The A's rode Greg Smith's second career complete game to victory tonight, 6-1.  They received some timely hits off of Jon Garland to support Smith's stellar effort.  Smith was fantastic tonight, working in a curve ball more often than I have seen him do in his young career.  Perhaps that was something that Curt Young and company scouted ahead about the Angels and their weak offense.  Whatever it was, the A's largely worked the outside corner for most of the night against the Angels.

The A's got most of their offense tonight from their young guns.  The same guys I talked about in my grading post earlier today who have largely struggled.  Daric Barton had two hits, a run and an RBI.  Ryan Sweeney had two hits, a run and an RBI.  Kurt Suzuki had two hits and scored a run.  Carlos Gonzalez had three hits and scored a run.  But probably the biggest blow of the night came from Eric Chavez, who got a huge two-run hit past a diving Casey Kotchman to give Greg Smith the chance to go the complete game because his hit made it 4-1 instead of 2-1.  You just had to figure that Smith would've been coming out of the game at the first sign of trouble if the A's didn't have breathing room.

You have to realize that if the A's are going to remain in the race for the AL West title, they're going to need consistent contributions from their young guns.  So tonight was definitely a good start to the second half for those guys.  It's especially good to see Daric Barton come through tonight.  He's looked pretty lost at the plate lately, so seeing him have a little more success tonight is probably a weight lifted off his very young shoulders.

What was fascinating about watching this game tonight is that the Angels offense is sputtering worse than the A's offense right now.  Outside of the normally hacktastic Erick Aybar, the lineup didn't show much patience against Smith who has often had control issues lately.  Aybar got the only two walks of the game for the Angels.  Still, Smith did what he does best when he is on, working the corners perfectly and inducing lots of flyballs off the end of the bat or off the fists.  Through the first six innings, Angels hitters had seven flyouts to Ryan Sweeney when he was playing right field.  Smith's only mistake of the night was a bomb from the bat of Mike Napoli.

All in all, this is a great win and sets the A's up for the rest of this series.  Even though the A's have Harden going tomorrow, the Angels are putting A's killer Ervin Santana out on the hill, so you have to figure the A's will struggle to score runs.  Santana just owns our A's.  But it's most definitely a nice way to start out the second half of the season.  I always seem to have a bit more bounce in my step and birds sing beautifully whenever the A's beat the Angels.  So I'll cherish this for the next 21 hours or so. 

Thank you, Greg Smith.

Yes, folks, it's that time of year again.  Time for me to hand out my half year grades for our Oakland Athletics.  I'm going to do it a little differently this year.  In past seasons, I'd give it out to individuals, but I'm going to give it to the different portions of the team.  I'm going to break it out into starting pitching, relief pitching, offense, managing and front office.  I'll give my grade and my thinking as to why that grade applies and then standouts and disappointments.

As always, this is not scientific by any means.  Much of it has to do with the expectations that I had for that aspect of the A's I mentioned.

Starting pitching - A:  The A's started the season with a lot of question marks in their rotation.  I honestly thought that the rotation would include Lenny DiNardo and Kirk Saarloos right about now.  I figured Harden and Duchscherer would not have lasted and the emergency plan of DiNardo and Saarloos would be in full motion while we were waiting for Brett Anderson and Trevor Cahill to make it to the pros.  Granted, both have missed time with injuries in the first half, but they've also pitched a lot more than I thought they were.  As a matter of fact, the A's starting pitching team ERA is 3.48, the best in the entire majors.  The starting pitching has been absolutely, positively stellar and probably the biggest reason the A's are still within shouting distance of the division-leading Angels.  They've also been able to do it with two rookies in Greg Smith and Dana Eveland.  It'll be interesting to see how those two guys hold up over the second half.  The irony of all this is that the pitcher who the A's tagged with the "ace" tag before the season started happens to be their worst starter statistically right now.

Starting pitching standouts:  Rich Harden, Justin Duchscherer, Dana Eveland, Greg Smith

Starting pitching disappointments:  Joe Blanton

Relief pitching - A- :  If the major reason the A's have been winning is their starters, the relief pitching is the minor reason.  The A's have the sixth best ERA out of their relievers in all of baseball.  They've also done it with a cast of largely no names and folks that people didn't expect to be as good as they have been.  Santiago Casilla had a Dennis Eckersley-like start to his year.  Andrew Brown was fantastic.  Joey Devine was spectacular.  Brad Ziegler came from Sacramento to become integral.  The known quantities like Embree, Foulke and Street suddenly seemed to be the ones that made me more nervous than the less proven guys.  Still, the pen has been relatively solid.  Huston Street hasn't been as good as I'd like but I do suspect that he's been pitching through various injuries this year.

Relief pitching standouts:  Joey Devine, Brad Ziegler, Andrew Brown, Santiago Casilla, Chad Gaudin (he also could've made the starting pitcher portion too), Keith Foulke (yes, he's been good even though he scares me to death at times),

Relief pitching disappointments:  Huston Street

Offense - D+ :  The A's have the 25th best batting average in all of baseball.  A team that prides itself on having patience at the plate is 16th in all of baseball in on-base percentage.  And let's not talk about power.  The team is 26th in all of baseball in slugging percentage.  Not surprisingly, the team is 10th in the AL in runs scored.  If this team had just average hitting and the starting pitching continues to prove its might, the A's could truly be a contending team this year.  Now I suspected we'd have this issue, especially with a lot of very young guys getting their first true extended major league experience.  Carlos Gonzalez, Daric Barton, Kurt Suzuki and Travis Buck were all likely going to be a foundation of the A's offense.  I expected them to have ups and downs, but for Barton and Buck, it's mostly been downs.  Jack Hannahan was getting his first extended experience.  Jack Cust really only had last season in the pros.  So a lot of the offense was built on wild cards.  One major known entity was Frank Thomas who the A's picked up for a piece of Hubba Bubba and a used Hyundai when the Blue Jays dumped him.  Not surprisingly, the Blue Jays are one of the teams who has scored fewer runs than the A's in the AL.  Still, I suspected the A's hitting was going to be mediocre, but it's been downright bad at points.  There are a few guys who've been right about where I expected them to be, such as Mark Ellis and even Bobby Crosby (although he has been a bit better than I expected).

