How Can We Keep Kurt Fresh?

who’s Kurt Fresh? i look forward to reading this!

But, really, the answer should be as simple as “don’t have him play in 45 games in June and July.”

I’m not worried about Kurt getting hurt as much as I’m worried about him wearing down. And, like you said, his offense isn’t so good that he has to be in the lineup every day. If the A’s really do want his bat in the lineup, give him off days from catching against lefties and let him DH on those days.

Fosse in his color commentary has many times mentioned how Kendell indoctrinated Kurt with the notion of not giving your job away and catch every game possible. I hope Powell/Donaldson can get some playing time so we don’t run Kurt into the ground.

then the answer is that he should be catching 147-148 games, not 131. There was a clear and obvious direct correlation to his reduced workload and reduced value at the plate.

/sarcasm

Incidently, if Powell started all of Braden’s starts last year, that would left 132 games for Suzuki to start. How many times did Suzuki start more than 6 games in a row last year, anyway?

Should keep him fresh for at least a week.

but a manager has got to sit him despite his protesting. Watching almost every day it seems that he plays tired through the dog days of the season. It looks like he’s trying to keep up a brave front and play through the fatigue, but it’s not doing the team any real good, except perhaps as an example of hustle and drive. There were, it was apparent to me, long spells where he was an automatic out. Don’t get me wrong—there are very few catchers in the league (either league for that matter) that I would rather have playing for the A’s. I would love to see him start no more than ten games over any two week period. If his bat is hot, keep him in the lineup as DH against lefties (or righties too if Matsui is scuffling). If not, sit him down and tell him you’re doing what’s best for him and for the team. My guess is that he’d accept that even if he didn’t particularly like it. By the way, increased playing time for either Powell or Donaldson can’t help but make them better.

Stop trotting Kurt out there every single game even if he gets upset that he’s not starting.

who cares if he’s slow. He’s good with the pitchers and he can come off the bench to pinch hit too.

Heard this: Chad Qualls is looking for a one-year deal, looking to re-establish valuebefore going back out on the market.

1-year/$1.5 million?

Could, but defense has to improve. RT @rdgoldber: @Kevin_Goldstein Do you think that Parker could end up as the A’s 3B, long-term?

Start Parker at AA this year and hope he can make it up to AAA at the end of the year.

The A’s often carried three catchers, but they could also play other positions. Gene Tenace, Jeff Newman played a lot of first base. My feeling is spread it around, Powell and, I know this will provoke some anger. Stick Barton back there when necessary. I really gets to me when Geren DH’s one of the catchers. If he has to come in on defense, there goes the DH.

wish that Oakland’s manager had ideas that good. fire Geren.

Hell of a lot better than just rolling Suzuki out there everyday and seeing his tired ass pop up 20% of the time. Plus, I really don’t see any other solutions: Geren isn’t going to play him less (and I don’t think Suzuki wants to play less), I tend to think Donaldson is off in a trade sooner rather than later, and Recker is still not there defensively from what I understand.

So yeah. That or frequent DL trips.

puttin in Powell during Braden starts,may give Suzuki an extra day off a week depending on the schedule.Up in Seattle Felix Rodriguez has Rob Johnson be his personall catcher.So it can work for the A’s.This also give you the ability to DH Suzuki against lefties and give Matsui time off the he WILL need.

But you all got me thinking about our lineup (if the season were to begin today) and I think we still need to make one change. For the life of me, I cannot understand why Conor Jackson is slotted to be our fifth outfielder. There are currently 2 players on the bench whom I feel are significant offensive downgrades behind the starters: Jackson and Powell. A backup catcher is a necessity, however a fifth outfielder is not. I understand that trying to find an injured outfielder on the A’s is like trying to find hay in a haystack, but let’s move past that. We can always bring up Carter if someone goes on the DL. Why don’t we put that bench spot to use. We can sign another veteran bat to share time at DH with Matsui. They can get 2-3 starts per week at DH, and pinch hit in close games. If someone goes down in the field, they would also have to be an emergency OF, 1B, or whatever, but that would be a very temporary solution. I think if we’re serious about winning this year, this move makes sense. What say you?

Landon turns 29 this year, and sooner or later Billy is going to have to realize that he’s probably hit his ceiling. I don’t think Donaldson might end up being much better than Powell. In fact, they’re actually pretty similar. Seems kind of redundant to keep both around.

Kurt has been overworked, and that showed this year. Landon Powell is a good solution to that problem, because not only should he be catcher in all of Braden’s starts (as mentioned, they work well together), but also get a game in here and there. Powell is a decent defensive catcher, he just needs to improve his offense.
If you look at Powell’s stats, it’s clear that he doesn’t swing the bat well. 2010 in particular was a terrible year for Powell at the plate. Pretty much all of his offensive stats went down. There doesn’t seem to be any clear solution, expect “get more hits”. And that’s not a good solution.
I f you look at Powell’s game-by-game log for 2010, you see that in the 35 games where Powell got an at-bat (he played in 41), he got at least one hit in 17 games. In 6 of those games, he had a multi-hit game. In 11, he had just one hit.
Now, what about those other 18 games? Well, in 4 of them, he went 0-for-3. In 5, he went 0-for-4. That leaves another 9 games where he either went 0-for-1 or 0-for-2.
In games where he got a hit, Powell went 24-for-50, adding up to a BA of just under .500. BUT, in the games where he was hitless, he went 0-for-62. The difference between games played where he was hitless (18) and those where he got a hit (17) was just 1 game, but 12 at-bats. That shows that Powell was hitless in games where he got more AB’s than in those in which he did get a hit. And that will definitely bring down your batting average.
Oh, and as for splits? Powell got nearly four times as many hits against righties than he did against lefties. He played 26 road games and just 12 home games. It would seem he was slightly better on the road than at home, until you see he struck out three times as any times than he did at home. Oh, and Powell struggled after the All-Star break, batting just .167.
Well, now that we’re at the end of that, what’s the solution? Simple. Be more patient (Powell saw over 100 fewer pitches than he did in 2009). Don’t get on top of the ball( too many groundouts, hitting the ball in the air gave Powell 8 more XBH in 2009 than in 2010, as well as 5 more HR’s). Those things, as well as minor adjustments to his splits, should improve Powell’s offensive stats. By following those things, as well as with a bit of luck, Powell could look like this in 2011:

G: 52
AB: 159
H: 49
BA: .257
HR: 8
RBI: 34
BB: 18
SO: 27
2B: 10

Not awesome, but a definite improvement.
So overall, I think that giving Kurt rest and Powell more time is a good idea.