10:00 AM: Today, the A’s will have the 12th pick in the MLB amateur draft, their highest pick since they picked Barry Zito with the 9th pick in 1999.

This draft has an upper tier of about 10 players, and the A’s are hoping that one of those ten falls to them. Those ten are SS Tim Beckham, 3B Pedro Alvarez, 1B Eric Hosmer, LHP Brian Matusz, C Buster Posey, C Kyle Skipworth, SS Gordon Beckham, 1B Yonder Alonso, 1B Justin Smoak, and RHP Aaron Crow. The A’s are hoping that two of the 11 teams ahead of them pick a player not from this list.

From the buzz going around the last few days, this does not appear too likely. The one scenario that might cause this to happen is if the secretive Giants select Gordon Beckham, who is coveted by both the Reds at #7, and the White Sox at #8. That might lead to the Reds selecting Canadian HS C/3B Brett Lawrie, the White Sox possibly going for 3B/1B Brett Wallace and/or the Rangers (#11) selecting a much-needed pitcher instead of the remaining bat from the top 10 list.

The names being attached to the A’s should the top 10 go in the top 11 are threefold: Wallace, Aaron Hicks, and Jemile Weeks. Wallace and Hicks are essentially polar opposites: Wallace is the most polished bat in the draft, a college star with a rare combination of power and patience, but his body and athleticism–well, let’s just say he’s not going to be selling any jeans here. His lack of defensive value may lower his stock in the A’s minds, especially since the A’s already have a number of young first base types in their system with Daric Barton, Sean Doolittle, and Chris Carter. Hicks, on the other hand, is a phenomenal athlete–he has speed and power and can throw in the mid 90s, but he’s a very raw talent fresh out of high school. He says he wants to play centerfield as a pro, but the A’s may prefer him as a pitcher. The A’s may not want to draft a player who doesn’t want to play the position they want him to play.

Which leads us to Jemile Weeks, who all the draft-day mock drafts have going to the A’s, as sort of a compromise between college polish and raw athleticism. He’s the brother of the Brewers’ 2B Rickie Weeks. The A’s are bulging with outfielders, first basemen and pitchers, and very thin in the middle infield, so there’s a certain logic to this idea. However, Jemile is not as powerful as his brother, which makes his ceiling more like Chone Figgins than Rickie Weeks. Picking Weeks at #12 seems like a waste of the value of the #12 pick. Because he has no power, Weeks is a pick more appropriate for the bottom of the first round than the top.

Who will it be? We’ll find out in about an hour…

11:38: The Giants take Florida State C Buster Posey at #5. Everything has gone according to the mock drafts so far, making the Jemile Weeks scenario more and more likely.

11:49: The first mild surprise of the first round: the Reds take Alonso instead of Gordon Beckham. Not sure if that affects the flow of the draft downstream enough to help the A’s.

11:54: The White Sox take Beckham at #8. Only two of the top 10 players left: Smoak and Crow.

11:59: Nats take Crow. Will Astros and/or Rangers, who both need pitching, take Smoak?

12:04: Whoa. First big surprise: Astros took Jason Castro, a catcher from Stanford. Smoak is still on the board. Will the Rangers pass up pitching, and leave Smoak to the A’s?

12:09: Bah. Rangers take Smoak.

12:12: A’s are on the clock. The top ten are gone. Who’s #11 on the A’s list?

12:14: A’s take Weeks. Jim Callis calls him "the last true up-the-middle player" of the first round. OK, whatever, but this is a typical Oakland safe pick. A guy who is likely to be a solid major leaguer, but probably not a superstar. I was hoping for something different with the A’s first high draft pick in years and years–someone with some bigger superstar upside. Yes, the A’s need middle infield talent, but I’ll have to let this one sink in for awhile before I can feel excited about it.

15:34: A’s second round pick: Tyson Ross, from Cal. As a Cal fan, I can’t say I’m particularly excited about this pick, either. Ross has size and talent, but he hasn’t produced the kind of results you’d expect from a 6′ 6" guy who can crank it up to the mid 90s. Well, at least he has some upside.

16:09: A’s third round pick: Preston Paramore, catcher from Arizona State, with excellent plate discipline. Keith Law had him ranked as his #41 prospect.