Offensive standouts:  Kurt Suzuki, Ryan Sweeney, Jack Cust (he does have an .823 OPS even if his BA isn't impressive), Frank Thomas

Offensive disappointments:  Travis Buck (possibly my personal biggest disappointment), Daric Barton (yeah he's really young, but he raised hopes of something special at the end of the year last year), Emil Brown (I expected him to at least hit left-handed pitching), Chris Denorfia (I thought he was going to be the regular guy in center field)

Managing - B :  I still hadn't made up my mind about Geren before this season started.  He hasn't done anything patently stupid and he's more flexible with his lineup card than Macha could've ever dreamed of being.  The problem is that when he's filling out that lineup card, he's often dealing with many of his best hitters not being there.  Ryan Sweeney has been arguably the A's best hitter this year and yet, he's been in and out of the lineup due to injury issues.  Mike Sweeney was hitting well and now he has injured knees.  Frank Thomas was getting in a groove and then he went down.  Eric Chavez has just recently become a regular in the A's lineup and he doesn't look 100 percent yet.  Still the starting pitching has made Geren look good.  He's made smart decisions for the most part with the bullpen.  Although I would really like to see him start to trust some of the younger guys a little more.  Foulke always looks like he's about to give up a bomb.  And Embree is always all about the heat, it's just a matter of whether someone gets geared up enough for it. One thing that I'm sure is a popular topic of discussion these days among the A's front office and Geren is what to do about Joe Blanton.  After yesterday's performance, I really think the A's have to think about replacing him as a starter, at least temporarily, with Chad Gaudin.  Still, given what the A's have had to deal with this year in terms of the injection of youth, unexpectedly bad struggles of guys like Buck and Barton, the myriad of injuries in the bullpen and to key offensive pieces, Geren has done a nice job of keeping a team that wasn't expected to compete in the running.  Much of that has to do with the starting pitching, mind you, but Geren has also done a pretty damn good job of handling the bullpen.

Front office - A- :  I know a lot of folks are going to automatically charge me with just giving Beane some undeserved praise here, but I honestly think that this could be the best job Beane has done in his time with the A's.  Yes, the team is still offensively deficient.  But it also has the best starting pitching in baseball right now and that's WITH the "ace" being the worst statistically on staff.  Danny Haren was awesome.  No one can dispute that.  But the A's have three significant chips already contributing at the major league level.  They also have a ton of talent in their minor league system now.  I'm not sure there are too many other front office groups in baseball who could simultaneously rebuild a farm system while keeping the major league team competitive for a division crown.  The biggest thing Beane has done is to build a team with depth.  So when an Eric Chavez can't play for months at a time, Jack Hannahan is waiting to take over.  Earlier in the season when Barton was struggling at first, Mike Sweeney saw some time there.  Greg Smith stepped into the rotation when Harden and Duchscherer went down.  Gaudin would probably be a top three starter for most rotations.  Yet he's sixth on the A's depth chart.  Brad Ziegler is there when the A's have bullpen issues.  Beane is nothing if not adaptive.  Yes, Emil Brown is seeming like a mistake right now, but he also had a ton of key RBIs at the beginning of the season when seemingly no one was batting in runs.  And Beane deserves a ton of credit for getting Frank Thomas for nothing.  Is the offense still a gong show?  Yes.  But Beane has done enough to cover up for the shortcomings by building the best rotation in baseball and a very steady bullpen to back it up.

 

Overall - A- : Honestly I wrestled with this one for a while.  I wavered between a B, B+, A- and an A.  But ultimately for me it came down to expectations.  I did not expect this team to be here halfway through the season.  I expected them to be in a distant third or even last place in the division.  But the starting pitching has kept this team afloat and right in the thick of the AL West despite low to no expectations from most folks. And my expectations were pretty low heading into 2008.  I thought I'd just enjoy watching some young kids come into their own.  Instead the team has fought and scrapped its way into second place in the division.

So there you have it.  My first half grades for our Oakland Athletics in 2008.  What grades would you give and why?  Who has been a disppointment so far and who has been a standout?

Better yet, give me some predictions for the second half of 2008.  Will the A's hang with the Angels or will they fade?  Will Harden and/or Duchscherer be sent to a contender for a truckload of quality prospects?  And maybe you even want to throw in the win total for 2008.  If I had to guess, I think the A's wind up around 86 wins and I do think either Harden or Duke will be dealt.

The A's, despite being anemic tonight offensively, did have one shot to make the game interesting and that was the eighth inning when they finally got to Kyle Kendrick.  The team had only four hits against Kendrick all night and the game was over when Greg Smith gave up one run in the first inning.

There weren't too many highlights to this game, but the one that sticks out in my mind is Ryan Sweeney gunning down Chase Utley at home.  Kurt Suzuki courageously blocked the plate to stop Utley from scoring.  I'm really coming to understand why all the kids are calling this guy Swooney.

The only other good news coming from the evening is that the A's are in talks to re-sign Mark Ellis to a contract extension beyond this season.  Thank goodness.  Ellis just seems like one of those players that needs to be an Oakland Athletic for life.  Yeah, he's not flashy offensively or defensively, but I would say that he is probably in the top five second baseman in baseball when you take everything into account.  Plus he is honestly one of the few players on the A's who I feel never, ever gives an AB away.

So the A's wrap up the series tomorrow with the team from their former city.  Then again, Kansas City is one of those teams too.  My question is, how many sports franchises can say that they spent  some of their time on the East Coast, Midwest and West Coast?  Not many.  I know my New Jersey Devils used to be the Kansas City Scouts and the Colorado Rockies before settling in the Garden State.  What is it with me and former Kansas City teams?

