Wednesday, April 27, 2005
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WILD, WILD LIFE
So, the A's post a win and suddenly everything is forgotten, eh?
How nice to live such a charmed life and to be willing to wall up blind faith in the face of facts and push aside obscure references like statistics after witnessing one of the more ugly games ever played in the Oakland Coliseum...by a baseball team.*
These are the games the A's need to win. Not this ugly, of course. But, close games that promise a lot of opportunities.
The problem remains that the A's can't hit worth a damn, can't run the bases particularly well (this is not a stolen bases or speed issue) and can't seem to play defense unless their first name starts with a Mar sound (Kotsay, Ellis, Scutaro).
A's fans should stop wondering when the team will put everything together and start looking for reasons as to why they haven't put things together.
The are hints in the wind that Dave Hudgens is in jeopardy of losing his job and Ken Macha might be right behind him. Curt Young will most likely be reassigned somewhere within the organization as year's end.
Here's Ray 'I don't hate the A's, I just hate everything about them' Ratto's column in the San Francisco Chronicle (click here). What is a Lucy skit, anyway? If he is referring to Lucille Ball, she starred in situation comedies, or 'sit-coms' prior to being stuck on shows like The 'Danny Kaye Show with Lucille Ball' and the The Lucille Ball Comedy Hour where a sketch or skit would have been performed...who the hell has even seen an episode of those shows under the age of 50?
For the last few seasons the A's have been under performing and seemingly willing to take their poor play in stride. Constantly preaching the laws of averages and most recently 'track record'.
Here now, is your A's calendar:
- The month of March brings; "It's only March" and "C'mon, it's just Spring Training"
- The month of April brings; "It's only April" and "C'mon, it's just the first month of the season."
- The month of May brings; "It's only May" and "C'mon, there's still a lot of baseball to be played."
- The month of June brings; "It's only June" and "Billy Beane has made some great moves in the past."
It gets tired after awhile.
Last night there was an eruption in the dugout. Not, from supposed team leaders Eric Chavez, Jason Kendall or Barry Zito. But from Mark Kotsay.
From Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle:
"It got pretty heated...The game was ugly at that point, (Kotsay) just got mad. We scored three runs (after that), take that for what it's worth."- A's 3B Eric Chavez
"He came in and let everyone know how he felt about that inning,"- A's Manager Ken Macha
From Josh Suchon of the Oakland Tribune:
"He let everybody know what he felt about the inning...It was quite animated. I guess everybody listened."- A's Manager Ken Macha
"It was heated. The game was ugly at that point. He got mad."- A's 3B Eric Chavez
From Jonathan Oakanes of the Contra Costa Times:
"He came in and let everybody know how he felt about that inning...He was quite animated. Everybody listened."- A's Manager Ken Macha
"It was heated. The game was pretty ugly at that point. He just got mad."- A's 3B Eric Chavez
Huh.
So what exactly DOES Ken Macha do, anyway - besides make terrible decisions and execute those decisions within a strategy that would probably be a losing one even in Chutes and Ladders, I mean?
Macha brought in Ricardo Rincon last night with two runners on, and promptly gave up a run. Keichii Yabu followed Rincon only to do the same.
Smooth, Ken, real smooth.
Once again, we find Ken Macha reacting a day late for a move he should have made 24 hours earlier. Had Zito been relieved on Monday night...bah. I tire of trying to analyze the stupidity of Ken Macha, or should I say, his index cards.
But, how many times will there be an A's runner on 3rd base and less than two outs who fails to score? How many stranded baserunners is enough for A's GM Billy Beane?
Remember when Jermaine Dye was with the Kansas City Royals? I do. Sitting out in the rightfield bleachers, apparently, he sucked. That, according to the many A's fans and other idiots with nothing better to do or more intelligent to say than yell, "Hey Dye, you suck!"
Remember when Jermaine Dye became an Oakland A? It's very strange, but suddenly, because he wore an A's jersey, the congregation in the bleachers no longer mentioned that he sucked. Other rightfielders sucked, Magglio Ordonez, Bobby Kielty and David Justice to be sure.
In the last two games, though, Jemaine Dye has begun to suck again as a member of the Chicago White Sox. These character in the right field bleachers, some of whom form a smaller click known as the Dateless Wonders (when Zorba the Greek plays and they do their T Rex swaying dance - you've seen them...), must have looked back at the stats Jermaine Dye put up after signing his three year deal with Oakland.
Because, yah, he did suck. And he sucked more than $23 Million out of the A's coffers the last two years to do so.
* It should be noted that I used to be an Oakland Raiders fan, but I got sick of Al Davis in the late 1980's. When you pin your hopes each week on Dokie Williams, something's gotta give. Anyway - I was also a HUGE Dan Marino fan (I even had four knee surgeries) but I still considered myself a Raiders fan...until the team moved back to Oakland and after they had bilked Sacramento out of $10 Million and used Irwindale as a ploy. I'll be a Raiders fan again, some day, when Al Davis is dead and the A's no longer have to share a stadium with a football team. Notice I didn't say anything about a new facility for the A's.
posted by ZACHARY D MANPRIN at 5:32 AM
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damn right zach. i agree with absolutely EVERTHING you wrote about today. how long do we need to put up with byrnes misjudging fly balls?
# posted by
bigelephant : 27 April, 2005 10:27
It's bothersome that Byrnes makes $2.25 Million this year and he is little more than a platoon player. Despite all Beane/Macha comments to the contrary.
But, I've been trying to make the point for over a year that he can not consistently hit right handed pitching and his defense is not as advertised.
He was a better option than Terrence Long and we was a better option that Bobby Kielty and Jermaine Dye at times last year.