17:21: Fourth round: Anthony Capra, LHP from Wichita St. with good results, decent velocity, but no good breaking pitch. Fifth round: Jason Christian, a shortstop from U Michigan with decent stats. Just for comparison:

Player              AVG  G    AB   R   H  2B  3B  HR RBI  SLG% BB HBP  SO  OB%  SB-ATT  PO   A  E  FLD%
Jemile Weeks.....  .366  57  216  75  79  16   5  11  57 .639  30   4  36 .447  19-20   93 148  9 .964
Jason Christian..  .330  50  194  56  64  13   6   7  48 .567  39   3  36 .445  16-18   83 113 13 .938

Very similar OBPs, but that slugging percentage is the difference betwen first round money and fifth.

Hi, I’m Billy Beane, General Manager of the Oakland Athletics.  Last year, I sent a record 22 players to the disabled list.  After shipping off Frank Thomas to the DL yesterday, we’re already halfway toward beating last year’s record.  And whenever I need to ship off another group of players to the disabled list, I rely on Busted Wheels Trucking Company.  Busted Wheels is the Official DL Transportation Company of the Oakland A’s. Tell ’em Billy sent you!

Catfish Stew took this exclusive photo yesterday at the Oakland A’s secret DL dumping ground. I can’t tell you where it is, as my sources prefer to remain anonymous. Perhaps you can figure it out, but our lips are sealed.

If you don’t know anything about Justin Duchscherer, you might think tonight’s 1-hit shutout of Boston is just one of those fluky things that happens in baseball: any bum can have a good day. Heck, Mike Warren threw a no-hitter once.

There was nothing fluky about Justin Duchscherer’s performance tonight. Justin Duchscherer is flat out a great pitcher. This is exactly the sort of thing he’s been doing for years. He should have been a starter years ago, but he got stuck in the setup role (a) because the A’s have had a lot of good starting pitchers, and (b) he’s been so damn good in the setup role.

This year, he’s finally getting his shot at starting. Take a look at what he’s done so far this year:

5.0 IP, 1 ER.
5.0 IP, 2 ER.
5.0 IP, 1 ER.
7.0 IP, 2 ER.
6.2 IP, 1 ER.
5.0 IP, 3 ER.
8.0 IP. 0 ER.

Now look at his career ERAs since he came to Oakland:
2003: 3.31
2004: 3.27
2005: 2.21
2006: 2.91
2007: 4.96 (*injured hip)
2008: 2.16

There’s a lot of trade speculation about Rich Harden and Joe Blanton, and those two guys are good pitchers, but if you judge by actual career performance, Justin Duchscherer has been a better pitcher than both of them:

Duchscherer: 3.36 ERA, 1.19 WHIP
Harden: 3.56 ERA, 1.27 WHIP
Blanton: 4.08 ERA, 1.31 WHIP

Duchscherer doesn’t get his due, because he doesn’t throw 99 MPH like Harden or even 93 like Blanton, and he’s been stuck in an unglamorous role for too many years. But mixing those precision mid-80 mph cutters with his 12-to-6 curveball, he keeps getting hitters off balance, and generating out after out after out. If the Angels keep racking up wins, and the A’s can’t keep up and decide to become sellers in July, the smart teams will be asking about Duchscherer just as much as Harden and Blanton.

I got the flu a few weeks ago, which caused me to fall behind in my work projects, which cause me to fall behind in my home projects, which caused me to fall behind in my blogging. Meanwhile, my 10-month-old daughter, who I used to be able to entertain by simply sitting her down in the middle of a room with a bunch toys, recently figured out how to stand up from that seated position, and is now walking all over house. Which means even less time for blogging, as she must be watched every second of the day, lest she try to eat every little pebble she finds left on the floor.

No time: that’s the downside. The upside is getting to watch her personality emerge with every new skill she acquires. Once she learned to reach out and grab things, we soon discovered she is fashion conscious, with an unusual preference for floral patterns. When she learned to say "Hi", and we discovered that she’s a very outgoing and friendly kid. Then last week, when she stood up by herself for the first time, she looked me straight in the eye and gave one of those villainous laughs you hear in the movies when the bad guy realizes (mistakenly) that his big plans are indeed going to succeed. Oh, Daddy, watch out! I am now officially mobile! Nothing can stop me! I had to laugh back. "Oh, dear," I thought. "I think this girl is going to be high-maintenance."

