http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2010/01/athletics-to-acquire-kevin-kouzmanoff.html
pending physicals, sez “source close to the Padres.
Gio + Cunningham is probably generically better, but the A’s need a 3B… Kouzmanoff is pretty much an exactly league average player. Should definitely improve the team for 2010-11…
I don’t mind giving up Cunningham, but I mind giving up Gio moderately-to-a-lot.
Slusser sezThe A’s acquire Kouzmanoff and give up Scott Hairston….who came from the Padres last year. Two other players involved, trying to confirm
that would be better! Maybe!
of the other two players, Slusser says one on each side
TWSS
An ** commenter hilariously reacted to this with “Chavez must still be hurting.”
is he still hurt?!
He’s in the _____ shape of his life!
“most cromulent”
scrumtrulescent
One of you more practiced rosterbators please evaluate this comment from sfgate A’s dude vk:
“Kouzmanoff has never played shortstop. Why is this important? It means someone else (presumably Aaron Miles) is the backup SS — and that means there are 13 sure position players and there is no room on the roster for Eric Chavez. Will they try to buy out his contract or DFA him and eat the money the way the D-backs are doing with Byrnes?”
Well, Fox and Chavez are redundant at this point.
Starting 9: Cust, Suzuki, Barton, Ellis, Pennington, Kouz, Crisp, Davis, Sweeney
Bench: Powell, Chavez, Miles, Patterson, Fox
That’s one too many bench players, but it isn’t obvious you cut Chavez instead of Patterson or Fox. It also isn’t obvious you worry until Chavez is healthy on opening day.
I’m not so sure.
There’s the starting nine (Barton, Ellis, Pennington, Kouzmanoff, Crisp, Davis, Sweeney, Cust, Suzuki).
Definitely need another catcher (Powell) and middle infielder (probably Miles, otherwise Petit).
That leaves two more spots for Fox (RH 1B/3B/DH/OF), Buck (LH OF), and Chavez (LH cripple).
Fox looks like the most useful of those three. Buck is probably more useful than Chavez at this point, so what vk is suggesting is probably what they should do, but given that neither would play much anyway, I can still see Chavez being on the roster until he goes back on the DL.
Oh yeah, Patterson. It’s not clear if he or Buck is vk’s 13th “sure” position player. I think he’s out of options, but I can see him getting traded for some C prospect at the end of spring training to some team that needs a utility guy.
Now mlbtr says “Cunningham and another player,” but Cunningham + Hairston doesn’t make too much sense.
Kouzmanoff and a prospect for Hairston and Aaron Cunningham, confirmed, says slusser. That is a great deal!
Yeah, that is a good deal.
we win? Yay!
Definitely good. I don’t know about great. We’re still giving up two (potentially) average(ish) players for one. But as you say above we have about 8 OFers in that category, and badly need one at 3B*, so it certainly makes sense. Kouzmanoff is under control for three more years, which should be plenty of time to figure out if Cardenas will be good or make alternate plans.
* CHONE thinks Fox is good, projecting him as +7 offense and -1 defense, but I think both of those have to be too optimistic given that he’s never been a full time player.
-1 defense at 3B is just crazy. He never played it before last year, was bad last year, and everyone who has seen him hates his defense.
Regression to the mean: statistically right, obviously wrong.
Holy mother of maybe-they’ll-let-Buck-play-sometimes!
Nah. Coco, Rajai and Ryan get first dibs, Cust and Fox get the left overs. Taylor’s waiting in AAA for an opportunity and Carter is already on the 40 man.
Party pooper
Now that’s what I call surprise progress!
I don’t understand why they want Hairston and Cunningham (who I won’t miss at all). Is it bad of me to wonder if the prospect is Gallagher?
It’s Jack Cust III
It’s Paul DePodesta
Man, thejd is a douche.
That may be, but he’s right that Kouz basically equals H2N3 (better hitter, worse fielder)
… but boy is he wrong on Cunningham.
WITNESS THE TRO
OFUGH THAT IS CUNNINGHAM!Fixed.
… but not nearly as (not-quite-entertainingly) wrong as Kr@ZeEkapSD00d
this chatter of yours almost makes me want to go lurk at **
Meh. I just decided to bow out of the thread.
** is hazardous to my mental health.
Kr@ZekapSD00d’s ** handle just about causes me to have a seizure every time I see it. Even worse is the nonsense he spouts out.
Prospect is Eric Sogard. 23-year-old 2B, in AA last year. Sickels says C+.
Whoa. So Kouzmanoff is good, eh? At least we seem to have a real 3B now.
I liked Cunningham, but he didn’t really fit, unless we started using outfielders in every position. Hairston, meh, hardly knew ya. He seemed to like San Diego anyway.
After considerable thought, I like this trade.
