*UPDATED: Now with poll!*

[Prefatory note: Big thanks to JediLeroy, who lent his kreepy Photoshop skilz to the illustrations, and to FreeSeatUpgrade, who inspired me to do this with his latest installment of Peanutball.]

Chavvy and the Athletic Factory

Chapter One: "I've Got a Green and Gold Contract"

Over a SICKENING MONTAGE OF OUT-MAKING—T-Long and Melhuse taking called third strikes, Jeremy’s Jetered jeté, Tejada and Byrnes Knoblauching their way into infamy, Big Hurt popping out against the Tigers—the opening credits roll:

CHAVVY AND THE ATHLETIC FACTORY

Directed by Billy Beane. Written by Billy Beane. From the novel by Billy Beane. Produced by Lew Wolff. Edited by David Forst. A Crywolffisher Production.

We hear the TOLLING OF A BELL. Fade up on a CLOCK TOWER striking four o’clock:

[Click on the jump for the rest of the Cinematic Interlude.]

Poll

Wonka meets American Idol time: regardless of the narrative of the original book or movie, which of the little brats should be dispatched first in next week's chapter? I'll off whomever the poll tells me to first.

• Giambus Gloop
• Verukot Say
• Leftyvet Barrygarde
• Rich Dee Ell

  24 votes | Results

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One of the downsides of a rebuilding season is that occasionally a player will be put in the majors before they're ready, especially when you have a series of serious injuries.  Gio Gonzalez seems to be a victim of this.  He's still only 22 years old (he'll be 23 years old in 11 days).  I don't really think his stuff is bad, I think it's just a matter of him having a tough time hitting the zone and when he finally does, it's in predictable fastball counts where a hitter can tee off on his 91-92 MPH fastball.  He should probably get pulled from the rotation before he gets ruined mentally.  Course you have to expect a lineup like the Tigers to be itching to face someone like Gio.  He's a lefty, struggling to hit the zone and when he does, it tends to be centered.

Josh Outman followed and didn't fair much better.  He gave up three runs in less than three innings.  He does look like he has a pretty good fastball, but the Detroit announcers kept commenting on how straight it was.  Speaking of Detroit announcers, I love it when folks from larger markets continually rag on the A's.  I mean, Dude, all the Pizza, Pizza money in the world isn't going to get you into the playoffs this year.  Who cares if you have guys like Sheffield, Ordonez and Polanco in the lineup if you aren't going to come anywhere near the postseason?  I really wish Major League Baseball would get with the 21st Century and give us the option to watch the A's broadcasts.  After 143 games, I'm pretty tired of hearing all the chumps calling games for other teams.  The A's TV team isn't the best one in the majors, but they aren't revolting like so many others out there.

The A's actually outhit the Tigers 13-12 but A's pitching wound up giving up a lot of extra base hits as well as walking five batters and hitting three.  It's just one of those games where the A's offense actually showed up but the pitching wasn't in sync.  

It's weird because I can honestly say that outside of these last two years with the A's, I can't remember going through a whole lot of losing seasons with my favorite teams.  The New Jersey Devils have been very good for a long, long time.  The A's have been very, very good for a long time.  It really makes one appreciate those good times and long for them.  Remember the days of Giambi and Dye in the middle of the order and Hudson, Mulder and Zito going every three out of five days?  I'm going to appreciate this so much more when the team finally takes that jump forward again.  It's nights like this with Gio that make you realize that it might be longer away than I think.

By the way, check in with fellow A's fan saint over at Silver and Black Pride tonight.  The Raiders open up the season and with JaMarcus Russell and Darren McFadden, you never know if the Raiders could be bound for a good year this year.  I'm no Al Davis fan, but the silver and black are somewhat interesting in 2008 because of those two young talents.

Yesterday was Part I of the Athletics Nation exclusive interview with A's managing general partner Lewis Wolff.  Today is Part II.

Enjoy!

Blez:   Would it be fair for the fans to give up on the A’s for a couple of seasons since most of them seem to think, probably rightly so, that the team won’t truly compete?  These are hardcore fans that are saying this. 

Wolff:  Do I think it’s right?  I think it’s their privilege.  I would hope they wouldn’t.  The fan we need is someone who understands us and feels like we did the right thing.  The fan that wants to see Gio Gonzalez have a good game and then a bad game and a good game and to see where he’s going.  But that’s a sophisticated fan.  I’m not saying they need a Harvard degree.  Also our venue is such that there is really no scarcity of seating.  Even with the tarp.  We have not filled up very often.  Even during our playoff run.  So the fans in Oakland have the luxury of going to the game if they want to and they don’t have to worry about getting a ticket.  That luxury is nice for the fans and not so great for the owner.  (laughs)

Blez:  I’m going to get to the tarp and the Coliseum a little later, but how do you sell a team that is in rebuilding mode to a market that at times can be ambivalent?  The Coliseum wasn’t even selling out when the A’s were the class of the AL a few seasons back.  Does it take a World Series victory or even two to motivate these fans again?  Or is this just a dead market?