Rich Harden looks to go 5-0 against Adam Eaton who is 2-5.  See you here at 12:35.  I'll be really glad when this weekend is over and Interleague is in the rear view mirror, thank you very much.

You know, I'm predisposed to loving everything Oakland Athletics.  No duh you're saying.  But there is always differences in the love for each particular version of our beloved A's. I imagine it's kind of like having a new child every year.  You love them all, you just love them differently.

This year, the A's are just a lovable bunch and it's kind of a shame that the fans in the Bay Area aren't coming out to see this team more frequently.  It's probably something along the lines of what Beane always says about clubhouse chemistry.  The chemistry is there as long as you're winning.  The love blossoms the more winning that happens.  But it's not just about that for me.  It's a huge part, don't get me wrong, and the 2008 team is already a lot more lovable than the 2007 bunch.  There's just something about having that "no expectations" mentality and have everyone on the planet disrespecting the team and succeeding in the face of that that makes our muppets even more lovable.

I mean, I could go down a list of these guys and explain why I find each of them appealing...OK, actually, I'll do just that.

Rich Harden:  I love a guy who can be so very dominant throwing essentially two pitches for the majority of the time.  He's thrown the splitter a bit more lately, but he's doing what he's been doing largely with just a fastball and a changeup.  Remarkable.  Oh and that smirk is frigging brilliant.

Justin Duchscherer and Greg Smith:  I'm looping these two together because they largely accomplish great things despite the doubters and people who don't believe a guy who can throw more than 89 mph can be dominant.  Duke for being amongst the pitching elite and Smith for doing what he's doing as a rookie.  Oh and they both look more like they should be teaching third grade math rather than pitching in the big leagues.  Like Harden and Blanton both look like big league pitchers.  Duke and Smith?  Not so much.  I love that.

Joe Blanton:  Blanton has been good this year and he's assumed a larger role that he probably wasn't equipped to handle.  So he's often been matched up against the number one guy on the other team.  He's also pitched a ton already this year given that the A's started earlier in Japan.  Still, do still love Cupcakes.

Dana Eveland:  From his demeanor to his body he reminds me of a combination of C.C. Sabathia and younger David Wells.  Let's just hope that he doesn't need to have a hangover to throw a no hitter.  I love the fact that, according to things I'd seen written about Eveland, teams didn't think he could make it because of his body and lack of commitment to his craft.  It's always nice to give guys that are nice and motivated.

Mark Ellis:  How can I not start with Ellis?  The guy plays defense in an understated, yet spectacular fashion.  It's odd to believe that this guy has never won a gold glove.  He also never seems to have an at bat where I'm saying, wow, that was just a terrible AB.

Eric Chavez:  Everyone has jumped on Chavez for years for not being clutch and being the master of the meaningless home run, but there's something about him this year that seems different.  Maybe I'm the only one who feels that way, but that home run he hit off Webb last night was remarkable.  It was a nearly perfect pitch sinking away to the outside corner and he still hit it out to the opposite field.  I don't remember Chavez doing that since maybe 2002.  So perhaps he's just feeling much better having had all of his various ailments repaired this past offseason.

Bobby Crosby:  He's been public enemy number one around here for a while but I think he's looked a lot better and more consistent than he's been in his still young career.  Plus, you've got to love a guy who is laying out to keep a ball in the infield to preserve a shutout when the A's are up 8-0 like they were last night. 

Kurt Suzuki:  Zook has been up and down this year, but he's calling the game game like he's been in the league 10 years.  Our pitchers are trusting him and he can show very occasional flashes of power unlike the A's previous catcher.  Plus he seems to be willing to block the plate unlike the A's previous catcher before the previous catcher.

Carlos Gonzalez:  That catch he made last night was just amazing.  And he seems like the real deal to me at the plate.  Yeah he's going to need time to mature, but he's so young that I fully expect to see him as an all star in the future.

Jack Cust:  Yeah he sometimes looks like the Keystone Cops in left field, but I will always pull for a guy who finally gets a shot to succeed after languishing in purgatory.  Cust is doing just that.  Yes, he frustrates me with the strikeouts, but much like a curious kid who takes apart the new toy you bought him to see how it works, you realize that with the bad is going to come the good.

Frank Thomas:  Even though I said that signing Frank might've been a mistake, I gotta admit that I love seeing rebar man waiting in the on deck circle.  2006 was such a fun season as an A's fan and Thomas feels like he should've always been an A.

Daric Barton:  I'm going to start calling Barton Martin Brodeur because he does the splits to get a ball at first base nearly once a game.  Yes, he hasn't been producing the way we want offensively, but he's also very young and has such an advanced knowledge of the strike zone that I do believe he's going to mature into a really good hitter.  We just have to be patient with him now.

Jack Hannahan:  OK so he isn't Marco Scutaro, but Hannahan is an excellent defensive sub that the A's have now.  And he plays a very solid defense at third when Chavez needs the inevitable rest this year.  These kinds of moves are what make Beane so special.  That and getting two ML pitchers and a ML outfielder who are already contributing for Dan Haren (and I love Haren).

Ryan Sweeney:  Would you trade for Nick Swisher straight up for Ryan Sweeney at this point?  I don't think I would and I really loved Swisher's attitude when he was here.  But Sweeney is maturing into a great ballplayer right in front of our very eyes.  Yeah, he's not very patient at the plate, but he's a very good hitter.  Maybe he'll come back down to earth a bit, but I really like him both offensively and defensively.

Chad Gaudin:  So he doesn't squawk a bit when he's relegated to bullpen status (at least not that I saw) despite the fact that he did absolutely nothing to deserve the demotion.  He's been a part of one of the best bullpens in baseball and probably had every right to complain when put there.  Yet he just remained professional and did what he needed to.  You've got to love him for it.  That and he's been just nails out of the pen.

Brad Ziegler:  A 28-year-old rookie who agreed to switch his delivery because he believed the A's organization when they told him that it would likely lead to his shot at the majors.  He's someone that inspires me every time I see him pitch because he seems like one of those guys who could've given up.  But he didn't.  He did everything that was asked of him and he's finally getting his chance.

