I am sure that some of the AN regulars will be able to have fun with that Fanpost title -- but I want to say that in general I have been happy with Geren, his lineup decisions and usage of the bullpen.  My main point here is that I am getting a little upset by the fact that Geren does not seem to think that some of our guys need days off. 

First, I would like to point out that Kurt Suzuki is NOT Jason Kendall.  Even though he is young, he needs to take a day off more then once every three weeks.  He has appeared in 37 of 40 games this year (36 of those were starts).  He leads the entire MLB in innings and Games Started by catchers.  The second place catcher in both of those stats is.... Jason Kendall (stunned silence).  Should we really be running Suzuki out there this much?  Is the Bowen-Geren relationship somehow similar to the Macha-Melhuse one?  I am not saying we need to sit Suzuki because he is struggling offensively, but maybe he is struggling because he is not getting any rest at a very tough position to play every day.  I don't know about you, but it makes me VERY nervous to have a rookie catcher that is leading MLB in innings and starts.  Just not the way to keep him healthy.

Problem number two is Mark Ellis.  He is currently 4th in innings played by second basemen (and would be third if he had not missed yesterday's game with a pulled hamstring).  He has played in all 39 A's games prior to yesterdays injury, and started 38 of those games.  Maybe a day or two off would not have prevented the hamstring injury that might land him on the DL, but it could not have hurt.  Not to mention that Ellis has struggled a bit at the plate and a day or two off would also possibly help keep him rested. 

Finally, our oft-injured shortstop Bobby Crosby.  This is the guy that has been injured for us constantly throughout his career.  This is the guy that management wants us to believe that his health is a key for potential success this year.  Yet, this is also the guy that has not had ONE day off this year.  He has played (and started) all 40 games the A's have played this year.  He leads all of MLB in innings played at shortstop.  This is how we take care of one of our more fragile players?  Crosby has also not been hitting so great of late, and couldn't a day off here and there help keep his bat fresh and rested as well?

I realize the depth at middle infield has been sparse this season, but Murphy is on the bench and can play these positions.  For once, rather rhen watching our guys drive themselves into the ground later in the season, lets actually use our bench and give some of these guys an occasional day off.   Would it be so terrible if Murphy got one start during a week at 2B and then one start the next week at SS (giving Ellis and Crosby a day off every two weeks)?   And Suzuki should get a day off almost every week.  We could even try and get matchup advantages by using Bowen against tough right handers.  Not a platoon, but just looking ahead at the schedule and thinking about scheduling Suzuki's off day for a matchup where Bowen might have a slight offensive advantage based on being a switch hitter. 

I am rambling a bit at this point, so I will finish up and just say that if we want to actually keep these guys playing all season (and we may already have lost the chance for Ellis to do that) we need to give them days off.  They are playing the most demanding (and important) defensive postions on the field and to not give them even an occasional off day is just downright stupid. 

The provider of concessions at the Coliseum says reports of its filthiness are greatly exaggerated.  Also, the A's say the team did not know of the results of the survey until it was published in Portfolio, and an Alameda County health inspector agreed that the Coliseum does not have a serious problem and thinks the Portfolio reporters may have got hold of the wrong data.  Aramark is also going to be providing food services for the Beijing Olympics.   I hope they look for some more interesting recipes while they're there.  The original Portfolio story is here.

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Hello A's Fans:

I'm Chetan and I'm one of the hosts of the new show The Sports Ramble which is premiering Sunday, May 18th, 2008 on 1220AM KNTS radio! Like my friend, westsideclubbin said it will be on Sundays from 8PM to 10PM and is a call-in show for all A's fans to talk about your A's. The show will also discuss Raiders, Warriors, Sharks, and other Bay Area and National Sports stories that are hot! Our main emphasis is East Bay Sports to answer back at what KNBR has all day for the Giants and 49ers! Because our radio station signal is weak at that time of day we encourage listeners to listen live as we are streamed online on 1220knts.com.  We'll take all your phone calls at 1-800-516-1220 and take your emails at sportsramble1220@gmail.com.

We want you to tune in, call-in, email in and be involved as this show is for all you crazy die-hard A's fans!

Good thing it is on clearance:

Oakland A's Rally Monkey 

I simply cannot believe that they would offer this ridiculous product for the A's or any self-respecting team for that matter (Don't worry Angels fans, you don't count). I would like to think that the other teams would prefer to let the Angels keep their stupid little toy to themselves.

Perhaps capitalism taught MLB a lesson and nobody bought these pieces of trash. I only hope that I never see one of these creations again.

