So, Happy Friday! What are we doing this weekend? Who's going to FanFest?
Depending on the mood you are in today, it's either "Hey! The A's have six prospects on the top 100 prospect list that MLB published!" or it's "What?! The A's only have six players on the top 100 prospect list that MLB published; we're doomed for the future too! I miss Grant Desme!"
So, I think this is a positive sign; having six on the prospect list. I'd probably feel better if they actually came up from our own system, and not collected via trading our best players in the off-season, but I supposed it depends on how well Michael Choice, Grant Green and Sonny Gray perform before I can be really upset at our system.
So then, let's hear it. In case you have no idea what I'm talking about, a MLB.com senior writer, Jonathan Mayo, compiled a list of the top prospects (this year it's the top 100), and a little summary about them, so we can see into the future, and dream of the day when they might take the field in Oakland Fremont San Jose Mars a basement a parking lot somewhere.
According to our own Jane Lee:
This year's edition of MLB.com's Top Prospects list has expanded from 50 to 100 players. The annual ranking of baseball's biggest and brightest young talent is assembled by MLB.com's Draft and prospect expert Jonathan Mayo, who compiles input from industry sources, including scouts and scouting directors. It is based on analysis of players' skill sets, upsides, closeness to the Majors and potential immediate impact to their teams. The list, which is one of several prospect rankings on MLB.com's Prospect Watch, only includes players with rookie status in 2012.
It takes a quarter of the list, but finally, clocking in at #26 is the A's own Jarrod Parker, a 23-year-old right-handed pitcher, who came over to Oakland in the Cahill deal. Parker was drafted out of high school in 2007, and by 2009, was pitching in High-A. Unfortunately (or fortunately that it's all over for him), he had Tommy John surgery early in his career and missed the entire 2010 season. From a number of weird blogs, I have deduced that he might not be married, but perhaps has a girlfriend. Just in case you were all scouting the A's wives. From Mayo's summary:
Scouting report: With Tommy John surgery now fully in his rearview mirror, Parker showed in the second half of 2011 that the rust was completely gone. If anything, the process made him a more complete pitcher. His plus fastball sits comfortably in the mid-90s, and he can reach back for more. There’s plenty of sink to induce ground balls. He has two breaking balls, a plus slider and a pretty good curve. Add in a good changeup and he has a four-pitch mix with good overall command. His delivery is retooled, he’s stronger than he was pre-surgery and he’s matured mentally and physically.
His upside is listed as the potential to pitch atop a big-league rotation. What I think that means, translated into Oakland A's speak is that, "He will start in 2012 on the A's. Bank it."
See more A's prospects after the jump...
If (admittedly unsustainable) history is any indication, the 2012 season should be – if not exactly successful – one to remember for the A’s.
A stroll down memory lane shows some remarkable things happen in Oakland when the year ends in "2". 1972: the first of three consecutive World Series crowns. 1982: a record-setting season for Rickey Henderson. 1992: the team’s fourth division title in five years. 2002: a 20-game winning streak highlights a third straight trip to the playoffs.
In the first of this four-part series, we’ll start with the most recent and work our way back, which means this might be one of those rare retrospectives where the reader remembers more than the writer.
The A's FanFest returns on Sunday and will be held at Oracle Arena between 10 am and 2 pm. The A's are presenting FanFest for the first time since 2009; tickets are $8 for adults and $5 for kiddies. The event is an opportunity to meet current and former players, take a clubhouse tour, see the World Series trophies, and bid on some memorabilia (with all proceeds to the A’s Community Fund). There's also a Q&A for certain bloggers, which I believe OptimistPrime is attending.
So, in case you didn't hear, Moneyball received six Oscar nominations yesterday; Best Picture, Lead Actor, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Film Editing and Sound Mixing. From Moneyball's Facebook Page:
Brad Pitt on his Best Actor Oscar nomination for Moneyball: "This one was a little more special because of the uphill battle to get [Moneyball] made. In the past people would have run for the hills when things went wrong but (Sony Pictures chief) Amy Pascal really doubled down and made sure this film happened. So I think this nomination for me carries a little more [significance] than previous ones."
Think it'll win any?
Disclaimer: This is not a sponsored post. The MLB Network has no idea I'm writing about their new show, but I hope they know it's really fun. Set as a tournament-style competition, the show pits representatives from all 30 teams (plus an MLB representative and a Hall of Fame representative) against their division rivals; winner advances on to the next round. According to the official description, "Participants include front office personnel, equipment managers, scoreboard operators and museum curators."
