Why did the A’s change their philosophy?
by Dylan Robinson on May 1, 2011 12:08 AM PDT
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Back when the A’s were making the playoffs the team always had some good hit no field players. Players like No slide Giambi, Stairs, and Thomas were the norm. However in recent years the teams has gone with good Defensive position players such as Coco and Dejesus. The last two seasons have proven this strategy ineffective, boring, frustrating, and terrible for attendance.
Let me point out two players were they have this Defense thing wrong. Cardenas a 23 year old infielder who plays third and is currently batting .358 with an ops of .873. I don’t care if his fielding is worse than a college player he should be the starter at third. But the A’s say he is not ready because of defense?
The Second player I want to highlight is Brett Wallace who is having a monster season with Houston this year. Batting .388 with a .982 ops this guy doubles Kouz in obp I think his lack of defense could be compensated for with all these extra hits. This guy should have been named the starting at 3rd last season and we would not have this hole their right now. However the A’s made a terrible trade and now we are stuck with Kouz. I do realize he plays first on Houston but the A’s have MR. Walk at first.
Billy has the same problem that many fans have when he looks at a roster. He evaluates them as individual players instead of as a unit. Every position player outside of Willingham can be described as good fielding with a decent bat. This creates this current lack of hitting and puts the A’s on the path toward another .500 season. Please Billy bring up a bat and don’t give us any more excuses about defense.
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Oh, dear
2011 Oakland Athletics: We have Cy Young pitchers and make yours look like it, too
by elcroata on May 1, 2011 1:14 AM PDT reply actions 1 recs
I won't pretend to know which type of baseball is better
but this version sure isn’t much fun to watch.
Happy to be here.
I disagree. 1-0 and 2-1 pitchers' duels are my type of games.
Then again, the positions I’ve always played in baseball and now wiffleball are pitcher and catcher, so I’m sort of inclined to hate offense.
I still have some Drysdale/Gibson in me, and even though I don’t advocate it for unionized major leaguers anymore, if someone gets a dinger off me, they’re gonna hit the dirt in the next at-bat.
Then again, throwing wiffleballs these days, you gotta do it different. The best way is to have the next two pitches be hard breaking balls that start inside and will hit the batter in the face if he/she doesn’t hit the dirt. Fastballs aimed at the face work too. Basically, the face is the only place you can brush someone back in wiffleball.
"OK and now everybody who said 'game over' at some point
GO KNEEL IN THE CORNER!" - elcroata
by Gaijin_Suketto on May 1, 2011 9:20 AM PDT up reply actions
So wiffle ball games are low scoring?
I never really played wiffle ball growing up so I don’t know much about it.
Happy to be here.
Wallace is playing first base, not third
And not very well, from what I’ve read
by OaklandSi on May 1, 2011 9:08 AM PDT via mobile reply actions
Wallace is playing first base like a lamppost.
It’s either past him or clangs off of him.
He’s a butcher out there.
Quite frankly, I think Landon Powell is a better infielder with more range.
"OK and now everybody who said 'game over' at some point
GO KNEEL IN THE CORNER!" - elcroata
by Gaijin_Suketto on May 1, 2011 9:21 AM PDT up reply actions
Yes. The A's moved Wallace (if that's even possible)
because they saw he wouldn’t make it defensively as a 3Bman. It was a good trade on that basis alone. The face that he appears unable to make it defensively as a 1Bman just makes it a no-brainer.
I like Cindi. A. She never pretends to know more than she does. B. She has unbridled enthusiasm for her "Hotties," and isn't afraid to show it. -IM4Oakgal
Wallace actually + Defensive value at 1B last year.
And is only a little below average right now.
"Carter's 25-game hitting streak isn't any normal streak. He's 46 for 97 (.474 average) during the run, adding 16 walks and compiling 81 total bases in the process. I'm out of superlatives for what he's doing." - Kevin Goldstein
the bigger issue is the 471 babip. that will not be sustained.
the artist formerly known as inbillywetrust
If you recall
He was drafted as a 3rd baseman, but the A’s organization always questioned whether or not he could play 3rd. Hell pay me $400,000/yr and I can give you Kouzmanoff’s defensive ability
by Matt Sampson on May 1, 2011 10:24 AM PDT up reply actions
Friends don't let friends blog drunk
I got nothin'
by OptimistPrime on May 1, 2011 9:11 AM PDT reply actions 4 recs
As I recall, the "no slide" Giambi couldn't hit. It was that other one that could hit...