This is also one of the joys of baseball for me: watching a team’s personality unveil itself over the course of a season. This 2008 A’s team, I find, has been particularly difficult to peg. There’s no one guy, no star, no Giambi or Tejada or Swisher, who has emerged as the team’s dominant personality. The pitching has been consistently good, but the rest of the team seems rather schizophrenic to me. One day they’re scoring 9, 11, or 15 runs; and then they go get shut out in three out of the next five games. They steal more bases than I can remember any A’s team stealing since Rickey was around, but at the same time, they make some simply godawful baserunning mistakes. The defense seems to be fairly efficient, but then they’ll go and drop easy fly balls for no apparent reason. I would rack up their inconsistency to their youth, if not for the fact that a couple of the older players on the team, Jack Cust and Emil Brown, have been just as much a source of that inconsistency as any of the players who are fresh out of Little League.

I seem to be living a Little League existence lately. The last A’s game I went to, I experienced the Little League-style cheering of Jeremy Guthrie’s kindly aunt. Yesterday, I experienced Little League-style cheering of a very different nature. It was Field Trip Day at the Coliseum, and I chaperoned a bunch of fifth-graders in my oldest daughter’s class to the A’s-Rays game. The good news is that there was lots of good news: after losing two consecutive games to Tampa Bay in exasperating fashion, Dana Eveland was masterful, the game went along quickly, and the A’s scored a bunch of runs, winning 9-1. The bad news is that these 10- and 11-year-olds used any good news as an excuse to scream piercingly at the top of their lungs. I went to the Coliseum expecting a baseball game, and a Beatles concert broke out. My ears are still ringing.

This where I think Pat Jordan’s remarks about how celebrity culture is preventing fans from getting to know modern athletes may be a bit beside the point. I will remember these two games as “the kindly aunt game” and “the screaming kids game”. The games had distinct personalities, but the actual personalities of the players didn’t really have anything to do with it. Our social brains are hardwired to assign personalities to not only people, but things, even things as abstract as a ballgame. So does knowing the personalities of the players lead us to understand the results on the field, or is it more the other way around: we ascribe to the players the personalities we experience when watching them, whether we know the players or not?

I’ve been attending quite a few actual Little League games lately. My wife’s nephew, who was a very good player at age 10 in the 12-year-old Little League division, is now age 12, and completely dominating his league. So far this year, he’s batting .500/.630/1.029, and his left-handed pitching arm is doing even better: 64 strikeouts in 45 IP, with a 0.20 ERA. In one game a couple weeks ago, he gave up one hit and struck out 17 in 7 IP (they won 1-0 in extras). Having used up his pitch count for the week, he played first base the next day. He came up with bases loaded and two outs in the 6th and final inning, with his team trailing by a run, and hit a rocket straight over the center-field fence for a game-winning grand slam.

When I watch my nephew play, he seems to have an aura like Tiger Woods or Kobe Bryant out there on that Little League diamond: the whole personality of the game revolves around him; he’s the dominant player who can pull a magical shot out of his bag anytime his team needs one. And yet I’ve known this kid since he was born; I’ve changed his diapers, I’ve fed him, I’ve watched him grow from a toddler to a goofy 12-year-old kid who’s pretty normal in every way except that he’s really, really good at baseball. Nothing I know of his off-the-field personality would lead me to assign that "star player" personality to him on the field. And yet, when I watch him play, I do it, anyway. It seems to me that the on-the-field personality that I perceive in him is more an emergent property of the game, than of the person.

What does the future hold for him? Is that "big star" aura a persistent part of his personality, a trait that predestines him to a career in pro baseball? Or are these last few months of Little League the glory days of his life? Will he one day read Jordan’s A False Spring, and think, hey, that was me–I could throw that speedball by you, too, before that flaw of mine was revealed, and it all just fell apart?

I could make some prophecies. I feel their lives, their destinies spilling out before me. The denial of the one true path, played out on a world not their own, will end soon enough. Soon there will be four, glorious in awakening, struggling with the knowledge of their true selves. But the idea of "one true path" is a fiction created by human psychology. In real life, there’s a 10-month-old girl, taking her first steps towards her destination, a place unknowable until she gets there.

Hi, everybody! Welcome to the show! Are you ready for another exciting round of "What’s Wrong With Him?" Ok, let’s play!

Kurt Suzuki. What’s wrong with him?
Suzuki hit a homer on Wednesday, but hasn’t had a hit since. The homer is looking like a fluke. His hitting has actually been plummeting like a stone since Bob Geren moved him into the leadoff spot when Travis Buck got hurt a few weeks ago. Suzuki is hitting .209/.277/.256 from the #1 slot in the batting order; it’s clearly time to call that experiment a failure. Suzuki is a catcher in his first full MLB season. He’s still got a lot to learn and absorb. It’s time to take some pressure off the young man by placing him back at the bottom the batting order.
Oh, no, I’m sorry. The correct answer is:
If you play a catcher as often as Jason Kendall, he’ll eventually end up hitting like Jason Kendall. He needs some days off.