The first of two episodes last night saw the Mets' Statistical Analyst beat the Phillies' Informational Analyst. The second episode showed the Rays' Assistant, Research and Development topping the Orioles' Coordinator, Baseball Information. I'd like to point out that I was watching the show with oaktownpower, who I would send out against anyone in the tournament; just ask The Schwab.
So the show is set up into 9 categories (innings). Contestants are given a category (such as: Teams Who Have 3+ World Series Titles In Franchise History), and the contestants then take turns naming a team until one person misses an answer. By the way, Baltimore? Who knew?
oaktownpower knew all but one or two of the teams/players in each category. I would chime in occasionally. Players with the most doubles since 2005? Matt Holliday. Got it. The A's have won more than 3 World Series Titles. Got that. Since 1956, there have been 14 pitchers who have pitched perfect games. Hey, Dallas Braden! I know that one too! I'm awesome at baseball trivia.
So, you would think the Moneyball team would throw out a stat guy, right? Nope. The A's are sending someone that a lot of AN knows; David Nosti, one of their Account Managers. How will he do? Find out on February 7th, when Dave is pitted against the Mariners' Special Assistant to the GM. The show will run two episodes a night on Tuesdays, Wednesday, and Thursdays until the conclusion of the tournament.
One interesting thing that I noticed, which is particularly relevant if you subscribe to the idea of the East Coast bias in baseball, is the trouble that the Mets' and the Phillies' representatives had with what I thought was a simple question: Name the 20 players who appeared in the most games for the San Francisco Giants. I could name probably 10 off the top of my head. They got three between them. Granted, we probably know more than most about the San Francisco Giants with the team right across the Bay, but still. These were NL guys!
So how would you do on the show? Can you name the eight managers that Manny Ramirez played for? Or the teams who have 3+ World Series titles in franchise history? The players with the most doubles since 2005?
Best named category? "Guys Who Gave Jeter a Ride Home"
Hardest category? It was a tie between "Most Wins By Foreign-Born Pitchers" and "Most Home Runs Hit In Career Without Ever Leading the League in a Single Season". Neither oaktownpower nor myself, could get ONE answer, and there were three players on that list that played for the A's. In case you want to take a stab at it, there are 14 of them.
Did anyone else catch the show?
I'm not a big fan of looking at true "ceilings" and "floors" with prospects, simply because a ceiling is a "best possible scenario" that almost no prospect actually reaches, while every prospect has a floor of "total bust" - and many reach it!
More interesting to me is to look at who, among players we know (major leaguers) is the best comp for who that prospect will become if he stays healthy, all goes as planned, and he doesn't especially take off or stall (that's your 50th percentile), and then to look at about the 90th percentile ("likely best case scenario") and about the 10th percentile ("likely worst case scenario"). The comps should run a tad optimistic just because they assume good health and as we know, new injuries, and full recovery from previous injuries, are among the most common reasons a prospect fails to live up to his potential.
After the jump, here's a look at each of the A's new key acquisitions (Raul Alcantara, A.J. Cole, Collin Cowgill, Miles Head, Tom Milone, Derek Norris, Jarrod Parker, Brad Peacock, Josh Reddick) with my best attempts, based on their scouting reports and minor league performance so far, to suggest good comps for their 10th percentile, 50th percentile, and 90th percentile projections. I hope you will weigh in with better comps, as well as your analysis of where I might be being too optimistic or pessimistic.
And now we go to the 2015 team, or as I would like to call it, the Community Prospect List!
With all the trades we have experienced this off season; the list should look vastly different compared to last years. This year, I am also going to try a new voting style. Expanding from last year’s recommendation for drop system, this year I will not be attaching a poll at all!
Instead, in order to vote for a prospect for the current round of voting, find the first comment in the thread that says “VOTE FOR [PLAYER NAME]”, for example, “VOTE FOR GRANT GREEN”, and add a +1 Comment that comment. If the player that you want to vote for does not have a comment, create it yourself by typing “VOTE FOR [PLAYER NAME]” for your comment, and post. Only the first comment will count for that player’s voting, so watch for the green.
There are about 11 or so weeks until Opening Day, so we will be doing one voting thread per week until the season starts. So get ready, set and VOTE!
