- Gotta love Macha
- Who saw that coming?
- Crisp likely to DL. Sadly, there’s no cure for Ostler.
- No, really: Ostler sucks.
- Shea isn’t any good, either — though at least he’s to-the-point and non-cutesy.
- Very excited for this
- Nightmarish aquatic clown Glurpo, Bubblio, and Scrubblio
- Speaking of nightmarish clowns …
That was your last link of the day.
“coughing too hard”?!?!?
You have obv never had a serious bronchial infection. It can happen.
However, it does require something like a serious bronchial infection to inspire coughing that hard — or, I suppose, emphysema and/or major tokeage.
No serious bronchial infection, although I have twice subluxed a shoulder by sneezing too hard, and it hurts!
(hack wheeze cough phlegm)…”Grandma’s Up!”
We need TRADITIONAL VALUES in all areas of education. If it swims in the water, it is a FISH. Period! End of Story.
And I thought Sal had confiscated all the periods.
Dammit, they already have a redhead
Maybe you can get his spot after he accidentally sees the sun and bursts into flames.
Doesn’t matter; they’d hire Kielty over you anyway.
You might enjoy this, being a GawkWonk afficionado: Ana Marie Cox writing about Emily Gould writing about Gawker.
(you need to register to read it, but it’s free and quick)
Rangers lose, hooray.
“Because he’s a f—ing a–hole, that’s what he is.”
That’s pretty funny stuff from Ozzie. I wish I could understand half of what he says…on second thought, maybe not.
His characterization of West brings up a question: a venerable tradition at the Coli is to call out “Oh, no!” after each umpire is announced before the game. I don’t believe I’ve heard that at any other ballpark. Does anyone know how it started here, or know of other ballparks where the fans do it?
I’ve heard it in other places, maybe even as far back as late 70’s Yankee Stadium, Fenway, and/or the Vet, though I won’t swear to those specific times/places. But I’d definitely heard it before I moved back to Cali in 1986.
perfect reference Cheetos
Slusser: Ostler cannot be trusted to update the blog, so I feel compelled to provide you with actual A’s news, lest the Drumbeat disintegrate into a postless wasteland.
Also: Crisp def to DL, Powell on way up but not yet arrived in Bal’mer, Michael Taylor runs bases, Michael Ynoa throws practice inning, and the Dalai Halama is starting tonight in Sacto, not expected to reach Oakland roster, which means (my interpretation) that we’re sure to see him before the end of
Maythe sixth inning tonight.Sacramento had a day game:
Halama 6 IP, 5 K, 3 BB, 6 H, 0 R
So he’s got another inning or two in him! Get him on a plane!
Not bad for a guy who hasn’t pitched much in a while.
I thought he’d been pitching in the Independent League – no?
Did he even exist before signing with the A’s?
That article made me wonder if anyone ever did pick up Tomko this year, and nope, he’s out of ball. Kind of surprising after the strong finish he had last year.
He signed another minor league contract with the A’s, but is still rehabbing his injury from last year (pinched nerve).
Ah, thanks.
The reaction shots are over-the-top and superfluous, but overall, this is … spot-on.
Meh.
2. Chad Gaudin is the new Rickey Henderson
JL bait
Not touching this one. (TWSS)
All teams are the same:
Well, he was busted for pot, so that explains keeping his hands in his pockets.
Did I miss this? This story is a few days old, and all I have is a preview of paid content, but the tease is intriguing:
Seems like MSM and SBN are walking down the aisle, approaching the altar.
THIS CHANGES NOTHING!
Another building block in the Urban Empyre.
The possibilities. What if monkeyball had stayed? “Watch the poo fly on ‘A’s Crossfire’ starring Big Urb and monkeyball, immediately following ‘A’s Postgame Live’ right here on Comcast Sports Net California!”
Ostler’s wrap today includes this:
and some other recent articles have had quotes along the same lines. (A Stiglich tweet mentions that Rosales could be a possibility also.)
All three of those guys have OBPs right around the league average of .330 for their careers, and significantly worse this year. (Incidentally, Pennington’s current .219/.298/.337 might remind you of some other shortstop.) And Davis is fast, obviously.
But am I the only one who thinks that Ryan Sweeney is the obvious choice as the leadoff hitter? He gets on base (consistently .350 OBP in his years at Oakland, second this year only to Barton), but has little power (ISO .100 in that same time), and hits into a lot of double plays when he comes up with someone on first. He’s not going to steal many bases, but he’s not Jeremy Giambi either. It seems like having him lead off would be the best way to leverage his skills and maximize his weaknesses. But somehow the organization seems to have put him in the “middle of the order run producer” box.