Rich Harden. What’s wrong with him?
Harden’s first start off the DL Sunday against Texas was pretty weird. He got the first two outs fairly easily in each of his first three innings, and also the leadoff batter in the fourth, but thereafter got smacked around before he could finish off each inning. Will Carroll remarked on BP that "Harden didn’t have his control, but he did have his mid-90’s velocity." I’m not so sure I agree with that. Harden’s control is not really his strength, anyway. Gameday kinda confirmed my suspicions–he hit 96 and 97 mph a couple of times, but most of the time, his fastball sat at 93. While watching the game, I thought Harden’s fastball was lacking its usual little extra oomph–batters were making more contact on it than they usually do. He admitted afterwards that he felt tired out there. He was also not throwing his splitter or his slider, to help avoid injury. The Texas hitters knew he was only a two-pitch pitcher that day, so without a blow-away fastball, Harden had to use the changeup more often than normal to try and fool the hitters with. A few of those got left up and over the plate, and got appropriately whacked. But the core problem is that with a few exceptions, Harden was just throwing fastballs, not Fastballs.
Oh, no, I’m sorry. The correct answer is:
Rich Harden was sporting goofy beard-like thing he had growing on his chin. Just because he took Chad Gaudin’s spot in the rotation doesn’t mean he had to try to grow an ugly beard like Gaudin’s. Gaudin’s beard-like thing kinda suits his mug in a strange sort of way, but it just looked totally out of place on Harden’s baby face.

Barry Zito. What’s wrong with him?
People have been asking me that question for several weeks now, but I hadn’t actually seen him pitch this year until last night. As always, the whole key to Zito’s existence is his unusual ability to reduce the BABIP of right-handed batters. Without that skill, he’s nothing. Nearly every non-knuckleballing MLB pitcher who ever pitched yields a BABIP of about .300, but Zito in over 5,500 PA has yielded a BABIP against RHB of only .261. (He’s a more conventional .290 against LHB.) This year, his BABIP against RHB is .339. Why the huge difference this year? People have been harping on his loss of velocity, but I don’t think that’s really the source of his struggles this year. His unusual skill comes from an unique pitch sequence that is set up by his curveball, as I explained here. The problem I saw last night was not all that different from his mediocre nights that he had in Oakland when his curveball wasn’t working. The curve wasn’t that nasty pitch he used to throw that starts out looking like it was clearly a ball, and then sharply snaps over the plate. Instead, the ball just kinda rolled up there. He was throwing curveballs, not Curveballs. He didn’t seem confident in throwing his primary weapon, afraid he’d hang it or something, and without it, he’s a two pitch pitcher, just like Harden, but without about 10mph of speed. He had good control of his fastball last night, and a decent changeup, and that was good enough to get him through the order twice. But just like in Oakland, the third time through the order was a problem without the Curveball.
Oh, no, I’m sorry. The correct answer is:
Barry Zito is a head case. The guy thinks too much. He would be a lot better pitcher if he was an idiot, and just stubbornly stuck with what works. He tinkers with his motion to try to increase velocity, and ends up losing velocity, control, and, most importantly, deception. Every time he tries something new, it screws him up, and he eventually ends up going back to the old stuff. Rick Peterson is the only pitching coach who had success with him, because he recognized that Barry Zito is too smart for his own good, and wouldn’t let him change anything. No, you can’t throw a slider. No, you can’t change your stride length. No, you can’t change your stretch motion. Curt Young and Dave Righetti have been too much like nice, spoiling uncles than stern fathers, too willing to let him try new stuff. Barry Zito should not vote for Barack Obama. Zito needs a pitching coach who will tell him, "No, you can’t!"

Three strikes, you’re out!
We have some lovely parting gifts for you, as reward for your effort. Thanks for playing!

Had an interesting experience at the ballpark today–it felt more like watching a game in Little League instead of Major League Baseball. Not because the play was bad, but because I happened to sit next to the aunt of Orioles’ starting pitcher Jeremy Guthrie. That’s her boy right here:

Guthrie’s aunt was one of those kindly old ladies who loves you no matter what, and everything you do is great, because you’re trying your best. Her cheering, complete with anachronistic shouts of "Yay!" and "Yahoo!" and "Hooray!", was so charmingly optimistic–"C’mon Jer, you can do it, I know you can!", I began to fall under her spell. After about three or four innings, I had somehow come to believe that the worst possible outcome of this game would not be a loss for either team, but that Jeremy Guthrie might somehow end up with his feelings hurt.