Are there other guys to love?  Hell yes.  I'm coming around on my bitterness surrounding Keith Foulke's departure to the Red Sox a few years ago.  Santiago Casilla, or the Artist Formerly Known as Jairo as I like to call him, has been brilliant now that he's finally stuck at the big league level.

Any way, I'm probably getting swept away in a good spell for the A's as I am a fan first and foremost, but I can't help it.  This is a fun team to watch on a nightly basis.  You almost always know you're going to see good pitching and a competitive game.  How many teams can you say that about on a consistent basis?

I love you, 2008 Oakland A's.

Recently I made a comment during Rich Harden's last start (before yesterday) that if he has a negative it's the fact that opposition batters have such a hard time making solid contact with his stuff.  That leads to his pitch count often getting up and early because as most folks know, strike out pitchers often wind up with higher pitch counts.  For years the A's have preached to guys like Mulder and Hudson to try and induce contact early and let the quality defense behind you do their jobs.  It's hard to do that when people can't seem to touch anything you throw up there.  It's like Harden is sometimes playing a different game than anyone else out there.

For example, Rich Harden has a fascinating stat this season.  Harden is arguably the most untouchable he has been in his career.  And if you judge by the contact that players make when they swing at one of his pitches, that appears to be the case.  Opposing batters are only making contact 66 percent of the time when they swing at a Harden pitch.  That is a ridiculous number.  For example, Johan Santana, who was widely considered the best pitcher in baseball for quite a few years when he was with the Twins had a contact percentage on swings of 69 and 67 percent.  These were years when he was striking out 265 guys.  Santana's percentage this year is 78 percent.  For those of you wondering, Barry Zito's contact percentage is 86 percent, the highest it's been in his career.

Rich Harden gets all the attention because he has that fastball that can approach 98 mph when he wants to ramp it up.  But I actually like watching a pitcher like Justin Duchscherer more.  Don't get me wrong, Harden making hitters look goofy is a treat to watch too, but Duke's ability to induce guys to make poor contact while putting the ball in play is also a skill.  Maybe not as sexy as the flamethrower, but I also love watching a guy where the opposition fans are saying to themselves, "He's only throwing 87 and his curveball just seems to float up there, how come we're not pounding this guy?"

If you look at Duke's stats , his contact percentage is 81 percent.  The funny thing is that Duke has been right around 81 percent contact throughout his career, showing a remarkable consistency.  Outside of his first year when the percentage was 85 percent contact on swings, Duke has been plus or minus two percentage points every other year.  Harden, for comparison, has a difference of 10 percentage points.  The good news being that he was at 76 percent contact his first season and has climbed downwards to 66.  He's become progressively more difficult to make contact with (another comparison is Felix Hernandez who has a contact percentage of 80 percent).

As a result of all this, Duke is averaging about 3.68 pitches per plate appearance and Harden is averaging 4.10 pitches per plate appearance.  Of course Harden is the dominant ace.  The strikeout king.  But I'd also like to see him go later in games.  He only has two complete games in his career.  Now there's no question to me who is the "better" pitcher and the guy that I would want out there if the A's needed to win one game.  Harden has some of the nastiest stuff I've ever seen. 

But for me, my personal preference is that I love watching a pitcher work the zone with pinpoint control and Duke is one of the best at that.  He doesn't have that baffling stuff, but the guy knows how to move inside and outside on batters.  He knows how to drop a remarkable curveball for a strike in a very predictable fastball count.  He does the best to keep the batters off balance because he can't rely on pulling 96 mph out of his back pocket.  On the other hand, hitting against a pitcher like this is remarkably frustrating.  Jamie Moyer used to drive me bananas whenever he went against the A's because he was just that kind of pitcher. 

So while many probably circle days when Harden is slated to pitch, I'm often circling the days when Duke is scheduled to pitch because I'm almost always guaranteed to see a guy work every inch of the zone.  You'll rarely see Duke throw a fastball down the middle and get away with it.  Harden, well, he can do it because his fastball has such velocity and movement that he can get away with it.

Do you care what kind of pitcher a guy is?  Are you in love with the heat?  Is the most dominant pitcher your thing knowing that that pitcher could possibly do something special every time he goes out there (like a no-no)?

Man, you know Bobby Crosby should really no longer be public enemy number one around AN.  All right, I know he isn't.  That's fallen into Emil Brown's lap.  But Crosby did something he needs to do more often if he's going to continue to evolve into the MVP-type player that all the experts were once predicting for the A's shortstop.  He drove a pitch to right field to plate Kurt Suzuki for a dramatic, bottom-of-the-ninth walk off win against the Detroit Tigers.

The A's had made a decision right before the hit to actually have Jack Hannahan bunt to move Suzuki to second and put him in scoring position.  I personally would've liked to see Hannahan have an AB right there simply because Hannahan is such a high OBP guy, he likely could've moved Suzuki into scoring position any way.  But that's water under the bridge because the A's won.  And heck, an Oakland Athletic besides Mark Ellis proved that he could actually execute a bunt effectively.

The game looked grim to me going in.  Rogers was so dominant at the Coliseum.  Harden had been hit hard by several Tigers in the past.  But Harden was simply amazing.  He worked in a lot more splitters than I've seen him use in quite a while.  He worked it effectively, racking up nine strikeouts.  The Tigers hitters looked perplexed by Harden up until the sixth inning where, maybe as Harden was wearing down a bit, Curtis Granderson hit a bomb, Carlos Guillen whacked a double and the A's walked Miguel Cabrera to pitch to rookie Jeff Larish.  I thought it was a smart move at the time, but it backfired as Larish took a Harden fastball to left field to help the Tigers take a 2-1 lead.  Harden also threw a whopping 115 pitches.  I was getting more and more nervous as his pitch count went up.  I kept expecting his arm to come flying off with one of those last pitches, but alas, it didn't.

