I recently made a comment in another thread that I could see Daric Barton turning into a John Olerud type player. I also saw someone else compare Kurt Suzuki to Joe Mauer (I think the first is a bit more believable but that's not the point). Since it's September, the A's are turrible right now, and its the time of the year we see a lot of callups and think about the future, I thought this might be a fun idea to see what everyone thought of the A's talent. So go ahead and post your own comparables, criticize others (try and keep it civil), and have a little fun.

It's the 1st of the month and the A's start September with an off-day, matching the total they had last month (this is their first day off in their last 20). It's also the first day for September callups, though the A's may be holding off for a bit as their AAA affiliate Sacramento Rivercats are in the PCL playoffs.

Regardless, this is usually the time for optimism, as fans get to see a lot of players they've never heard of before get their cup of coffee in major league uniforms. I thought it would be fun then to make some player comparables for the A's youth. I'm going to use 25 as the cutoff age, anyone older than this has probably developed mostly into the player their likely to become, and conveniently none of the A's on the 40 man who miss this cutoff by a year or two are all that relevant (sorry Dan Meyer and Jeff Gray).

I'm only sticking with those on the 40 man roster right now, but feel free to make comparables for anyone in the A's organization. Again, if you have statistics or some quantifiable claims to back up your comparable it would be better, but really this is more of a fun exercise so post whoever comes to mind.

Daric Barton – John Olerud

I like this comp a lot, though Barton isn't wearing a helmet at 1B yet. Olerud was an unheralded 1B in the 90s, mostly known not for his talents but the helmet he wore in the field after suffering a brain hemorrhage in his college years. Olerud never displayed huge HR power, especially considering the offense first era of the time Olerud's career high 24 HR in 1993 is low for a 1B. But he had good doubles power, posting a career .170 ISO-P. While people probably noticed his career .295 AVG, what's more impressive (and part of the reason for the Barton comp) is his .103 career ISO-OBP mark.

Olerud also played an outstanding defensive 1B despite being recognized with only one Gold Glove (don't forget, Derek Jeter has 3). Its early in his career and especially after scouting reports questioned his defense before making the big leagues, but Barton too is near the top of the AL in most fielding metrics. The comp falls apart a bit when you notice that Olerud's career 1016:1275 K:BB era is nowhere near Barton's contact rate, but for now I'll roll with it.

Greg Smith-Andy Pettite

I mainly just chose this one cause Smith gets the "crafy lefty" tag a lot (I'm not sure he's in the rotation next year really) and he's got a sick pickoff move (7 this year but he was called for a balk yesterday (his first). The quintessential crafty lefty good pickoff move of the 90s was Pettitte. If Greg Smith turns out to have a career anything similar to Andy Pettitte I'll eat a Yankee's hat.

Huston Street-?

This was mainly just to highlight that Huston Street is only 25 years old, often forgotten since he's been with the team for a while now. Also just wanted to show that Street has retired 18 of the last 19 batters he's faced and all of those clamoring for him to be shipped out or gotten rid of when he was struggling, small sample size still rules all.

I guess for a comp, maybe John Wetteland? I'm only 21 so my visions of baseball only really go back to about the mid-late 90s, so I didn't see much of Wetteland or his stuff, but the numbers look pretty similar.