It's not like I hate Byrnes, or any other player. But I don't bury my head in the turf and defend players when they aren't producing.
I root for the players wearing 'Oakland' on their chest. I could care less what the nameplate reads on the back. And if those guys aren't producing, I start looking for giys wearing 'RiverCats' on their chests.
# posted by
Zachary...excellent post today. This is what I love EIO for. Last night's game was one that will stick out for awhile, glad I was there. If for nothing else then to see that spectacular throw Kotsay made...unreal. I do get tired of all the Macha bashing though when things go wrong. Not from you in particular, but from people in general (my friends, etc). I know the manager needs to take the heat for making poor decisions, but I never hear anyone say what they'd do WHEN a certain situation is ACTUALLY HAPPENING - it's always just "what a boneheaded move" without actual analysis. I personally didn't mind the Rincon thing. He is there to get lefties out and Podsednik is a lefty. As far as Yabu goes, aren't Cruz and Kalero unavailable? I guess he coulda gone with Duch (which he eventually did).
# posted by
: 27 April, 2005 11:11
It's not bashing Macha for no good reason. Rincon is a LOOGY, Lefty-One-Out-Guy. Why bring him in during a tight game in the middle innings for one batter if you need someone to go multi-innings?
If Calero and Cruz are not available for reasons of health, then Billy Beane needs to do a better job of utlizing the DL.
Call up John Rheinecker who has been starting in Sacramento. He could eat up a ton of innings over two weeks and make Rincon (and his salary) trade bait.
# posted by
Evil Zachary Rules~! Great post and a refreshing dose of realism that's not afraid to run against the unabashed cheerleading that goes on elsewhere on the A's blogosphere.
Last night's game wasn't on my Extra Innings package, but I'm glad to see that someone else isn't easily forgetting that this is still a very flawed team.
Byrnes' trade value was NEVER going to be higher than it was this offseason, so we'd better get used to more of his cartoonish "hustle" and adorable errors n' misplays.
# posted by
Wow...Thomas with his first hit today! Despite what my past posts may suggest, I sure hope there's much more to come from this young man.
# posted by
"Why bring him in during a tight game in the middle innings for one batter"
You bring him in if you can get the batter out and the proceeding pitcher can do the same to the next batter. The problem I have is that he used Rincon in that siutation its that he decided to play against the numbers and let him face Posednik who is batting .549 against lefties.
In that critical situation, why risk runs in order to play against the numbers and go for the lefty-lefty matchup?
Right on to everything you said...a loyal fan for more years than I care to count, through good & bad, Macha is the main reason for everything wrong w/ this team. DH-ing players batting under .150, leaving Zito in for more than 5 innings, and going to Rincon, over & over again...I want to know what Rincon has pictures of (and who!) so that he keeps getting the call...As for you Byrnes-y bashers..Hush! The boy has spirit, and heart, and while he may not be the best defensive outfileder, he hasn't bobbled any more than Kielty and Thomas have when prorated over the number of games played. You forget that he has carried the team in the past, and yes, he's streaky hitting, and sometimes, shall I say, not so graceful in the outfield, but he shows props to his fans and will take one for the team...unlike a certain highly paid 3rd baseman who's too good to dive and get his uniform dirty, almost has more errors this year already than last year entirely, and who I might add, has a lower batting average!
# posted by
It's clear that the A's consistently choke when there's a player on 3rd with less than 2 outs. My question is this - why bring it up without suggesting a solution? I see 3 possible solutions just off the top of my head.
1. Find an extremely good contact hitter and put them on the bench as a 'pinch sacrificer'
2. Forget Beane Ball and simply try to sacrifice the run home rather than getting a hit and creating a big inning?
3. Spend money are better contact hitters and forget the OBP approach.
Jose Guillen for instance I really liked on the A's. He didn't try to walk every time up, and he hit the ball hard. I don't recall him striking out any more often than any of these OBP guys we have hitting all over the lineup. Our contact hitters are striking out and popping up left and right. Guillen, by the way, we could have kept for not a lot of money. I think Kendall is supposed to be that clutch hitter we need, but remember he's $11M. Is he that much more clutch than a Damian Miller or Ramon Hernandez? Neither of those guys had pop either and I thought each showed the ability to get a single in a clutch situation. I'm not trying to insinuate that the Kendall signing was bad, just trying to put things in perspective with $/payoff. Pujols is making $11M.
# posted by
That's rather ridiculous. How many times have I posted that the A's need to fir Dave Hudgens?
The solution is to fire Dave Hudgens. Let Ken Macha know his job is on the line. Have Bob Geren take over the team in 2006. Tony DeFransesca becomes the 3rd base coach and Ron Washington the bench coach.
Abandon an approach that has worked for more than five seasons?
What exactly is a contact hitter?
Jose Guillen is a clubhouse cancer, that's been well documented.
Ramon Hernandez and Damian Miller were hardly 'clutch', in fact both showed a propensity to fail in those situations.
The A's didn't sign Jason Kendall to his deal and he'll be traded to the Yankees next season as Jorge Posada is due to be a free agent. The A's were also able to dump Arthur Rhodes and Mark Redman in the Kendall deal.
Pujols is only making $11 Million THIS season and part of his contract was negotaited during his arbitration. Pujols gets $11 million in 2005, $14 million in 2006, $15 million in 2007 and $16 million in each of the final three years. The Cardinals have a $16 million option for 2011 with a $5 million buyout.
I know we are all frustrated, but let's not jump overboard.
The A's are in a refocussing mode. They have some terrific hitters in AA and A ball right now. I'll try to a better job of getting the stats out.
# posted by
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