Taylor, Cardenas, Magnuson, Brown, Doolittle Added to 40-Man Roster

I just cannot fathom not tendering Cust a contract. Inexpensive, coming off a great year in which his stats should look good to even the non SABR community. Even if you do think he’s gonna fall off a cliff, which I think is a reasonable belief (although I personally don’t buy into it), tendering him a contract seems like a no brainer because he should have some trade value.

Cramer, Figeuroa, Mortensen, Landon Powell, even Sogard or Tolleson…other than Powell nobody you’d regard as perfectly expendable, but none of them figure much into the future. Encarnacion’s situation has to be sorted before the deadline also, unless the A’s actually plan on paying him $5m+. The DFA candidates don’t have much to worry about from this roster crunch, imo. The salaries are what’s going to get them.

I’m surprised they protected Doolittle, and I’m a little surprised they didn’t protect Banwart. Just in terms of who might be picked up, it’s hard to see Doolittle being picked, let alone making a roster. Banwart might be able to sneak into someone’s bullpen. The K rate and the BB rate went up last year at Sacto. The 22% K rate was actually quite nice for a starter. Sample is obviously small (half a season), and he was typically middling at Midland in the first half before his promotion. I do remember reading somewhere that the scouting reports were coming around on him. Idk, that was the first glimmer of hope for him since Kane County and he really wasn’t good at Sacto even with the increased K rate. Just a guy you might want to see do some pen work before you let him go.

he strikes out in over a third of his plate appearances, walked in about 20 percent of his plate appearances, and looked frustrated at the plate during the season. Id rather have the Pedro Cerano, or better yet, Dennis Haysbert, at least they knew they couldnt hit the curveball.

When I read moneyball I thought the point was that the most important thing for a baseball player to do is not get out. Cust gets out fewer than anyone. Are you gonna tell me it is better to ground out or fly out. I disagree after watching all the double plays kouz, suzuki and sweeney ground into.

for this past season, and you maintain his singles and doubles distribution (and 13 home runs), his line would have been .246/.362/.406. .350 would be well above his .338 career BABIP, ftr. Actually didn’t realize the dip in his numbers would be quite that big.

jack cust is obviously so damn interesting

……….. The Mighty Cust? S’easy. You can always sign him later. No other team in baseball is dumb enough to take him on. Guys that never get a hit that means something in the late innings are not in big demand. Beeeg Bapip though.

Who, most realistically, gets drafted in the rule 5 draft from us? I think there are only 3 that really have a shot of the guys Paul named. No reason to draft Sulentic when OPS is trending down so clearly, and upside is limited. I’m not sure that a team can afford to stash Josh Horton for a year, just to come out with, at best, an average SS or 2B. That’s probably a stretch to even give him that as a ceiling.

The 3 players I could see being picked up are Carignan, Banwart, or Simmons.

Simmons I’m thinking is still not very likely. While he’s got the first round draft status on him, he hasn’t shown that kind of talent – no overwhelming K rate, no overwhelming BB rate to cover for it, and some injury problems on top of it all. That just doesn’t feel draftable. If it is, its because some team thinks they can stash a mop-up reliever on the MLB roster…and that Simmons would actually be able to develop on that role. I don’t think so.

Banwart and Carignan I think both have decent shots of being added. Banwart has the stats, and more importantly, the health. I’m not sure he has a TON of upside, but he probably can be one of those 5.00 ERA 5th starters that some teams employ. For example, I think the Pirates could easily stomach starting Banwart all season over Morton, etc, and see if he can develop. If you can’t find a way to give the SP consistent innings in the majors, I don’t think you can take him, since I’m not seeing a point to converting Banwart to relief. Still, there might be better SP candidates to do this to…but Banwart seems like a better pick than Cassevah of a year ago for this role.

Carignan, on the other hand, fits the rule 5 draft idea perfectly to me. I don’t think he will ever fix his control issues, but he’s got the K potential to think he might be able to stick in a bullpen somewhere. The major problem is injuries, and its concerning that the A’s don’t seem to actually know what exactly was wrong with him, but supposedly he is healthy. Draft him, and if he sucks in Spring Training, gets hurt, or still walks a batter per inning, cut him back to the A’s and move on. Might not be that hard to Jay Marshall him, though, and steal a potential prospect.

Overall, though, I guess I trust the A’s judgment. If they found a reason to protect Sean Doolittle over any of these guys, they must think upside is very limited (Banwart) or injuries are too great (Carignan).

I follow from out of town so I’d be interested to hear what some of you who probably know more, think about this.