FanPost

Thoughts on the Elephants

The whole righty/lefty matchups are often way overhyped.  Of course there are certain matchups you can't ignore, such as Bradford pitching to lefties, and Byrnes hitting against righties in '05.  Bobby Kielty is a different connundrum, because he has the option of hitting from either side.  His BA/OBP/OPS vs. RHP and LHP, respectively:

.234/.322/.672 with 6 HRs
.322/.398/.867 with 4 HRs

I know this is no news here, but the real question is why the heck does he still hit lefthanded?  The A's have gone on the record (for obvious reasons) for wanting Kielty to only hit righthanded, but Kielty has refused.  What are he and his agent thinking?  A nice swing is a nice swing, regardless of where the ball is coming from, and he obviously is more comfortable hitting from the right side.  Yeah, switch hitting is more sexy, but if you have a .672 OPS, that's not exactly hot.  Of course his stats will drop a bit when facing righties, but they will still be better then his anemic performance from the left.  Booby K, you are a major leaguer, and this is your window of opportunity.  I am learning in my career, to not let that window become boarded up with a piece of plywood.

For the record, I am a huge Booby K fan, and had faith in him for a rebound in '05 when several were calling for his beheading.  We all love the Ronnie Mac, his hustle, and how he lets the RF bleachers know how many outs there are.  If Kielty puts up solid numbers against RHP's & LHP's from the right side, we might be looking at a rock star.

Speaking of rock stars, I am officially torn between trading Z and letting him walk for picks.  Notice I've left out the third option of being resigned, which is all but eliminated unless the purse strings loosen or BB gets bored again and restructures the entire franchise.  I can see the trade market blossoming in the next couple of months, with very nice packages being thrown our way.  Texas is very intriguing, because they are a division rival, and would have to grossly overpay for Zito and have some nice talent.  It would also be interesting to see what the flyball pitcher Zito does in Arlington.  If Zito walks for the picks and we win it all in '06 then the Loaiza sigining is beautiful and we have 2 first rounders.  The organization is not depleted after all.

The Loaiza signing could be seen as the latest addendum to the Moneyball book.  I'm thinking of the pickin machine chapter where the A's took the best of what Giambi had and what they could afford (OBP) and found it in Scott Hatteberg.  Loaiza, to a lesser extent, is a poor man's Zito, with the innings pitched and durability.  At 3 years and $20-21 million is hardly pulling from the scrap heap, but it is $3-4 million cheaper than a BZ extension.  And that is playing the market.  So we don't have a first rounder (yet) for the '06 draft, but let's not forget we did draft Sullivan and Snyder in the first round.  Yeah, I know of the talent we have gotten in the first round, but let's remember it's a long way to the bigs.