Wolff:  I do think that the proximity between us and the Giants hurts.  They’ve actually moved closer to us.  The six years prior to the year 2000, the Giants outdrew us by around a half a million on average per year.  In 2000 they opened the new ballpark and the attendance has jumped and pretty much has stayed there.  The difference is now about a million and a half although I haven’t checked it this year.  That (the new venue) has something to do with it.  Maybe not 100 percent.  Secondly, Barry Bonds was a big attraction there and we didn’t have Barry Bonds.  The other side of it is the demographic.  Both the Giants and ourselves have a lot of water in front of us so there isn’t anyone else living there.  A couple of other owners tease us that we may be the only inelastic demand team in baseball.  That means that if you won the World Series, the next year would you have two and half or three million out there?  In other words, our band of attendance has been approximately 1.7-2.1 million, win or lose that’s where we’ve been.

Blez:  Does that make you feel helpless as an owner?  It has to be really frustrating that no matter the product you put on the field you’re in the same range.

Wolff:  It’s a very helpless feeling.  It’s been the saddest thing.  And I want to be careful here because the people who do come, they deserve whatever we can give them and we’ve tried to do that.  I always laugh because we have $2 Wednesday night and dollar hot dogs with a limit of 10.

Blez:  I was thinking I could go over that, easily.

Wolff:  (laughing)  I want to be able to drive the person home who eats all 10.  But I don’t know too many ballparks that offer that opportunity.  That’s just our current market.  It’s challenging.  All I would like is to have more fans and we have to earn that.  We can’t ask them to just voluntarily show up.  So our players when they go out on the field are stimulated by a full stadium.  We have to earn that though.  We can’t ask the fans to do our players a favor and come to a game.  I’m not suggesting that.  We have a 40-year-old facility which we share with a football team and we’re in a market that is somewhat lesser than the market 16 miles away.  We have our challenges.  We bought the team knowing that.  But we did buy the team with the idea that we’d get a new venue in the general area.  If we can produce that, we’ll do everyone a favor even though some say, well you’re moving to Fremont that’s like you’re moving to Las Vegas or something.  We don’t consider it that way, but fans might.  We’re not looking to have a huge increase in ticket price, we’re looking for a huge increase in attendance. 

 

 

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Lewis Wolff, the managing general partner of the Oakland Athletics, was kind enough to sit down and do an interview with me last week.  The interview is long and pretty much covers all aspects of your team.  I want to just publicly thank him for giving me nearly two hours of his time and blatant honesty.

So rather than comment more on it, I'll just let you read the first part of what will be four parts that will run this week every morning on Athletics Nation.  I hope you find it as interesting to read as I did to participate in.  Enjoy Part I.

Blez:  First of all I want to thank you for sitting down with me.  It isn’t every owner of a sports franchise that will sit down with someone who runs a blog about the team.

Lewis Wolff:  It’s a very good blog and I know it’s the only one Billy (Beane) really looks at.  I look at it when I have time.  The only other one I look at is A’s new ballpark.  I think the guy is an architect or something. 

Blez:  He posts on Athletics Nation a lot.  His name is vertig0 on AN.  He’s pretty awesome and does a great job with the ballpark.  He’s obsessed with the process of the new ballpark getting done.

Wolff:  Well so am I (laughs). 

Blez:  (laughing) I can understand that.  Let me start off with a bit of a retrospective question.  You’ve owned the A’s for more than three years now and have had some serious peaks and valleys during that time.  2005 was a tough year, the team then goes to the ALCS in 2006 in a really fun and exciting year, and now a down year last year due to the record-setting injuries that led to the rebuilding which, in turn, led to a tough year this year.   How difficult has it been from an owner’s perspective to go through those peaks and valleys?

Wolff:  The difficulty comes from being a fan, which I am.  I’d rather win than lose.  Thanks to some great people here, I’ve experienced so much in the last three years that some owners who’ve owned teams for 20 years haven’t experienced.  It was a condensed experience.  We produced a winner and got to the final four which hasn’t happened with this team in a long time.  That was on my watch and it was because of Billy and all his guys.  That was a thrill but it didn’t really impact our attendance or fan interest at the ballpark as much as I had hoped.  I’m not criticizing them but we didn’t sign as many season ticket holders going into the next year as everyone in the league thought we would.  It taught me that demand in the area was inelastic.  I’m not sure if we won the World Series if we’d see a bunch of people sign up for the next year.  I mean we have 7-8,000, and I don’t even know if it’s that many, the Giants have in excess of 20,000.  What’s the difference?  The ballpark is the difference.  Barry Bonds was the difference.  In terms of record and performance, I think we’ve outclassed them since 2000.   It’s been a great learning experience.  We’ve had our ups and our downs and our payroll was over $80 million.  One year it produced a lot and the next year it didn’t produce anything.  I’ve seen the theory that Billy and his team have taught me about aging players and at my age, anyone under 60 is young (laughs).  I’ve learned a lot very quickly and I think the A’s are fortunate that we’re flexible.  We don’t have any real complicated decision making.