Ryan A

A man dressed up as Darth Vader assaulted a church of Jedis  with a metal crutch in Wales.

Arwel Wynne Hughes, 27, attacked Jedi church founder Barney Jones — aka Master Jonba Hehol — with a metal crutch, hitting him on the head, prosecutors told Holyhead Magistrates' Court.

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The Chron's Jake Curtis published this article online today:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/05/13/SPOM10L4FO.DTL

In it describes Jack McGeary, who was drafted and signed by the Nats in the 6th rd when he had 1st rd talent.  His contract, which is "way over slot," allows him to take classes at Stanford for 3 years.  This, of course, disqualifies him from amateur competition, but allows him to play in the minors in June to whenever school starts.  In his offseason, McGeary works out, conditions, and throws on his own (about 4 h/day).

" It's kind of a solitary thing," McGeary said.

Can this work?

Academically, he maintains a 3.5 GPA albeit with an "interesting" courseload while majoring in Classics (why he forgoes baseball to major in "Classics" is beyond me; isn't he going to school to have a backup job?):

Exploring the Death Penalty; American Literature and Culture to 1855; Management of Sustainable Building Projects; Epic Journeys, Modern Quests (humanities requirement); Sports Nutrition; History of Medicine; Anthropology of Medicine

How about baseball wise? 

Legendary Stanford Coach Mike Marquess:

"I understand it," Stanford coach Mark Marquess said, "but I don't think it was a good decision for his baseball or for his schooling. But it was a family decision and he has a good, strong family."

Nats front office guy:

"He looked outstanding," Rizzo said. "His body is in terrific shape, his arm was live, the ball came out of his hand well."

"The industry is going to be surprised how quickly he develops," Rizzo said.

The agent:

"It's Jim Bowden's creativity; that's the best way to describe it," said Mc- Geary's agent (and former Stanford football player), Brodie Van Wagenen.

In conclusion, this is definitely interesting and kudos to Curtis for breaking an impressive story.  It obviously takes the right person to be a self-starter and to not procrastinate.  Also, I'm don't think this will work for position players.  For A's fans, we think Justin Smoak; the well documented 16th rd firstbaseman with 1st rd talent who chose to be a Gamecock because the A's wouldn't pay him 7 figs.  He probably wouldn't have developed without live pitching.  In this instance, the A's just should have paid him, and I think the 2008 (100% baseball) A's would have got 'er done.

Next to y'all, Dave Zirin is my favorite sports writer. 

In this week's column Dave writes,

"All traces of Bonds, the greatest player in baseball history, have vanished from the Bay. The left-field wall no longer carries an image of Bonds chasing Hank Aaron for the crown. There is no marker of where Bonds hit home run number 756. There is no reminder that Bonds ever even wore a Giants uniform.

      But it's not just Magowan trying to “disappear” Barry Bonds. He has been blackballed in a blatant and illegal act of Major League collusion, a bosses' boycott."

And

"There is one problem. Bonds doesn't want to go gently into that good night and is pushing his union to fight back. He has asked the Players Association to file collusion charges on his behalf and the union has served Commissioner Bud Selig with papers."

So what do you think?  Is Bonds a victim of "a once time honored  practice" of owner collusion or "a rare display of common sense"?

Disclaimer: I'm from Oakland, "home of some of the most important social movements of the last 100 years" so I'm willing to entertain a conspiracy theory or two.  But not without your penetrating analysis and opinion-as-biased-as-mine that I've come to expect from my other favorite sports writers:  y'all.

Hello, this may be a bit of a cheap plug but I have a new blog up and today's article I profiled Dana Eveland and his great start to the season using PITCHFX data and some other stats. I thought it was interesting and hoped some of you might too. Since I'm an NRAF I've only seen one of Eveland's starts so the data is all I really have to go off of.

Any criticisms/comments are welcome and appreciated.

Thanks for your time.

http://oakas.blogspot.com/

Where Did He Come From?

Eveland was selected in the 16th round of the 2002 draft by the Milwaukee Brewers and signed a year later. After two years of starting in the minors the Brewers called up Smith in 2005 as a 21 year old and put him in the bullpen with not much success, posting a 5.97 ERA in 27 appearances.

He would be called up again in 2006, making 9 appearances and 5 starts but posting a 8.13 ERA. He was then sent in the 2006 offseason to the Arizona Diamondbacks as a minor piece of the Doug Davis-Johnny Estrada trade. He would only make 5 appearances for the Diamondbacks that year with a 14.40 ERA.