The thing about Harden that might be frustrating both to us and to him is that he's simply not the kind of pitcher who can pitch to contact like say, Justin Duchscherer.  Harden's stuff is simply too baffling and has too much movement for him to count on opponents being able to get contact.  That means that he's going to have high pitch counts often early in the game.  Harden is simple in that the only pitches anyone ever seems to hit off him are his fastballs and occasionally the hanging changeup or splitter (that's rare).  He is the kind of guy who makes you ooooh and ahhhhh when he pitches, but that remarkable stuff will make it hard for him to ever get a complete game.  I forgot this because it had been so long since I'd seen him string a few starts together.

The A's came back and tied it when Daric Barton hit a long bomb off of Kenny Rogers and Rogers, finding out that A's fans aren't very fond of him, eventually left to a chorus of boos in the Coliseum.  Someone brought this up in one of the threads that the A's go up to the plate looking to walk.  Well, that happened in the eighth when Barton came back up with the bases loaded.  Barton got the count to 3-0 in his favor and let the 3-1 pitch go by.  He also then let a fairly hittable 3-1 pitch go by as well until he actually flew out to the Tigers' centerfielder.  I actually liked the approach simply because you had to believe that the pitcher, Bobby Seay, was going to have to come with the fastball on 3-2, so force him to throw three straight strikes.  It was a good approach because Seay looked like he was simply all over the zone.

So the A's again ride some great pitching from Harden, Keith Foulke out of the pen and Huston Street in the ninth (his fastball was once again hitting 95 and the slider had bite) to win.  I personally love the great pitching.  It had vacated the team for a few days there, but then again, Arlington does that to the best of pitchers.  The lack of hitting will probably give me a coronary eventually, but the great pitching gives this team a good chance to win every night.  Even against a team as good as the Tigers (yes, I still believe that team is really good).  And that's all you can ask for.  Right?

A's are up 1-0 and Harden is looking like King Richard, already punching out five.  It looks to me like he might be throwing his splitter once again.  Then again, his changeup behaves like a splitter at times.  Harden is tough to tell at times. 

Imagine actually facing him in the batter's box.

LET'S GO A'S, GET SOME MORE OFFENSE!

Yesterday you read part I .  Today is part II of Athletics Nation's exclusive interview with A's GM Billy Beane.

Enjoy.

 

Blez:  You brought something up earlier that I want to go back to.  You mentioned how this team is so founded on pitching.  It’s really been the success of this team with first The Big Three and then Haren and Blanton and now this year you have Eveland and Smith added to that mix.  Harden is…(Beane gestures for me to silence myself for fear of the jinx)

Beane:  Yes, he’s doing good.  When he’s out there it’s a beautiful thing. The thing about Rich, when you watch him pitch…

Blez:  Do you hold your breath every time?

Beane:  No, he’s such a great talent and in fairness to him, everyone knows how good he is and what an impact he can have on this team that everyone gets impatient with him as if it’s something he can control.  He knows how good he is.  He really is special.  He’s the one guy in the league when you talk to any GM or any hitter and they’ll tell you that when he’s on, he’s the best in the game.  I look at a guy like Josh Beckett who is still a great package.  He’s got great stuff.  A big imposing presence on the mound, but there are two guys that when they’re on you feel like you have no chance.  Felix (Hernandez), up in Seattle, is the other one that if he’s on and he has it that day, that’s it.  He’s dominating. 

Blez:  Rich seems to be throwing, and this is something I’ve observed, but he seems to be throwing exclusively fastballs and change ups. 

Beane:  He’s been a lot like that the last couple of years which should give you an idea as to how good those two pitches are. 

Blez:  In other words, to be able to go out there and get out major leagues hitters with two pitches exclusively is astounding.

Beane:  Yeah, that being said, those two pitches are pretty remarkable.  (Former Cincinnati Reds pitcher) Mario Soto was a bit like that back in the mid-80s.  He had a dominating fastball and an excellent changeup.

Blez:  Is he sticking with that mostly to try and avoid injury issues? 

Beane:  He’s been like that the last couple of years.  He’s really gotten away from the other stuff.

Blez:  He used to throw a pretty nasty splitter too.

Beane:  Yeah, but his changeup moves so much…

Blez:  That it can behave like a split.

Beane:  Yeah.  You know watching him this last Saturday, you just admire what he does.  It’s just so overwhelming with those two pitches you wonder ,why bother to mess around with anything else?

Blez:  I guess so.  What I was trying to get to earlier was talking about the offense.  The offense is a sore spot with this team.  It’s better this year, but it has those seemingly wild spells, and you and I were chatting about the Angels’ series when they scored something like 14 in one game, zero runs in the next one, one in the following game and then 15 in the final game.  I know you obviously value pitching quite a bit because that was something you pursued in the trades, but is there a point where you think, “I have to do something to improve this offense a little bit because if I can just improve the offense a little bit to complement the fine pitching, then this team is really formidable right now without even really thinking ahead.”

Beane:  I agree, but it’s not very easy.  You think about this last road trip which was a difficult road trip.  But we could’ve easily won every single game.

Blez:  If you’d had a little bit more offense.

Beane:  Yeah, but the reason you’re in that position is because of the pitching.  The fact that you can have a frustration level (and I have it too) is…well, we played three very good teams on the road trip and the fact is that every single one of those games we could’ve won.  That’s why you want to make sure you have a foundation of great pitching and that’s why you want to be careful in taking away from it.  But to get on your point, yeah we have some young players who are just coming into their own.  Ryan Sweeney is just getting his sea legs underneath him.  I mentioned Travis earlier and Daric has gotten off to a slow start, so with some of these younger players you’re just going to have to be patient with them.  You’ve got Eric (Chavez) coming back soon off his injury rehab, which I’m sure you’re aware of.  But Jack (Hannahan) has been great in his absence.  He had a tough start but he’s battled back nicely.  Having Eric out has had a big impact, and hopefully he’ll come back to the level he was in previous years. 