After significantly less thought, me too. Dealing from an area of surplus to fill a huge need in 2010 and beyond…unless you’re one of the eight people who sees Richie Cunningham as a future All Star, I don’t see what’s not to like.
After only one thought (“GIO?! Noooo! Wait, what? No? Okay!”), I also like this trade.
My sentiments exactly.
Gio is in line to be my favorite player after MaEl leaves, even if he sucks.
(my favorite *A*, that is… I’m not going to abandon Mark just because he’ll no longer be in green & gold)
Hadn’t thought about it, but probably right on. He’s intellectual about his craft, and has at least shown the potential to be spectacular at it.
I will need a favorite position player for the days when he’s not pitching, though.
I’d take Braden over Gio, easy. Heck, Braden’s probably neck-and-neck with Suzuki for my #2. Gio’d be somewhere below Bailey, Zig, and Ellis.
For me Suzuki is the easy choice among current position players (after Ellis). And I’m hoping Carter and Taylor will be awesome.
Among the pitchers, Duke-shire, Anderson, Braden. I don’t really get the Gio love. I don’t dislike him, but I generally find pitchers with poor control really frustrating to watch.
You need to remember that my “favorite player” award generally gives at least equal weight to nonbaseball stuff that I just like.
Ah, good call on Suzuki.
Craig Paquette.
Craig Paquette, what poor control
I should like this trade more than I do. I really don’t like Kouzmanoff’s bat but readily admit that he’s a legit, solid-average starting caliber 3B. I’m not upset about losing Cunningham and Hairston. Sogard’s bestest quality is that he’ll be Sac’s starting 2B and he doesn’t have to be on the 40 man roster, meaning the A’s are at 39.
So why did that little warning light kick on in the secondary systems screen?
Maybe you’re running low on oil?
Low tire pressure?
I think one of your passengers forgot to fasten his/her seat belt. Drive carefully.
Thank you. Think I’ll pull over and double check my son’s seat belt.
{gasp}
Kouzmanoff unbuckled it!
Damn him. Excuse me while I go find a pair of pliers and a blow torch.
You were eagerly anticipating the return of Eric Chavez to 3B, weren’t you?
Yes.
To unit #3B in his gated Scottsdale retirement community.
You think you could keep us out of
FloridaArizona? We’re moving in lock, stock and barrel. We’re gonna be in the pool. We’re gonna be in the clubhouse. We’re gonna be all over that shuffleboard court! And I dare you to keep me out!Del Beanea Vista
boccie ball?
Oops.
We’ll have to work around that.
Hunh.
I gotta think that’s (on top of the 63 third-base acqs) quasi-official confirmation Chavez is done.
Also: Miles? Not the backup SS.
When Beane gives up, he’s done.
1st, short, and now the outfield?!
If he’s able to come back, we’re gonna use him all over the field. Hell, I’m not even sure why we need a backup catcher on the roster!
Remember Marco Scutaro, starting LF?
Question: How much would he have to suck to not be usable as a backup SS?
Snob. Seriously.
Does that make Leno Saddam Hussein? So the further lesson of that is that Leno, as menacing as he seems, is actually relatively harmless (except to the people in his immediate vicinity) and “contained” in late night. Giving Leno the 10:00 slot, though, was the equivalent of Rumsfeld’s sub rosa Regan-era diplomatic visit (or perhaps the tacit Bush I-Clinton OK for him to gas the Kurds?).
SF Press Club Blog News
* Good old Mark Ibanez
* Newsrooms I worked in generally regarded Dean Singleton as the Grim Reaper helping to bring about the death of the newspaper industry, but who knows, maybe he still has a chance to lead journalism into some new, useful form? This from his letter to Media News Group employees, just after MNG declared bankruptcy, albeit in a very gentle way.
* Also, the San Jose Merc, one of MNG’s Bay Area outlets, reports on the bankruptcy while studiously avoiding the word bankruptcy, placing the news on the bottom corner of the Business page.
Financially viable comes before independent…at least he’s an honest grim reaper.
Independent and out of business ain’t “independent.”
In business because of concessions made to certain factions ain’t independent either.
This could be a problem.
Forgive me for linking to an Urban article, but permanent nerve damage in the foot that is affecting one’s balance can’t be good for the ol’ pitching motion.
Does this fall under the “A’s medical staff is incompetent” or the “sometimes it just sucks to be you” category?
Well, in this individual case, we can’t know, but … in context …
Do we start worrying about Braden’s long term health? He’s already had shoulder problems once before, maybe the A’s need to start looking to trade him before he goes kablooie.
I doubt he’s got any trade value right now. Maybe midseason, or, likelier, a year from now.
Question for people who read scouting report-type things and have paid any real attention to Kouzmanoff: Any chance that he’s Crosby 2.0? Decent rookie year, declining O production since with poor peripherals/discipline, meh-to-decent D …
He’s been a lot healthier than Crosby (so maybe he’s luckier than bitch boy) and the power is real. The defense is solid. As I recall a lot of people would have been happy with a healthy Crosby, even one who’s bat was suspect.