So when Kurt Suzuki blasted this two-run homer, I didn’t really have the heart to cheer very much:

Poor Jer. He must have felt so bad. Guthrie was on the hook for the loss until Andrew Brown entered the game in the eighth inning, and proceeded to give up twenty-nine consecutive grounders in the hole between Daric Barton and Mark Ellis. I’m sure Andrew Brown felt bad about turning a two-run lead into a 5-4 deficit, and perhaps even worse when walking off the mound to a round of boos. Aunt Guthrie was appalled. "That’s just terrible, booing a player like that. I’m sure he was doing his best."

Brown got off the hook for the loss in the bottom of the eighth, when the A’s tied the score, thanks to a brilliant takeout slide by Jack Hannahan. Frank Thomas was pinch-hitting with the bases loaded and one out, and hit a slow grounder to short. Most batters would beat out the relay throw, but Thomas is so slow, there was a high risk of an inning-ending double play. But Hannahan just obliterated Brian Roberts, who had no chance at making a throw to first to double up Thomas. It reminded me of the collision between Randy Johnson’s fastball and the dove. Roberts simply disappeared, so much so that I don’t even have a photo of it. One of the best slides I’ve ever seen, and the game-tying run scored.

So the game went into extra innings, which is a happy result, because nobody can feel too bad about losing in extra innings, right? You both tried your best, and played well, and somebody had to get lucky and win. In this case, it was Mark Ellis who got lucky and won, with a home run that just barely glanced off the foul pole.

Yay! And now, the A’s are once again tied for the best record in the American League. The fellows on this A’s team are really good boys, they really are. Hooray for them! Yippee!

If you were to ask me why I dwell among green mountains,
I should laugh silently; my soul is serene.
The peach blossom follows the moving water;
There is another heaven and earth beyond the world of men.

–Li Po (translated by Robert Payne)

I live in the suburbs in a mild climate. The average low in winter is only 13 degrees cooler than in summer. I drive on fully paved roads. I walk on fully paved sidewalks. The water I drink comes from faucets. The food I eat comes from supermarkets, wrapped in plastic and cardboard. Every tree I see has been deliberately planted there. The only wild animals I ever see, aside from ants and birds and squirrels, appear to me only on TV screens and computer monitors. If people around me get sick, they simply disappear into hospitals. I don’t have to deal with it.

When I leave my suburban environment to visit my cousins who live in the Swedish countryside, I am also struck how antiseptic my life seems in comparison.

Over there, we drive on dirt roads carved out of dense forests. We drink unprocessed milk, and eat potatoes freshly dug out of the ground. Summer bursts forth in June and vanishes in August, and while it lasts, the greens are more green, the reds are more red, the blues are more blue. We breathe a fresh summer air that is palpably different from the air of California. This air is not a year-round air; it smells of the intensity of life that knows its time is brief. The smell of a Swedish summer–I cannot capture it, or pass it on to anyone else who has not been there and smelled it themselves. It exists only in its own place, in its own moment. All this beauty is fleeting, and its temporary status makes it even more beautiful.

* * *

Is taking a photo or video of an event for later viewing worth it, even if it means more or less missing the event in realtime? What’s better, a lifetime of mediated viewing of my son’s first steps or a one-time in-person viewing?

—Jason Kottke, via Marginal Revolution

Continue…

Only looking at the major leaguers traded this offseason:

Dan Haren:      4-1, 3.13 ERA, 37.1 IP, 29 K,  7 BB
Dana Eveland:   3-1, 2.48 ERA, 29.0 IP, 21 K, 12 BB
Greg Smith:     2-0, 2.88 ERA, 25.0 IP, 16 K,  8 BB
Joey Devine:    2-0, 0.96 ERA,  9.1 IP,  8 K,  3 BB
Mark Kotsay:    .268/.333/.390
Nick Swisher:   .221/.376/.349
Ryan Sweeney:   .254/.284/.317
Marco Scutaro:  .200/.351/.250

Oakland at Angels, 7:05pm, Smith vs. Joe Saunders

The A’s and Angels have the exact same record, 16-10, tied for the best in the American League.  Moreover, they have done the exact same thing for seven straight days:

Mon 4/21:  day off
Tue 4/22:  loss
Wed 4/23: win
Thu 4/24: win
Fri 4/25: win
Sat 4/26: loss
Sun 4/27: win

That’s about to end shortly, unless something like this happens.