At one point in my life I liked Dave Kingman more than Rickey Henderson. I was stupid.
And, by the way, your 1:4.5 ratio is awesome...
At one point in my life I liked Dave Kingman more than Rickey Henderson. I was stupid.
by the_rozeboom on May 1, 2011 10:49 AM PDT up reply actions
Here's something to think about
The A’s play in a pitcher’s park, one that’s become even more of one compared to other, newer ballparks.
Doesn’t it make sense to build your team to take advantage of that?
I’m not saying I like watching a team that struggles to put three or four runs on the board, but given where they play it’s silly to try to construct your team like, say, Texas.
Last of the Ninth - Photography
When we were winning 90+ games a year...
We had great pitching. We have had that now for 2 years. However we seemed to trade our good offense of the 2000-2004 teams for a good defensive team we have now. Now you tell me who was more successful.
"Carter's 25-game hitting streak isn't any normal streak. He's 46 for 97 (.474 average) during the run, adding 16 walks and compiling 81 total bases in the process. I'm out of superlatives for what he's doing." - Kevin Goldstein
The A's have tried under Beane to accumulate undervalued talent
10 years ago guys like Matt Stairs were undervalued. Now, high OBA players are expensive, even if they K a lot and/or don’t have a really high BA.
The A’s need to stay one step ahead of other teams, and they seem to have decided that defense is either poorly-understood or just not valued very highly by other teams. So that’s what they’re going after.
Also, what Flashfire said. Teams in extreme parks need to play to the strengths of those parks. If they can also do other things well, that’s great, but if they don’t play to the characteristics of the place they play 1/2 their games in they’re very unlikely to be successful.
"And Julio Franco is batting right-handed!" -- Wayne Hagin, A's radio play-by-play, mid-80s
Well we are finding out now that playing to the strengths of our park by getting defenders..
isnt work out so well. We were much more successful when playing to high OBP +HR guys.
"Carter's 25-game hitting streak isn't any normal streak. He's 46 for 97 (.474 average) during the run, adding 16 walks and compiling 81 total bases in the process. I'm out of superlatives for what he's doing." - Kevin Goldstein
Well, Chavez and Tejada were very good defensive players.
I like Cindi. A. She never pretends to know more than she does. B. She has unbridled enthusiasm for her "Hotties," and isn't afraid to show it. -IM4Oakgal
In what world was Tejada a very good defensive player?
You don't need a religion, you have the A's. - My girlfriend
by designatedforassignment on May 1, 2011 2:55 PM PDT up reply actions
The argument is based on what they can afford
That is, given how much more expensive good hitters are, the “good hitting” lineup they could actually put together would be worse than this one.
That doesn’t count pre-arb players, though. Obviously if Grant Green really were as good as Tulowitzki, that would be great. But Beane can’t afford to sign the real Tulo.
"And Julio Franco is batting right-handed!" -- Wayne Hagin, A's radio play-by-play, mid-80s
On top of that, in general it's going to cost the A's more to bring an above-average hitter here...
…or keep one here compared to what it’s going to cost for a pitcher.
Last of the Ninth - Photography
I don't see how you can compare Wallace with Kouz in the first place.
Kouz wasn’t even on the team when Brett was traded to Tor. A better comparison would be Wallace and Taylor. AT THE TIME, Taylor filled one of our needs( powerhitting Corner OF), just as well as Wallace would at 3rd, with a MUCH better defensive outlook. IF Taylor was hitting today as he was expected to when the trade was made, we wouldn’t even be having this discussion.
Life insurance s..cks. I'm now worth more dead than alive.
We were also still in the running for Beltre when the Wallace/Taylor trade was made.