Eveland was then traded to Oakland as one the 6 players received in the Dan Haren trade (some would argue the sixth best) and was promptly inserted as the A's fifth starter this season.

What Do The Stats Say?

Statheads have always been enamored with Eveland's strikeout potential. He posted an insane 14.19 K/9 (strikeouts per 9 innings) as a 19 year old in 26 innings of rookie ball. He followed that up the next year with a 9.13 K/9 in A ball, and over his minor league career has posted an excellent 8.84 K/9. He also kept his walks down to 2.77 per 9 over his minor league career for a great 3.2 K:BB. In fact, taking a look at Eveland's career minor league line (413.2 IP, 2.61 ERA, 1.16 WHIP, 403 K) one wonders why he hasn't been given more of a real shot until now.

While Eveland hasn't matched those impressive numbers in the majors this season, he has done fairly well, 6.65 K/9 (6.27 league average), 3.80 BB/9 (3.43), 7.42 H/9 (8.87). While most of these numbers are close to league average, Eveland's 3.23 ERA (4.15) is certainly not. Why is that the case?

Is He Lucky?

The first thing that probably pops into most people's minds after seeing his prior MLB history is that Eveland must be incredibly lucky so far this year. Looking at his rate statistics we can see that while he has been somewhat lucky in regards to his flyballs he's actually pitching very well.

One of the quick stats to highlight a pitcher's luckiness is his Fielding Independent ERA (FIP). This stat is based solely on a pitchers BB, K, and HR rates, which many consider the only stats a pitcher has true control over. Eveland's FIP is 3.51, which is a +.31 difference from his ERA. While .31 is certainly a relevant number it is not an extremely large difference and even if his ERA matched his FIP he'd still be a top level pitcher.

The problem that FIP doesn't show is that Eveland's been very lucky in regards to his home run rate. He has only allowed 2 HR on the season and is sporting a 4.2% HR/FB (home runs per a fly ball), with league average being around 10%. Since at least 1 run scores per a HR this has the largest effect on Eveland's low ERA. Now to be fair to Eveland, he does have a 0.37 HR/9 in the minors, but he probably isn't this good at preventing home runs. Normalizing his HR rate to 10% would result in a 3 HR increase, and increase his ERA to at least 4.00.

How Does He Do It?

First a look at Eveland's pitch data (the cutters are probably data errors and can be discarded as far as I can tell)

Like most pitchers, Eveland relies primarily on his fastball which averages 91 mph. While not an overpowering pitch, his fastball has a good break on it, almost 8 inches into left handed batters. He then favors his slider, throwing it 17% of the time. With a similar break to his fastball in the opposite direction, it is a good pitch to keep hitters off balance. His repertoire also features a curve and a change. Since the curve moves a similar amount in on right handed batters yet half a foot lower, hitters may have a hard time picking up the difference between the two. He actually hasn't thrown the changeup to a left handed batter (LHB) yet, maybe because it moves a whole foot to the left, probably too close to hitting a LHB. With about a 7 mph difference between his fastball and his change Eveland can keep righties off balance.

So Who Is He Really?

Clearly, Eveland is not a low #1 starter as his ERA currently shows. But he isn't a AAAA pitcher either. He's probably better than his weighted mean PECOTA projection, and I don't think he's the 54% groundball pitcher PECOTA says he is (though he probably isn't as low as his 46% currently is). I believe if he can increase his strikeout rate a bit and induce a few more groundballs while maintaining his walk and hit rates (I don't think this is too unreasonable), he'll end the year with an ERA somewhere in the 4.10-4.25 range.

I think the A's would have much to gain by acting on this idea. The fact that closers are so volatile and Billy Beane has proven he can find another one is just a nice foundation to start: But other advntages include the continue stickpiling of the farm system.

What is one thing the A's may still need in the future? A big time power source....and there is a team out there who may be desperate for a closer and a power source with a lack of a position. How about Street for Matt LaPorta? And maybe another player or two as that is how deals for proven major leaguers ususally happen. This would be such a great move for the long-term strategy for this franchise. Oakland would become legit title contenders for the next handful of years. With the great pitching now and on the way, Street can easily be replaced, and most likely even internally.

LaPorta is one idea? Any others? Thoughts?

AN, clockwerks and his team have basically rebuilt the search function from the ground up.  He told me that Athletics Nation was one of the driving forces behind this new search.  It really lets you dive deep into Athletics Nation and should make it much easier for you to find old stories and even different stories by different authors.

Play with it and let us know what you think.  There was a ton of work that went into it and I toyed around with it and thought it was brilliant.