So, we've had grover and devo and all the other prospect mavens give us plenty of information on Beane's latest young'uns culled in the Haren and Swisher deals.
What we need now is to be prepared (for the, hopefully, majority of them that become impact players at the MLB level) with ... nicknames!
Thankfully, Beane and his scouts have provided us with a crew of very promising nickname raw material.
As a longtime Barry Zito fan, I'm highly encouraged by the reports we've seen on Gio Gonzales -- lefties with big curves are ripe fodder for good nicknames.
- The big bender itself, of course, should be known as "the Gioball"
- The reaction of a left-handed batter to an incoming Gioball which starts out at his head and causes his knees to buckle when it breaks would be "the Gio-duck"
- And when an opposing batter is called out on a third strike looking on the Gioball, he will be said to have been "Gio'ed"
If Fautino De Los Santos (monikered by South Side Sox as "DLS" -- nice "rapid delivery" connotation, but it's a second-tier brand) had been acquired in the Haren trade, I'd probably be inclined to call him "van de Heiligen" (with the ultimate intent of mondegreening him to "Vandy" or "Van Halen") but (a) he wasn't, and (b) that's a stretch, even for me.
As for the other element of the Swisher deal, Ryan Sweeney, might I suggest "The Demon Batter of Hegenberger Road"?
Turning to the Haren booty, Carlos Gonzalez seems already to have been tiresomely J-Lo'ed with "CarGo" or "CarGon" -- so the only options, really, are for the A's to pick up Chevron or Old Navy as sponsors for the former ... or maybe we could just call him "Lojack" -- but only if he shaves his head and adopts a lollipop as his Dusty Baker-like oral fixation (who loves ya, baby?).
Dana Eveland presents some wonderful nickname opportunities, from the Nicoesque "Eveland Rocks!" to the Bermanesque "Eveland Eveller" or "Dr. Eveland" to the reckless "Evel Knieveland."
As for Greg Smith, Brett Anderson, and Aaron Cunningham, their names are all so whitebread that, until we see them play and/or they demonstrate some unique personality traits, they'll have to collectively be known as the Wonder Bread Twins and Gleek.
Chris Carter (please, Ba'al, let me have linked to the right one ... what are there, 6 of them in the minors?) has the (dis-)advantage of having numerous famous namesakes, from the NFL to The X-Files -- my only hope is that by the time the new stadium opens, Beane signs this guy, the stadium utilizes this technology, that the opening day National Anthem be sung by these two ladies, that Wolff joins Bono in a crusade against kleptocracy, that A's ownership buys a majority stake to resuscitate a moribund electronics chain, that ownership determines that accounts and descriptions of A's games may be reproduced or retransmitted or disseminated in any form without the express permission of the A's and Major League Baseball, that Wolff and Beane start up a women's soccer team with an initial star signing, and that the team has been relocated to an atoll in the South Pacific -- so that we could call the collective this (and, of course, their alter ego would be Gaudin & Team).
Ultimately, though, we need to get started on nicknames for all these guys immediately, in order to become intimately familiar with and attached to them very early in their careers so that we become tired of them by the same time that Beane does, and we can finally say, just as the players are traded ...