If BB had been able to sign Adrian for the two years, Wallace would have been redundant at best. By trading for Taylor, the OF need was filled.
Life insurance s..cks. I'm now worth more dead than alive.
I have a hard time wrapping my mind around the notion that
Brett Wallace could be a passable ML 3rd Baseman. Maybe in the Bonilla/Panda sense, but really…uh, no.
"Only one girl ever fell in love with me, and she was nuts."
-Eddie Waitkus
by CmdrKhraanik on May 3, 2011 12:41 PM PDT up reply actions
I doubt BB ever had much hope of Wallace sticking at third
If he did, he would have picked him ahead of Weeks.
by Glorious Mundy on May 3, 2011 1:31 PM PDT up reply actions
This is true.
But, I was referring to the posts notion of comparing Wallace with Kouz. I don’t think that Wallace was a 3rd baseman either, so comparing Brett with Kevin is illogical. At the time, we had many flaws in the team, and in retrospect, Wallace didn’t fill any of them.
Life insurance s..cks. I'm now worth more dead than alive.
We used to win
Why did we decide to stop winning?
by Rebuilding Season on May 2, 2011 1:46 PM PDT reply actions
My 3-year old nephew told me a joke on Sunday
“Knock knock.”
Me- Who’s there?
“Boo.”
Me- Boo who?
“Why ya cryin’?!”
Josh Willingham hit a 2-run homer off King Felix- April Fools Day
by ohtobe21likehuston on May 2, 2011 2:10 PM PDT reply actions
Notice how Dylan started this and then, you know, disappeared?
That’s sort of what he does.
MexicAN AmericAN VegAN
As I said above... his 1:4.5 ratio is awesome.
At one point in my life I liked Dave Kingman more than Rickey Henderson. I was stupid.
I want to see the flags leaderboard
You don't need a religion, you have the A's. - My girlfriend
by designatedforassignment on May 3, 2011 10:20 AM PDT up reply actions
Making the flags leaderboard would require
a curious mix of tendencies. One would have to draw a lot of flags, but also draw flags that don’t result in getting banned.
That is, the people on the flags leaderboard would tend to be those with a talent for continuing to draw frivolous flags that the mods don’t consider worthy of taking action on.
Sweet is the lore which Nature brings; / Our meddling intellect
Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:— / We murder to dissect.
Also i be the leaders are all significant contributors, since you get more leniency if youre a regular
You don't need a religion, you have the A's. - My girlfriend
by designatedforassignment on May 3, 2011 3:47 PM PDT up reply actions
So, in other words, me
"We don't want our people to be preoccupied with seminude, crazy men jumping up and down who are chasing an inflated object," said Sheik Mohamed Osman Arus, head of operations for the Hizbul Islam insurgent group.
Wasn't there a DLD where some people's numbers of flags were given without the names?
"Loyal? I'm the most loyal player money can buy." - Don Sutton
Dan said I have the most.
You don't need a religion, you have the A's. - My girlfriend
by designatedforassignment on May 3, 2011 3:45 PM PDT up reply actions
i get comments
Most of the people who complain about me write the same posts that are not interesting I come with something different thoughts Check the number of comments on my posts what is the website for if everyone agrees.
Please fire Bob
The Gilette razor ads get comments, too.
Sweet is the lore which Nature brings; / Our meddling intellect
Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:— / We murder to dissect.
by iglew on May 4, 2011 1:13 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
They're very well thought out, though.
I like Cindi. A. She never pretends to know more than she does. B. She has unbridled enthusiasm for her "Hotties," and isn't afraid to show it. -IM4Oakgal
I don't think you really "get" it, though
People who post are expected to actually participate in any discussion that follows. You never said anything to the points I made further up, for example.
Nothing you’ve said is really all that original either. Just another form of the same old complaints.
Last of the Ninth - Photography
Also,
Undeveloped half-thoughts and demonstrably wrong facts aren’t exactly the greatest form of “different thoughts”.
Philosophy is a tricky thing
Just ask Socrates…
Being called a poet as a rock ’n’ roll musician is like being called a physicist as a baseball player. It might have some application but it’s pretty remote. - Richard Hell
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