who remembers that whole other life in addition to his own.)
Happy Old Year from the West Coast
It's still 2007 and I still think the A's have a shot at the AL West!
Ah, the art of self-deception
Me and the missus just made use of CNN's live Times Square New Years Eve coverage to convince our kids that they stayed up all the way until midnight. The ensuing celebration was so much fun that I almost believed it myself.
I'm planning similar irrational exuberance for myself on Opening Day.
by FreeSeatUpgrade on Dec 31, 2007 9:20 PM PST up reply actions
I don't bother with Times Square on New Years Eve
I figure if I want to see a ball drop I can just watch Cust play RF.
you sure won't see it happen with Chavez at bat
< / HollywoodOz >
Happy New Year ANers!!!!!!
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