There are no April Fool's jokes in this post. So you can be happy-happy-dancey-glad when I announce that in the coming week AN will have exclusive interviews with Brad Ziegler (courtesy of Flashfire) and Billy Beane (courtesy of Blez). So that's something to look forward to along with baseball games that count in 4 days!
In other news, I love it when pitchers get rocked and say, as Dallas Braden did, that they were "working on some things you won't see in the regular season." Like pitching terribly? ("I tried it; didn't like it; I've bagged that idea for the regular season.") It would appear that pitchers rarely "try something" in spring training and it leads to getting hitters out. Or maybe we just don't hear about it when that happens.
Hey, have you heard the verified fact that Eric Patterson eats babies and kicks puppies? I've seen it all over the internet. All seriousness aside, Taj Adib expresses how I really feel about Patterson better than I've been able to:
The question is not whether or not Patterson is a good player...
it’s whether Eric Patterson will be a good player in the role the A’s will have for him this season and going forward. To me, that answer is no, when compared to the other options the team has.
I have no doubt that Patterson is a useful offensive player. He seems to be able to take a walk, hit gappers and steal some bases. I really do believe that with a full-season’s worth of at-bats he could hit something like .260/.330/.400. That’s not terrible and in a bench role, it’s fairly decent. But the thing is…for the role that the A’s have in mind for him (backup 2B and LFer) the team has much better options at their disposal…namely Rosales and Gross and even Buck who probably has a bit more offensive upside than Patterson.
Patterson’s upside is just not all that great, in my opinion, to where the team should be limiting and weakening their 25-man roster just to keep him in the system.
Part of the reasoning behind keeping him seems to be some kind of organizational concept that he’s “paid his dues” and “never complained” and has “done what the team has told him to do.” That’s all fine and dandy and maybe worthy of a September call-up or something, but it’s not a good way of building the best major league team at your disposal. If the team really felt indebted to Patterson for his loyal service of the past few seasons, then they would trade him or waive him so that he can latch on to an organization that is in a better immediate situation to utilize his skill set.
A's and Giants tonight at 7:15pm from AT&T Park.