Blez:  What do you mean by that?

Wolff:  Well if Billy calls and says, “What do you think of this?”  I’ll ask him what he thinks of it and he’ll say it’s great and then we’ll just say, “Let’s do it.”  There’s no one else to interject.  Billy is very analytical and by the time he calls me, he’s analyzed all the potential results.  He’s got great people.  It’s a tight-knit organization and what I need to bring to it is an organization that everyone has a great time in if we can.  But still in a size that fits the market.  We’re the smallest two-team market in baseball.  I can’t go out and build a 60,000-seat facility.  In fact most of the ones that have added an extra 10,000 seats, such as Seattle, Colorado, Arizona, they’re ruing the day they did that.  We have to look at our market.  If we were by ourselves…

Blez:  It’d be different.

Wolff:  It would definitely be different.  But that isn’t the cards we’re dealt.

 

 

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I've always loved Tim Hudson and I still hold Huddy in high regard.  So it's with great sadness that I let everyone know that he's decided to have Tommy John surgery.  Hudson was always the leader of the Big Three, at least in my eyes.  He was that guy who just had that different mentality that separated him from Zito and Mulder.  He was simply "The Bulldog" for the green and gold.

I wish him the best of luck and hope to see him on a big league mound soon.  Best of luck, Huddy.  We all want to see that devastating sinker soon (as long as it remains in the NL or comes back to the green and gold - hey, one can dream, right?).

Recently I made a comment during Rich Harden's last start (before yesterday) that if he has a negative it's the fact that opposition batters have such a hard time making solid contact with his stuff.  That leads to his pitch count often getting up and early because as most folks know, strike out pitchers often wind up with higher pitch counts.  For years the A's have preached to guys like Mulder and Hudson to try and induce contact early and let the quality defense behind you do their jobs.  It's hard to do that when people can't seem to touch anything you throw up there.  It's like Harden is sometimes playing a different game than anyone else out there.

For example, Rich Harden has a fascinating stat this season.  Harden is arguably the most untouchable he has been in his career.  And if you judge by the contact that players make when they swing at one of his pitches, that appears to be the case.  Opposing batters are only making contact 66 percent of the time when they swing at a Harden pitch.  That is a ridiculous number.  For example, Johan Santana, who was widely considered the best pitcher in baseball for quite a few years when he was with the Twins had a contact percentage on swings of 69 and 67 percent.  These were years when he was striking out 265 guys.  Santana's percentage this year is 78 percent.  For those of you wondering, Barry Zito's contact percentage is 86 percent, the highest it's been in his career.

Rich Harden gets all the attention because he has that fastball that can approach 98 mph when he wants to ramp it up.  But I actually like watching a pitcher like Justin Duchscherer more.  Don't get me wrong, Harden making hitters look goofy is a treat to watch too, but Duke's ability to induce guys to make poor contact while putting the ball in play is also a skill.  Maybe not as sexy as the flamethrower, but I also love watching a guy where the opposition fans are saying to themselves, "He's only throwing 87 and his curveball just seems to float up there, how come we're not pounding this guy?"

If you look at Duke's stats , his contact percentage is 81 percent.  The funny thing is that Duke has been right around 81 percent contact throughout his career, showing a remarkable consistency.  Outside of his first year when the percentage was 85 percent contact on swings, Duke has been plus or minus two percentage points every other year.  Harden, for comparison, has a difference of 10 percentage points.  The good news being that he was at 76 percent contact his first season and has climbed downwards to 66.  He's become progressively more difficult to make contact with (another comparison is Felix Hernandez who has a contact percentage of 80 percent).

As a result of all this, Duke is averaging about 3.68 pitches per plate appearance and Harden is averaging 4.10 pitches per plate appearance.  Of course Harden is the dominant ace.  The strikeout king.  But I'd also like to see him go later in games.  He only has two complete games in his career.  Now there's no question to me who is the "better" pitcher and the guy that I would want out there if the A's needed to win one game.  Harden has some of the nastiest stuff I've ever seen. 

But for me, my personal preference is that I love watching a pitcher work the zone with pinpoint control and Duke is one of the best at that.  He doesn't have that baffling stuff, but the guy knows how to move inside and outside on batters.  He knows how to drop a remarkable curveball for a strike in a very predictable fastball count.  He does the best to keep the batters off balance because he can't rely on pulling 96 mph out of his back pocket.  On the other hand, hitting against a pitcher like this is remarkably frustrating.  Jamie Moyer used to drive me bananas whenever he went against the A's because he was just that kind of pitcher. 

So while many probably circle days when Harden is slated to pitch, I'm often circling the days when Duke is scheduled to pitch because I'm almost always guaranteed to see a guy work every inch of the zone.  You'll rarely see Duke throw a fastball down the middle and get away with it.  Harden, well, he can do it because his fastball has such velocity and movement that he can get away with it.

Do you care what kind of pitcher a guy is?  Are you in love with the heat?  Is the most dominant pitcher your thing knowing that that pitcher could possibly do something special every time he goes out there (like a no-no)?