Blez:  Not to belabor this point, but when you decided to pick up Frank Thomas and Daric is struggling a little bit, do you pause for a second and think, maybe he should be given some more time in the minors and he starts to feel more comfortable.  You know that a lot of success in the majors has to do with a guy feeling confident at the plate.  Maybe he then gets more confident in Sacramento while you get to field the best possible team up here by having Mike Sweeney play first, Frank Thomas as DH and Jack Cust in left field.  Have you thought about that possibly being the best option right now for the big club?

Beane:  Playing first base might be difficult for Mike on an everyday basis, so that kind of rules that out.  We’ve always been hesitant to just send guys down once they’ve gotten here when we feel they’re long-term answers.

Blez:  Because it can be deflating psychologically?

Beane:  Yeah and I just don’t like that up and down yo-yo.  We’ve been pretty good about avoiding that over the last 10 years.  It’s not that it hasn’t happened.  I’m not convinced that it’s a good idea.  We’re just not convinced that’s the best option at this point.  Daric’s done a good job defensively.  He’s played good defense and I think I saw somewhere that one of the defensive fielding bibles had him as the best defensive fielding first baseman in the league. 

Blez:  Someone on AN wrote a post about that.

Beane:  Yeah and some of the numbers that we use in-house are really good too.  We think Daric is going to be a great major league hitter and we just have to exercise patience.  If a time comes that we feel that a young player needs to go down to get some more experience, we will.  But in Daric’s case part of becoming a good major league player is being allowed to go through some struggles.  Very few guys come up and hit their whole career.  That’s just part of becoming a major league player.  And then there’s an organizational balance too when maybe you say perhaps sending someone down would be best for the player.  I think in Travis’ case, we felt that was the right thing to do at that time.  We do think he’ll be back soon because we think so highly of him.

Blez:  The minor league system for the A’s is stacked and has gone from mediocre to poor ratings. Now you’re rated near the top by most of the experts.  It also now appears like the major league team is a lot better than people might have suspected.  Did you honestly believe that you could accomplish the goals of remaining very competitive in the AL West while completely rebuilding a barren farm system?

Beane:  The goal was to restock the farm system and the second part, we didn’t really know.  I wasn’t convinced that we were going to be a terrible team, which is what some people thought.  I wasn’t also ready to run up a hill and say we were going to be the best team in the league either.  We weren’t really sure.  There were a lot of what ifs there that didn’t really allow us to get a gauge on where we were.  I was looking forward to rebuilding this thing and making it really good for a long time, but it makes it a lot more pleasurable when you’re winning at the major league level.  So you find yourself getting used to winning after a while and then when you lose a few games in a row, you have to remind yourself that you have a young team.  Then you have to stop and appreciate where you’re at and what you’ve accomplished and be pretty happy.

Blez:  Part of that improved minor league system is Henry Rodriguez, someone you wouldn’t have found in years past.  But because you’ve added revenue to the Latin American scouting program, Rodriguez turned into a gem you were able to unearth.   Is that an area of great market opportunity for you to exploit moving forward?

Beane:  I don’t know that you can exploit it anymore.  It isn’t like it’s any great secret. The fact of the matter is is that 15 to 20 years ago we had a lot of success down there.  We kind of coat-tailed the first big clubs going in there, like the Dodgers, Blue Jays and they were the best at it.  We kind of followed them and had a nice little run signing a lot of guys.  It didn’t cost us a lot of money.  What ended up happening was that the cost of doing business there ended up going up significantly.  We tried to do business the way we used to do it and we spent less than anyone down there and it just wasn’t going to work any more.  In international signings over the last decade, we were last in all of baseball.  We thought that the way we did business before was going to work and it just didn’t.  And the proof was showing up at the major league level because Casilla was really the only one we got out of there in the last decade.  If we were going to go down there and have an academy and get something out of it, and the fact is you need to get something out of there because 30 percent of major league players are coming from there, then we needed to go in there like everyone else.  We started in the fall.  We’ve now signed a number of players out of there since the fall, out of Venezuela, the Dominican (Republic) and a kid from Mexico named (Arnold) Leon who has been excellent.  We just missed on signing a great kid out of Australia.  And the reason I recently went down to the Dominican was that we had a huge try out camp and I was seeing a bunch of kids from there.  It’s an area of focus, we’ve gotten off to a good start and we’re going to continue to be aggressive down there.

Blez:  How excited are you about Rodriguez?  Peter Gammons wrote during spring training that a few of the scouts he talked to said that he had one of the best arms they’ve seen in a while.  He’s struggled a bit since being promoted to Double-A.

Beane:  We were hesitant to move him up because he is so young but we felt like even during the earliest times of the season that he was so dominant that we had to consider it.  He’s actually getting better and learning some things.  We hesitated sending a 21-year-old up there, but people in the organization felt like it was best that he go up there and start learning some of the things he need to learn like throwing his offspeed pitches a little more.  We had almost needed to clear the Stockton team out because we had some kids in Kane County who needed to be up there like (Trevor) Cahill and (Brett) Anderson.  We thought it was good to create some mobility for those guys coming through.  Rodriguez has had a few ugly lines, but some of them have been deceiving.  We usually get pretty detailed reports and even though he hasn’t dominated there he’s still striking guys out which is usually a good indicator of future success.

Blez:  In general, the scouting budget has been increased.  Some of the old-school baseball minds might call this a bit of “backpedaling” from the philosophy Michael Lewis outlined in Moneyball.  The A’s were trying to get by on the shoestring budget.

Beane:  I don’t know that Michael necessarily wrote about that when it came to the draft.  We did spend a lot less in terms of the draft and there were a lot of dynamics in play there.

Blez:  What I’m saying is that, rightly or wrongly, Moneyball is always sort of seen as the scouts versus computer geeks lightning rod.  I don’t think that’s the best way to represent the book, but for better or worse, it seems to have taken on that popular view. 