Oakland @ Angels, 7:05pm, Chad Gaudin vs. Jon Garland.

The A’s 11-2 drubbing of Minnesota wasn’t filled with much drama, but it was a Big News kind of day nonetheless. The game was not televised, and many people missed the excitement because of work obligations, but do not fear. Catfish Stew has the goods on What It Was Like To Be There. Here’s the Big News you want to hear about:

Continue…

It’s official: the A’s have signed Frank Thomas.

For now, the A’s will let Mike Sweeney and Thomas co-exist on the roster. Hard to understand how long that can last. But for now, to make roster room, Travis Buck was placed on the 15-day DL; Eric Chavez was transferred to the 60-day DL.

Meanwhile, I’ll be at the game today.   Will Thomas be in the lineup?   I have an extra ticket, if anyone wants to go. Email me by 11:30am if you want it.

Twins at Oakland, 12:35pm

If I had told you in March that the A’s would be in first place near the end of April, who would you have thought would be the player most responsible for the hot start? I bet you wouldn’t have said "Santiago Casilla." Casilla is currently leading the A’s in Win Probability Added.

Ah, nothing says "the baseball season is really here" than your first, good heart-felt second-guess. Last night gave me my first good one.

I’ve been getting annoyed at how bad Bob Geren has been at recognizing when Joe Blanton is running out of gas. There was a breakdown of the A’s on Hardball Times yesterday where Jeff Sackmann wrote "Blanton has been pedestrian", which if you look at his basic stats (1-4, 4.32) appears to be true, but that’s been misleading. Joe Blanton hasn’t been pedestrian, he’s been fabulous. The problem is that Geren has removed Blanton after he’s run out of gas in all but one of Blanton’s six starts this year.

Compare Blantons’ last half-inning of work to all the earlier innings so far:

vs.   1st X      Last <1
      IP   ER    IP   ER
BOS   5.0   0    0.2   3
BOS   5.0   1    1.0   1
CLE   6.0   0    0.2   2
CLE   7.0   1    0.2   5
SEA   7.0   4    1.0   0
MIN   7.0   4    0.2   1
All  37.0   9    4.2  12 

Before his last inning, Blanton has an ERA of 2.19. In his last inning, Blanton’s ERA is 23.14. Methinks Mr. Geren needs to do a better job of removing Blanton before damage is done.

Last night’s loss was particularly annoying, as Blanton was approaching 100 pitches, it was a tie game with one out in the 8th inning, and three of the next four batters were left-handed. Perfect time for Alan Embree, wouldn’t you think? Not if you’re Bob Geren, apparently. Blanton gave up hits to two of next three batters before Embree came in and gave up the single which won the game for Minnesota.

C’mon Geren, wake up:

Twins at Oakland, 7:05pm

The A’s are 12-8 so far, despite getting almost no production out of their primary projected power source, Jack Cust. The A’s are dead last the majors in hitting home runs–only seven combined homers for the entire team.

The Blue Jays’ release of Frank Thomas makes it worth a look to see if the A’s can get better production out of their DH spot than they’re getting from Cust. Perhaps Cust is just a one-year wonder–teams have figured out that Cust only hits fastballs, and are giving him nothing but soft stuff until he adjusts, and he might not adjust.

So let’s take a look at the options for the DH slot: Cust, plus Mike Sweeney, free agents Thomas and Barry Bonds, plus, just for the heck of it (since there are calls for his head in New York), Jason Giambi.

All five of these guys have similar profiles: low batting averages, lots of walks, high slugging percentage. Let’s look at their PECOTA projected and current 2008 stats, both overall and by handedness:

Overall:   projected          2008 to date
---
Sweeney:   .259/.321/.428     .275/.356/.333
Cust:      .242/.389/.467     .157/.368/.255
Thomas:    .258/.364/.488     .167/.306/.333
Bonds:     .246/.420/.494           ---
Giambi:    .234/.362/.453     .109/.288/.283


vs LHP:
---
Sweeney:   .266/.332/.422     .391/.483/.435
Cust:      .216/.362/.395     .143/.368/.286
Thomas:    .273/.387/.518     .143/.250/.357
Bonds:     .234/.397/.449           ---
Giambi:    .214/.338/.413     .000/.400/.000


vs RHP:
---
Sweeney:   .251/.309/.389     .179/.233/.250
Cust:      .246/.396/.477     .162/.367/.243
Thomas:    .253/.351/.461     .174/.321/.326
Bonds:     .253/.437/.508           ---
Giambi:    .241/.377/.492     .125/.265/.325

