"We Don't Have A Strasburg" (An A's Fan Lament)

Yeah, no Strasburg, no Harper–the A’s also haven’t finished in last place for four of the last five years like the Nationals. As gillyball said, most of the players you mentioned were the 1st overall picks. Would you stop “lamenting” if Oakland was the worst team in baseball? Doubt it. They only way to draft these surefire studs is to be terrible, year-in year-out like the Rays and the Nationals have been.

And if you look at the standings, you’d see that Upton and the D’Backs and Strasburg and the Nats are both in last place, and the A’s in all their mediocrity are better than both of them.

Are you sure you are an A’s fan? On behalf of our AN community…goodbye, go root for the Nationals.

and so I thought is was mildly entertaining.

But I’ll answer your Strausburg with a Ynoa. Now find something that rhymes with that!

it would be “Ee-noah” (as the “I” sounds like “ee” in spanish, or so I once learned in high school).

the only thing that came to mind for rhyming, and possible poetic injection was “Rocky Balboa”.

Chavez, Crosby, Haren and Harden. It’s just that none were healthy. He also did sign Ynoa and make a pretty good run at Chapman. The plan was reasonable…but the results….well…

over Strasburg anyday. Give those two guys some real run support and they’d win 20+ games every year!

…that the higher the draft pick, the better the resulting team. Yet, teams like the Pirates (yes, I’m playing the Pirate card) consistently draft higher than us yet consistently have even crappier teams that us. Why is that?

Oh, I know… It’s because higher draft positions… while certainly helpful… aren’t 100% of the equation. You still have to draft and develop well. You still have to keep said good players instead of trading them away as soon as they command a salary larger than minimum. Stuff like that. A well-run team can survive nicely with lesser picks.

BA 2009 Top 15

1. Matt Wieters, c, Orioles
2. David Price, lhp, Rays
3. Colby Rasmus, of, Cardinals
4. Tommy Hanson, rhp, Braves
5. Jason Heyward, of, Braves
6. Travis Snider, of, Blue Jays
7. Brett Anderson, lhp, Athletics
8. Cameron Maybin, of, Marlins
9. Madison Bumgarner, lhp, Giants
10. Neftali Feliz, rhp, Rangers
11. Trevor Cahill, rhp, Athletics
12. Pedro Alvarez, 3b, Pirates
13. Mike Moustakas, 3b, Royals
14. Buster Posey, c, Giants
15. Dexter Fowler, of, Rockies

If Anderson and/or Cahill stay in AAA last year, they make top 10 again in 2010 with guys like Heyward.

And yeah, we don’t have a Strasburg, but there were two near-equally horrible teams in ‘08 that didn’t get Strasburg. The Nats got that #1 pick that got them Strasburg by ONE game. Dustin Ackley and Donovan Tate are not generational talents.

With the exception of your ridiculous generational phenom talents (ex. Strasburg, Harper, Justin Upton, Mark Prior, although he wasn’t picked #1) that only crop up rarely, there’s generally not much separating the top 10-15. Considering the crapshoot that is prospects, really not much.

Are there more than one of each of those?

{waves bye bye!}

I am grateful that the A’s don’t often qualify for the first or one of the first draft picks. That would make for some pretty sucky baseball.

Unfortunately I have no artistic talent at all.

The wheel of mediocrity is a giant ferris wheel, positioned high above a vast sea of shit. Somewhere in the distance, across miles of suck, is the island of playoffs. The A’s are riding in the ferris wheel, and crazy caps dude thinks they should dive out and swim through the sea of suck to try to make it to the promised land.