Beane:  When was Moneyball published?  What 2002, so that’s six years ago now and we’re still talking about it?  I usually let Michael and others define what they thought what the book was about.  The bottom line is that I don’t there was anywhere in the book where we sat down and gave a manifesto on how to do things so I think that’s the most misinterpreted thing.  But as far as how we do business in the draft, the more you do this job, and this can apply to almost any business job, the more you realize you don’t know.  The idea that you are going to create a template that is going to work forever in a very competitive business just doesn’t happen.  Are there some things we still believe in?  Absolutely.  There are also some things where we say, “Maybe we need to take a look at this.”  But that’s the evolution of any business if you’re going to stay on top and try and be successful.  I’m glad we’re like that.  Maybe seven, eight, nine years ago I wouldn’t have been so much like that.  Successes and failures are things you can learn from.  For us, we’re constantly trying to evolve.  Just because we do something different that we didn’t necessarily do a previous year doesn’t mean it’s something we don’t believe in.  Someone will inevitably say that’s blasphemy compared to how we used to do business.  We’re constantly checking ourselves.  And the business is changing.  The people running teams now, in my opinion, are as good as they ever have been.  There are some really smart guys running businesses.  It’s incredibly competitive and the idea that you’re going to have an “intellectual edge” anymore is, and I not sure that there ever was, but I’m not sure it exists any more.  I can tell you the guys running teams now have some really, really smart guys working for them.  You’re not going to outsmart too many people.  We all have the same information available to us.

Blez:  Is (the influx of young talent in front offices) the result of Moneyball?

Beane:  No, you know what I think it’s a result of, is that it’s a result of being big business so the people who are really successful buy baseball teams.  Very smart people buy baseball teams and they expect results so the more money pumped into the business, the better people are going to be attracted to it. 

Blez:  You’ve taken a lot of steps to change the organizational processes in relation to keeping players healthier.  Yet injury problems already cropped up again a little bit with Duke and Harden, Chavez, Denorfia, Ellis, Buck and even Mike Sweeney.  Granted many of these guys have injury histories, but do you think that you have possibly turned the corner with the injury issues with some of the changes you have made?

Beane:  One of the things I’ve noticed with the injuries is that you really, really notice them when you don’t have depth.  We all get anxious, including fans, when you’re waiting for a player to come back, but when you can bring up a Greg Smith to replace Rich in the rotation and he pitches the way he does it allows you to go through the due process of a guy who is injured normally so you aren’t pushing them out there too early.  It becomes a vicious cycle if you don’t have depth.  You get a guy hurt and you push him back early and he might get hurt again and be out for a longer period of time.  The process is more than just being about looking at the team doctors and how you do things. That’s certainly part of it, but our responsibility on the baseball side is providing enough depth in understanding that you’re playing a sport where you’re going to have injuries.  If they are injured then we give our guys the proper time they need to heal and don’t expect them to play half way through the injury, then expect them to be healthy.  The less depth we had, if you noticed, the more injuries we started to have because we kept pushing those guys out there.  To some extent, like Eric (Chavez), who busted his rear end to get out there in time for spring training.  We all said, we really want him out there and need him out there and then we took a step back and said, wait a second let’s do this the right way.  He’s almost there now and has had a very detailed program since the end of spring training.  He’s out playing in games right now.  But the fact that Jack has performed so admirably up here allows that process to happen.  I think that part of our medical problem has been not having the depth in the organization that we probably should’ve had and each year it got tougher and tougher.  I am happy with the new process though.  Soup (Head Trainer Steve Sayles) has done a phenomenal job.  Meanwhile, Steve commands a lot of respect as a trainer because he has a great presence.  He’s conservative by nature.  Our rehabs are longer but he’s also had the advantage of having depth.  He’s very conservative.  If I’m thinking something is going to be 2-3 days, he’ll probably say it should be 7-8.  That’s just the way he is. 

Blez:  And perhaps that will help the guys stay on the field longer too once they get back.

Beane:  Yeah, exactly.  He’s definitely showed great leadership since we hired him which is something I think we all expected.

Blez:  There is going to be a roster crunch coming.  Especially with Chavez coming back and you mentioned that you want to get Buck back in there.  I know you can’t really say what you’re going to do with all the extra players and the first base, DH and left field shuffle, but how much does a win-now mentality affect that decision compared to giving those young players a chance to develop and mature?

Beane:  It’s one of those questions that I say that you’ll probably have to check with me at the time.  The press is always asking those questions…you know, what are you going to do in two weeks when this happens?  Well, when we get to two weeks we’ll let you know.  Inevitably something always seems to happen in between.  Not to avoid your question because those are all fair points, but I think it will be something we’ll be better equipped to answer when the time comes.  Right now it’s just too early to speculate.

Blez:  Speaking of the upcoming roster crunch, what did you like about Rajai Davis so much to go ahead and pick him up?

Beane:  He’s got unique speed.  It’s hard to find that kind of speed you can pick up for $20,000.  He’s right handed and one guy we’ve never had is someone to come in in the seventh inning to pinch run and steal a base.  He’s actually handled left handers well in the past and we thought he was a great complement and dimension that we didn’t have.  We felt like he was too good of an athlete to pass up for the cost.

Blez:  How close did you come at the beginning of the season to keeping both of the Gonzalezes (Gio and Carlos) with the big club coming out of camp?

Beane:  They’re both so very young.  They’re both only 22 years old.  So we had pretty much made up our mind up that they would need some time down in the minors.  And then when Carlos had the hamstring injury, it kind of impacted it in that it wasn’t as though we couldn’t have had that conversation in the spring.  We would’ve liked to have taken Carlos to Japan for the exhibition games but it would’ve taken quite a bit for us to break camp with them.  They’re still both very, very young even for the level they’re at now, which is Triple-A.

Blez:  Did the number of years you could have them under contract control factor into the decision?  I believe some media sources out there reported that some veterans on the team, and they were unnamed sources I believe, wanted Carlos to remain on the club. 