I told AN’ers I would be delaying this year’s Community Prospect List for a few reason [See the bottom of the post for the Community Prospect List!]. Some were for myself (lots of work, which is why you have not seen me on the front page for a while), but primarily because of the increasingly apparent strategy the A’s were taking early in the off season, as they laid hints that the move to San Jose would be approved, presumably at the January Winter Meetings, and that the groundwork for a competitive team circa 2015 would be their main priority. What did that mean for the A’s, AN, and a much depleted farm system? It meant a few years of sucking in order to garner high draft picks, and a trade of everything of value on the team, even if that piece was going to be around for a few more years.
And it did not take long to see that this was necessary. The Angels won the bidding war, out of nowhere, for Albert Pujols, out from under the grasps of Miami’s higher bid and the Cardinals home town advantage, and the Rangers won the Yu Darvish bidding war from Japan. These two signings in particular shows that the A’s were now relegated to the far, far back. The Angels and Rangers had announced massive television deals that would seemingly pay for their entire payroll (making everything else gravy), and the Mariners still made much more than the A’s. Cisco Field and San Jose became the only thing that the A’s could dream about to save themselves from destruction. Because it was one thing when you were in a division with 3 other middling payrolls, it’s another when you are in a 5 team division with two Yankee-Red Sox wannabe’s and a new team, with a new owner, with something to prove.
Accompanying this, there came the news every day of the newly christened Miami Marlins, with a new stadium in hand, bidding massively on every top free agent under the sun (albe losing out on them as well). The point is that they believed that they could pay for them, and that gives the A’s hope for the future.
So it began. After firestorms of rumors, and a bidding war around Gio Gonzalez, the A’s decided to trade… Trevor Cahill? The A’s sent Cahill and Breslow to the Diamondbacks for a package of Pitchers Jarrod Parker and Ryan Cook, and Outfielder Collin Cowgill. Gio Gonzalez was dealt to Washington for Pitchers Brad Peacock, AJ Cole, Tommy Milone and Catcher Derek “Soon to be called Chuck” Norris. Andrew Bailey and Ryan Sweeney were dealt to the Red Sox for outfielder Josh Reddick, infielder Miles Head and pitcher Raul Alcantara. They expressed interest in Jorge Soler, a 19 year old, five-tool outfielder from Cuba.
I love defense-independent pitching staffs. I love them because a poorly positioned outfielder lets a hit drop him and then the pitcher gets blamed. I love them because a third basemen cant react fast enough when playing in on the line and a ball gets by him into left field. I love them because a shortstop and second basemen but defer to the other on a slow roller and someone ends up on first. How much pitchers actually do control is up for debate but many in sabermetrics think that once ball meets bat, unless that ball is hit over the fence, the pitcher is now out of the equation. I like this. It has its flaws, there is a fair debate to be had over whether or not a pitcher induces people to roll over and induce "weak contact" as opposed to screaming line drives, but it is simple and I think a decent measure, if far from perfect, of true pitcher performance. FIP is a common stat that I use on this blog. It is scaled to the ERA scale so that sub-3.00 is very good, sub-4.00 is solid, and so on. It measures three outcomes that it says pitchers are responsible for: 1) Strikeouts, 2) Bases on Balls and 3) Home Runs. Therefore a pitcher who keeps their walks and home runs (the two negative outcomes) to a minimum can have a very tidy and low FIP much like Brandon McCarthy - who with 1.3 BB/9 and just 0.6 HR/9 managed to get an AL-leading 2.86 FIP. But if a pitcher can't control hits and their existence is a mere derivative of luck, a pitcher can be perfect in performing their duties if they do not walk anyone nor surrender a home run. With that in mind, let's take a look back at McCarthy's September 3rd start versus the Seattle Mariners.
So Billy Beane finally got frustrated and decided to manage an English Premier League team.*
He left you in charge. Good luck.
Do well, and George Clooney will portray you in Moneyball II.
Do poorly and you'll have to explain to your kids why you're working at Dick's Sporting Goods.
You can do anything you want, really, except for reverse trades or add more than $3 million in payroll this season. No, I don't think Prince Fielder will sign a $3 million contract. Feel that Brian Fuentes is more useful serving garlic fries than pitching in the bullpen? You can make that decision, just be mindful of options.
Put together a 25-man Opening Day roster, and since Billy Beane would've done it anyway, lineups.
*No, not really. Just go along with it.