If you look by projections alone, clearly Mike Sweeney is the worst of the bunch. His projected OBP is far lower than any of the other four candidates. And yet, Sweeney is the only one of the five who is doing anything at all this season: he’s clobbering LHP. Nobody’s doing anything against RHP, although Cust has at least been taking his walks.

Normally, you’d say forget the small sample size of 20 games–believe the projections. However, since all five of these players may be considered to be possibly in the final year(s) of their career, you need to make a judgment on whether the player has anything left in the tank or not. Any one of them could fall off the cliff at any time. Sweeney’s the only one who is showing any positive evidence that he hasn’t already fallen off the cliff.

In the end, I think the A’s will just stick with what they have. Bonds is a headache I don’t think they want to deal with. Cust has better projections than Thomas against RHP.  The difference between Sweeney and Thomas against the few LH starters the A’s would face in the AL West (Saunders, Washburn and Gabbard–one per team), particularly given the performance so far, might not be so big that it’s worth the extra salary it would take to bring in Thomas. Plus Sweeney is the backup first baseman now that Dan "Crab-Man" Johnson is gone, and he vastly outperforms Thomas in that defensive role. But given the positive history of Thomas’ one year in Oakland, the idea of bringing him in is certainly tempting.

Tonight: Twins at Oakland, 7:05 pm. Livan Hernandez vs. Joe Blanton.

With Chad Gaudin picking up the victory in last night’s 13-2 win over Kansas City, the A’s have now won 10 games on the season, each with a different winning pitcher. The 10 wins with 10 different winning pitchers to start a season ties the MLB record held by the 1973 Chicago Cubs and the 1992 California Angels.

No team has ever gotten their first 11 victories with 11 different pitchers. The 2008 A’s could become the first team to ever accomplish that feat, if somehow either Santiago Casilla, Keith Foulke, Andrew Brown, Kirk Saarloos, or Huston Street (or some other pitcher not currently on the roster) is the next A’s pitcher to earn a victory. Today’s attempt:

Royals at Oakland, 1:05pm

The Batoidea claim the Crab-Man and his bat.

There I Guo.

Go-Dan and tie the MLB record tonight!

Royals at Oakland, 7:05pm

It’s too bad for the cable news networks that Miguel Tejada isn’t running for President. They’d have a field day with this guy, tearing his character to shreds. First the steroid accusations from Rafael Palmeiro, then the Mitchell Report where Adam Piatt ratted him out as a steroid user, and now this: Tejada has been lying about his age for oh-so-many years. He’s a full two years older than previously acknowledged.

I can’t find it anywhere online, but I’m certain Miguel Tejada was asked about age-gate issues back when Luis Vizcaino got caught fudging his age in 2002, but I can’t recall or find exactly what he said about it. Tejada was fortunate that year to be in the middle of a three-year visa when all the age-gate scandals broke, so he was apparently able to evade the issue with the press on a technicality.

He could have confessed then, when all the fuss was going on, but he didn’t. And he expects us to elect him President? Shame on you, Miguel Tejada!

Interesting that the two main characters in Moneyball, Billy Beane and Paul DePodesta, each have had on their resume a much-criticized decision to let players go, who later were revealed to be quite tainted.

Beane has been criticized often for choosing Eric Chavez over Miguel Tejada. Sure, Chavez hasn’t turned out great, but knowing what we know now, anybody would make that same choice.

Meanwhile, Paul DePodesta’s legacy is tied to the trade that brought Brad Penny (and others) to the Dodgers for Paul LoDuca, Guillermo Mota, and Juan Encarnacion. LoDuca was revealed to be a big steroids consumer, as was Mota. Encarnacion was clean, but vastly overpaid. Great trade, or greatest trade?

Now take a look at the team Billy Beane had when he took over as GM of the A’s in 1997. That team had Tejada, Jose Canseco, Jason Giambi, Mark McGwire, and Scott Spiezio. There’s a group of guys with some deep moral convictions, eh?

Yeech. I rooted for this group of dingbats. I followed them. I bought their product, helped pay for their salaries. Does that lack of judgment, by association, disqualify me to be President? I think it might. Drat.