The big difference is the contract status. Kouzmanoff isn’t likely to put up the kind of offensive numbers that nets him a big payday via arbitration, meaning the A’s have little incentive to guarantee him money for the next 3 years. Going year-to-year buys them an escape route that we all wish the A’s had had with Crosby.
So Crosby 2.0 could be an accurate player-type comp but it’s doubtful that Kouzmanoff would ever be the same kind of sunk cost/stone-around-the-neck that Crosby was for the A’s.
I’m starting to think that Kouzmanoff is a 1 year stop-gap with the bonus of 2 (relatively) team controlled option years.
Any chance his power is an NL mirage? If he chases sliders like Crosby and Byrnes … basically, Pedro Feliz w/not nearly as good D …
Petco is one of the worst HR parks in the majors, even more so than the Coliseum.
Yeah, I was thinking that should more than outweigh the NL factor.
I tend to agree.
So do the park adjustments… don’t they?
He’s 2004 Crosby. Crosby would have been fine if he hadn’t lost all his power.
Man, I like watching Brett Favre.
Man, I hate listening to Joe Buck.
I’m still trying to figure out why Buck thought the Vikings would accept a penalty on themselves and force the Cowboys to punt with the ball 5 yards farther away from the end zone.
I will continue hating Brett Favre right up until the point where he leads the Vikes to a Super Bowl win. Which I hope he does. Then he’ll be my favoritest quarterback ever (sorry Fran & Joe.)
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
I’ll be rooting lustily for the saints (and a 15 INT game from Brett)
I restart the sign shop in the morning.
My condolences. I was hoping to kraut your sausage at a tailgate party this year.
My condo-lulations – we all want you to be here/be happy, but I know how responsibility and a certain aptitude can work against your instincts. I’m flying to FL tomorrow, too bad it’s not anywhere near Sarasota.
boooooooo
They’re not booing, they’re chanting “Bloooooooooom.”
It’s not what Dr King would have wanted.
Question prompted by today’s ** lead story (and no, not “can it possibly be that these cartoons are getting less funny?”)
Which homegrown A’s players has the team actually lost (FA, arbitration-induced trade, etc.) because the team started their service clocks early? This delicate timing question always seems to me to be a hypothetical which never turns out to actually matter. I may be wrong, of course, and my perception may be tainted by my belief that a bird on the 25-man roster is worth like a dozen birds in the bush leagues (ie, prospects wash out way too regularly for me to invest much hope in them).
Questions … Morphology? Longevity? Incept dates?
Accelerated decrepitude.
I wonder how many questions it took Beane to tell that Chavvy was
a replicantinjured.Beane: You see a picture of Crosby. He’s naked, with a image of Sal Bando covering his johnson and nut sack. What do you do?
Chavez: Is it pre-2004?
Theoretically, if certain players (Swisher and Street, maybe also Blanton and Haren) had had less service time, they would have been cheaper, meaning the A’s might have been less inclined to trade them, and they would have had more surplus value remaining, meaning that when the A’s did trade them they might have gotten slightly more in return.
But despite that, I agree with you that it makes more sense just to promote a player who’s ready for the majors than to play games with their service time worrying about what will happen 6 years later.
Happy MLK Day. You can tell Dr. King was in that Birmingham jail for longer than just a couple of hours–he was there long enough to write this long-ass letter.
Old white guys speak out: Biden and Bush
Hey boyzengrilkrauts: Ima be goin’ to Reno. Just accepted an offer to be Associate Director of Nevada Humane Society. They are one of the premier animal welfare organizations in the country, having achieved roughly 90% “save” rates for both sheltered dogs and cats in 2009. I have a Lot to learn there. By contrast, CCC is stuck at 65% and Oakland is at 40%, up from next-to-nil a few years ago. Sue’s going with me, fool-for-love that I’m grateful she is.
Anyone so inclined is invited to continue contributing to our local economy. Upon your return for home, I can arrange for you to be trailed by twenty hounds.
And GO, uh, (who the fuck?) … Aces!
That is awesome!! Congrats!
One area where “saves” are definitely not an overrated/meaningless stat. Oakland’s that low, eh? Guess Chavvy’s only got a couple weeks left to have his picture up on PetFinder …
Congrats!
Ack — I was wrong — 40% is the kill rate, so they really have come a Long way. recent ‘gate article.
From the article, (i) the Oakland shelter must accept all animals, including problem animals from private shelters with “zero-euthanasia” policies (which is a pretty lame way of honoring such a policy IMHO), and (ii) almost all the euthanized animals are those deemed too sick or aggressive to be adopted.