Beane:  That means they might not have been here then (laughs).  But no, that’s not the case at all.  Spring training is not a good judge.  I think I hit .400 one year in the Cactus League which will tell you it doesn’t mean a whole lot.  That happens every year.  I remember one year the veterans wanted to keep Mark Mulder.  He promptly went out and had like a 5.00 ERA in Triple-A that year.  Just because you have a good spring training doesn’t mean you’re ready for the big leagues.  I think in both of those kids (Carlos and Gio) they’re still both cutting their teeth at Triple-A.  Carlos got off to a good start and then went through a little lull and now he’s back over .300.  And Gio has had some great games, but he’s also had games in which he’s struggled.  They still need some time.

Blez:  The pitching staff down in Stockton and Kane County seem to almost unfairly loaded with pitchers like James Simmons, Cahill, Anderson and de los Santos.  I know you don’t like to make predictions about what players are going to be but do you think that we’re going to see some true major league aces come out of this crop of talent?

Beane:  (without hesitation and emphatically) Yes. 

Blez:  And when I say aces I mean, number one starter ability.

Beane:  Number twos do everything the number one does, but the number one is the guy.  It’s like when Stew (Dave Stewart) was here.  We had Mike Moore and Dave Stewart and when you look at them it was hard to say who was actually better on the mound but Stew was number one and Mike was number two because of the presence factor and the cache.  The number one label is based on presence.  I’ll say this, there are a lot of guys down there who have the ability to be good number twos and threes.  But we’ll just see if they have the cult of personality there after a couple of years. 

Blez:  How much research do you on the personality when it comes to trying to decide if they might evolve into that type of guy?

Beane:  Personality may be the wrong word.  It’s more like a swagger.  (Tim) Hudson had it when he was here. 

Blez:  Would you have called him the number one out of the Big Three?

Beane:  When he came up, Tim seemed like this nice quiet kid from the south, but then after a few years in a major league clubhouse he became a very self confident guy.  The way a GM knows a kid versus the way a kid really is takes a few years.  And in order to be a number one, you have to develop a track record too.

Blez:  I often ask you this question when we get together, but since the minor league clubs have changed so much since we last got together, I’m interested to hear what you think now.  Tell me about some unheralded gem in the A’s system that the fans might want to keep a close eye on.

Beane:  Yes, you do always ask me that (laughs).  There is nothing win-win for me in this one because I’ll inevitably have to single someone out which means excluding a number of others.  How do I answer that?

Blez:  In the past, you’ve given me names.  Sulentic was someone you gave me one year.

Beane:  David (Forst) actually saw him in high school and I can remember when he saw him in high school.  I’m going to take the fifth because there’s a lot of guys.

Blez:  Is it because the system is stacked so it’s harder to choose someone?

Beane:  I’m trying to do the proper thing in a leadership role.  You know what, Aaron Cunningham has come back and he wasn’t one of the heralded guys in the Haren deal but he’s a guy that we like quite a bit.  He’s a right-handed bat, plays all three outfield positions and he had a real good start to camp.  Then he broke his hand and just got back.  It’s fun seeing him and he’s played pretty well since he got back.

Blez:  I assumed if I kept you talking long enough you’d give me someone.

Beane:  Probably (laughs).

 

Coming tomorrow:  The final part of the interview.  Beane discusses the Jack Cust phenomenon of striking out, walking or hitting homers, Bobby Crosby's improvements this season and whether or not Beane believes in clutch hitting.

[Original lyrics here.]

Oh, what have you strained, my white-cleated son?
Oh, what gave you pain, my hurling young one?
I’ve cheated the fans of fifty missed A’s mound starts,
I’ve walked less than I’ve struck out in eighty-six games,
I’ve stepped in the offices of unnumbered specialists,
I’ve been out of commission in three straight seasons,
I’ve been ten thousand miles to a Tokyo ballyard,
And it’s a canard (that means a duck)! He’s a Canuck! Warm up DiNard!
And Richard Harden’s a goner, y’all.

[Complete Poetic Interlude after the jump.]

Continue reading this post »

Apparently many of Rich Harden's medical issues over the past few seasons have to do with the fact that some people in the A's organization were playing to his hockey sensibility of playing through the pain.

 It's fascinating to see this happen this year too.  Remember, Bobby Crosby did something similar last year.

Harden says the following in the Ratto piece:

He also claimed that, though he didn't worry about what most people say about his resume of fragility, he was and remains unhappy with "people in the organization" who doubted his resolve and accused him not pitching through pain.

"The whole year I had people in the organization telling me I'm fine, that I have to pitch with pain," he said, repeatedly declining to say who those people were. "I had people telling me that, and it's insulting. That's the frustrating thing. There's been some stuff that's been going on."

Then his voice trailed off, and he said, "I probably shouldn't say anything else."

 Of course Harden doesn't name names, but this is pretty condemning.  Harden continued in the article, saying the following:

"Every (injury) I've had, I've stayed out there," he said. "I will not pull myself or take myself out, and that's what hurt me in the past. I've tried to pitch through stuff and that's where these injuries have happened, and that's why I've spent more time on the DL.

"Without a doubt, 100 percent, that's what happened, and that's something that's frustrated me, because you get people in the organization questioning your ability to pitch with pain and they have no clue who I am or what I'm about. I don't like that. That's one thing that does frustrate me, when it's people in the organization who question me. When it's coming from our organization, that definitely fires me up."

 Billy Beane denies that it happened.  But even if it did happen on a lower level, say like a Larry Davis-level, I can't necessarily blame the A's for pushing Harden given his immense talent and what he brings to the team.  When he's healthy, he's simply one of the best in the game.  Course he hasn't been healthy in quite a while.

Harden is always the intriguing question mark coming into the season.  If he is indeed 100 percent healthy for the first time in a long time, he would actually give the A's a good rotation with a true ace.  But it's nice to want something.  I just won't believe that Harden is ever going to be out on the mound for more than 10 starts in a season.  I hope I'm wrong, but recent history tells me otherwise.