Mariners at Oakland, 7:05pm

It’s absurd, really. The Oakland Athletics have the best record in the American League, half a game ahead of Kansas City and Baltimore. Who’da thunk that before the season started? Who thinks the standings will look anything like this at the end of the year? Well, apparently, the A’s do.

Remember Billy Beane’s old idea that you take the first two months of the season to evaluate where you are, two months to fix your problems, and then go for it in the last two months? Well, throw that out the window. Two months? Try two weeks. The A’s are going for it now. They think they can win this year. Yesterday, they DFA’d Rule 5 pick Fernando Hernandez and brought up Kirk Saarloos. You don’t do that–replace a young pitcher with plenty of upside with a mediocre pitcher without any upside–unless you’re placing a lot of value on the here and now.

I thought that the A’s would be the last sports franchise on earth to fall victim to the illusions of small sample sizes. It’s only 13 games into the season–and only three games into Hernandez’ major league career–so it’s pretty early to jump to conclusions: that the A’s are competing for a playoff spot, and that Hernandez isn’t ready for the majors. And yet, that’s obviously what the A’s are saying here.

Greg Smith did his best Kenny Rogers impression last night, and befuddled the White Sox. Can he keep it up all year? Will Dana Eveland keep his ERA under 2.00? I doubt it, but we’ll give it another look-see today. Eveland will try his best to keep the A’s from tying a major-league record by winning today’s game.

Athletics at Chicago White Sox, 11:05am

The A’s lead the AL with eight victories this year, yet oddly, no single pitcher has more than one win. This is a new team record for Most Consecutive Different Winning Pitchers To Start A Season.

So far, Rich Harden, Justin Duchscherer, Dana Eveland, Alan Embree, Fernando Hernandez, Joey Devine, Joe Blanton, and Lenny DiNardo have each recorded exactly one win.  Update: Add Greg Smith! Make it nine different pitchers with exactly one win!

The old team record was seven, set by the 1991 version of the Oakland A’s. The first seven pitchers to record a victory in 1991 were Dave Stewart, Joe Slusarski, Mike Moore, Kirk Dressendorfer, Dana Allison, Bob Welch, and Steve Chitren. Moore ended the streak by notching his second win of the season on April 17th. The A’s were 7-1 during this streak, the only loss being recorded by Bob Welch in the second game of the year.

The major league record (going back to 1920) is 10, held by two teams: 1973 Chicago Cubs (Bob Locker, Jack Aker, Rick Reuschel, Bill Bonham, Fergie Jenkins, Ray Burris, Burt Hooton, Bill Virdon, Larry Gura, Milt Pappas–streak broken by Reuschel) and the 1992 California Angels (Don Robinson, Mark Langston, Jim Abbott, Joe Grahe, Chuck Crim, Scott Lewis, Steve Frey, Julio Valera, Scott Bailes, Chuck Finley–streak broken by Grahe). The 1966 Pittsburgh Pirates had a streak of nine, while seventeen other teams besides the 2008 A’s have run up a streak of eight. The most recent was the 2007 Yankees.

The A’s can tie or break the MLB record if their next two or three victories come from this group of winless A’s pitchers: Santiago Casilla, Keith Foulke, Huston Street, Chad Gaudin (who blew his chance yesterday), and Greg Smith.

Smith takes the mound tonight hoping to extend the streak. He opposes Mark Buehrle, Nick Swisher, and the Chicago White Sox.  Update:  Success!  They are now one short of the MLB record!

Athletics at Chicago White Sox, 5:11pm

My nine-month-old daughter figured out how to clap her hands this week. The A’s haven’t lost a game since. There’s been a lot of applause going on around these parts lately.

Thing is, I can’t really figure out why this is happening. They’re on a five-game winning streak, they’re in first place by a game and a half, and the only home run they hit in those five games was Bobby Crosby’s shot last night. They’re not really hitting out of their heads–there’s not a single regular with an OPS over .900. Crosby and Ellis are in the .800s, but Cust, Hannahan and Buck are all in the .500s. There’s not really one thing you can point at and say, that’s the reason. And yet they’re scoring runs and winning games. It’s a different offensive hero every day, it seems. Clap, clap.

Pitching and defense, pitching and defense.  Clap, clap.

Today’s game against Cleveland is in a weather delay. We’ll see if the game gets played. If it does:

Athletics at Cleveland, 10:05am