Are these conditions true of public shelters in general? And do the criteria for (ii) depend on local adoption patterns – i.e. would the same animal have a better chance of adoption outside of Oakland and hence not be deemed “too” sick/aggressive?
Yeah — Washoe County keeps one set of numbers, which rolls-up to the 90% save rate. County Animal cops do the stray intake and Humane, in the same building, takes surrenders, and rehabs and adopts ’em all out, together with a local SPCA and some Rescues who get first dibs. So in this case, smoke and mirrors are minimized. Selective admissions shelters give “no-kill” a bad name.
And your properly cynical self has also identified the problem when you start at less than 100% on the intake side. Difficult animals too easily become “unadoptables” –whose deaths don’t count in the record. It’s hard to be honest in this business, but methinks you just have to start with 100% admissions, and have only one goal — zero deaths. You don’t ever expect to reach the goal, as there really are a few “irremediably suffering” animals for whom death is a blessed release, and a few vicious dogs that have been ruined and should not be adopted-out for public safety reasons, but the asymptote is probably somewhere around 95-6%, with some statistical variation.
I think they want me to help achieve current numbers less heroically, and to see how high we can push that asymptote.
Christ, what a Washoe
In former soviet union, the asymptote pushes you.
An excellent counterpoint to Leopold’s news – congratulations.
What factor would you say contributes most crucially to high save rates? The ability to keep the animals around longer before putting them down (space, staff, what have you)? The community’s enthusiasm for adoption/level of disposable income? Outreach? Something else?
Great Q — I think it’s outreach — they’ve gone from 30 volunteers and no foster program in 2006 to 3000 volunteers and 900 available fosters. Obviously, they don’t command an army that size from day-to-day, but there’s a mostly-latent pet-positive spirit in every community — they’ve tapped into it deeply. They’ve also made the shelter into a bustling “lifely” adoption center, instead of a death camp that folks are afraid to visit. Doom and Sara MacLachlan songs evoke sympathy, but not adoptions — we’re in the used-pet bidness. Bonney Brown, to whom I’ll report, has a retailing background, and she’s really good at movin’ the inventory.
Much longer answer would involve analyzing a pretty simple flow through the shelter — you try to reduce the intake side (spay-neuter, dog catchers with wands to ID micro-chipped strays and take ’em home(!), good breed adoption counseling, trap/neuter/return for feral cats, etc.) and increase the options on the outbound side. They have an adoption promotion for everything — one guy wrote to complain that they’d even sullied the Superbowl and asked: “what’s next — Arbor Day?” So, they contacted a plant nursery, and yeah, that was next. They also have a barn-cat program billed as non-toxic vermin control (rodents have a lousy lobby). Lotsa barns around Reno.
I think there’s also just a mindset — when the killing option is off-the-table, you get creative.
If only certain people would take that last sentiment to heart …
Who’s a good dogfather? Who’s a good dogfather? YOU are, that’s right! Goooooooood dogfather!
/
you’re not allowed to wear pants in Reno?! What kind of messed up law is that?!
BTW, I HATE FUCKING SIGNS!
Then don’t.
sorry.
I fucking hate signs.
So, you don’t hate fucking signs?
No, that part’s quite nice. With the right substrate, I mean.
So you fucking hate signs. But you like hate-fucking signs.
I wouldn’t exactly call it a hate-fucking. Sure, I’m angry, but I’m ALWAYS angry, so it’s more of a normal fucking.
I think the Scientists prefer to call that “baseline fucking.”
fucking stat geeks.
That would be salb, by all reports.
um…got anybody else?
Your new workplace awaits …
Then they’d have to euthanize me.
It’s actually more like this:
— even over there, it’s pittie city.
Now those got JP’s “OO! OO! OO! OO!”
Poor kid’s going to end up a Cleveland Browns fan.
Got a million of ’em — how many you want?
Sure sign of how girly those are: JP got excited, pointed out them, and said KITTYCAT! KITTYCAT! MYOW!
(Dogs, recognizable as such, get his approximation of “woof woof!” — which is more akin to a gorilla sound … for some reason …)
JP is awesome.
IN-deed.
Great news on the new position, dogfather. And thanks for the nice words last year at our year-end ** tailgate.
I adopted a dog in Reno/Just to watch him not die
Nice.
…and that’ll count in your favor,
When your
……………….ti-
………………….ime
………………………i
……………………….s
..
..
…………………………niiiiiiiigh.
what about when the train with all the rich people goes by?
Why, then there’sa be pants on the ground.
Congrats dude, excellent news.
{snerk}
the “triangle of wickedness”
(i) the third vertex should have been Taint.
(ii) they should have been using this more during the Bush years.
Did someone say taint?
Is he calling us what I think he’s calling us?
In college, I played clavichord for The Coakley-Brown Intangibles, and Casio for Massachusetts Model Mayhem.