1. Geren seems almost more obsessed (actions, not words) with avoiding too much consecutive same-handedness (TWSS) in the lineup than anything else
2. His apparent obsession with having a “conventional leadoff man” at the #1 spot is just dumb
3. If he continues bunting Barton, it kinda moots whomever he has lead off (although I suppose if the leadoff hitter never gets on, that’ll mean Bartion bunting less)
4. Why not Barton?
5. Heck, why not Cust? (as {shudder} Ostler suggests)
6. They’ve got Sweeney in the same box with Zk and Kz (CWIDT?)–and the box just isn’t full
7. As usual, the A’s have a small handful of “unconventional leadoff hitters” and a whole lot of conventional 7-9 hitters
Re 4-5, the sabermetrically correct position is that your best overall hitters should bat 4th and 2nd (and not bunt!) – high enough in the order that you still get a lot of value out of their OBP, but in positions where there will be enough runners on in front of them for their power (such as it is) to drive in or advance other runners. Also, while “base-clogging” isn’t a serious concern, speed at the top of the order does matter some.
Re 6, Kz makes at least a little sense in that role – less OBP, more power. Though he also has the GIDP issue.
Re 7, As usual, you’re exaggerating just how bad the offense is. Career OPS+: Cust 121, Barton 104, Kz 100, Sweeney 96, Ellis 96, Suzuki 95, Crisp (if he can ever play) 94, Rajai 88, Pennington 86. So certainly mediocre overall, but quite a few hitters who are basically league average. In fact, the only ones who are “conventional 7-9 hitters” are exactly the ones who Geren has leading off.
7. I’m unfamiliar with the scale of OPS+ — but it seems to me that if Pennington (who is, we all agree, a really poor offensive player) is as high as an 86, that Sweeney, Ellis, and Zk aren’t exactly “good” either.
100 is league average (all hitters), 96 is about 2% (15 points of OPS, or about 3 runs over the course of a season for a full-time player) below league average. Pennington had an OPS+ of 101 last year (which constituted over 40% of his major league career), and 75 in 2008 and 2010. We agree that he’s a really poor offensive player based largely on his minor league record, which suggests that the latter is closer to what we should expect in the future than the former. Which, to stress our point of agreement here, is why he shouldn’t fucking hit at the top of the lineup.
And in accordance with your wishes, he is indeed not fucking hitting at the top of the lineup.
4-5: I thought it was that handedness runs are worse than any semi-reasonable lineup. And that none of this matters.
Because we’ll all end up together in the afterlife.
Except that it does all matter, since we wouldn’t be together in the **fterlife had we never met and gone through an ** crash together.
If the difference between afterlife and no afterlife is like 5 runs a season.
L’enfer c’est les autres.
Hell is Ostler people
asvd
Dork–Lost
I don’t think it’s obvious. I think you overstate his gdp problems, and I think there might be something to be said for putting him in a “run producing” spot just because he will lead the team in hits and doesn’t walk.
I actually think tonight’s lineup with everyone moved up one spot and Rajai moved to 9th might be best.
Regarding the LRLR thing – there’s definitely some value in that, but I’m not sure that anyone has quantified it. In any case, Barton and Sweeney are already hitting back to back anyway.
But that reminded me of another point. Teams like to have their left-handers hitting with men on to take advantage of the hole between first and second. And again, I’m sure that’s worth something in general but not sure how much. But in the case of Sweeney it’s probably not relevant since he so rarely pulls the ball, and far more of his singles go to left and center than to right.
I wouldn’t know how to look this up, but it seems to me he mostly hits grounders to the right side and line drives/fly balls to the left side.
Overall, he hits more grounders than average by a fairly significant margin, which leads to more dps but also more hits than if there was no one on. That probably cuts into the badness of gdp-prone guys.
There are hit charts on mlb.com. His singles at home (they do it by ballpark) are mostly to the left side.
[Edit: His groundouts are mostly to the right side, and his flyouts to the left, which is typical. I don’t know why he doesn’t get more singles through the hole. Maybe he just doesn’t hit his grounders hard enough.]
Sweeney just really, really hates to pull anything. When he does it’s usually because he got jammed or he had a shitty swing so most of the time, he ends up not hitting anything hard to the right side.