As I was picking at some of the articles on the A's on the internet this weekend I came across one on MLB.com. It was on recently acquired Daric Barton. It was a typical spring fluff article on a prospect; in this case possibly the best left-handed hitting prospect in baseball. Here's the article in it's current form. Prior to this adjustment, there was a picture attached to the article. It was there for about 48 hours. Here's what is looked like:

And here's the caption that went under that photo:
'Daric Barton is destined to return to the minors, but for how long? (Alex Miroshnichenko/MiroFoto)'

You tell me? What's wrong with that picture?

Yah, that's not Daric Barton. And even if you don't know what Daric Barton looks like, you can tell that the batter is hitting right handed. No, the photo is not reversed as you can clearly see the team logo on the jersey would be on the wrong (which, in this case is the right - on the left side of the player) side if it were reveresed.

Okay, so it's not that big of a deal. It's still kind of bad to have an article introducing a new prospect to a team and be identified with the wrong photo.

To make matters worse, it apparently had an adverse affect on the young Barton.

FROM THE AP:

Oakland Athletics catching prospect Daric Barton was taken to a hospital Sunday night with appendicitis and was scheduled to have surgery.


Team spokesman Jim Young said Barton is expected to return to camp sometime this spring. He had already been limited with an elbow injury.

Mike Goodhope noticed that Barton was catching bullpen sessions last weekend, but that somebody was throwing the ball back to the pitcher for him. That's a keen eye for detail. Too bad Mike didn't have his portable X-Ray specs to do an internal exam.

Barton should be fine, and in the long run, a few weeks missed might alleviate some of the hype and pressure surrounding him.

Other bad news includes Chad Bradford's back and Curt Young working with pitchers.

Bradford is a solid major league reliever. Solid enough that if he has a poor outing, you can almost chalk it up to a physical injury or health related issue. Bradford stammered into the season last year and coughed up the lead a few times but by May, things seemed fine. Then, he wasn't - in June he gave up 10 runs in 13 1/3 innings and July was book ended by a few poor outings. Bradford was on the DL by August. He only pitched in 13 innings from the beginning of August to the final day of the season - and did not pitch on October 2nd.

A span over over 60 days and a pitcher of his caliber only saw 13 innings of work? Bad decision making by the manager or health concern? If Bradford was hurting, or just a day-to-day health concern - why the hell was he down in the bullpen? Or, more accurately, why wasn't Huston Street in the bullpen, instead?

The was some grumbling by some in baseball that 'if Street had been in Oakland in Spetember - the A's would have made the playoffs'.

Hard to argue. 20/20 hindsight and all.