A group weblog for Oakland A's fans
Thursday, June 21, 2007
A Punch in the Gut
I remember in the offseason after 2002, when Billy Koch was traded, it felt to me like a punch in the gut. I remember thinking, "Koch was so great last year, how could we trade him???" And then Keith Foulke followed with the year all closers will always dream of having. I think Keith Foulke had the best year a closer ever had that year. He was just perfect.
Today I feel like we got another punch in the gut, with Milton Bradley designated for assignment. I didn't really like this move when we made it, but I have grown to love Milton Bradley. Has anyone noticed this guy hits everything hard? The ball jumps off his bat they way it used to for Jose Guillen, another guy I miss terribly. And Milton was the only guy on the A's who seemed to be able to do anything in the ALCS. I love his dance, I love him all the way around. I guess I don't love his stints to the DL. Is that it? His one weakness is his injuries? They never seem that serious, and they never seem to keep him out that long. Maybe it is my own denial that makes me think he could go some year and never go to the dl. It doesn't look like it is going to be for the A's. And I am truly crushed. On the other hand, our guys rock, Billy Beane knows a hell of a lot more about finding talent than I do, maybe I can get over this punch in the gut, and keep flying the green and gold.
I remember in the offseason after 2002, when Billy Koch was traded, it felt to me like a punch in the gut. I remember thinking, "Koch was so great last year, how could we trade him???" And then Keith Foulke followed with the year all closers will always dream of having. I think Keith Foulke had the best year a closer ever had that year. He was just perfect.
Today I feel like we got another punch in the gut, with Milton Bradley designated for assignment. I didn't really like this move when we made it, but I have grown to love Milton Bradley. Has anyone noticed this guy hits everything hard? The ball jumps off his bat they way it used to for Jose Guillen, another guy I miss terribly. And Milton was the only guy on the A's who seemed to be able to do anything in the ALCS. I love his dance, I love him all the way around. I guess I don't love his stints to the DL. Is that it? His one weakness is his injuries? They never seem that serious, and they never seem to keep him out that long. Maybe it is my own denial that makes me think he could go some year and never go to the dl. It doesn't look like it is going to be for the A's. And I am truly crushed. On the other hand, our guys rock, Billy Beane knows a hell of a lot more about finding talent than I do, maybe I can get over this punch in the gut, and keep flying the green and gold.
Monday, May 14, 2007
Barry Zito Photography
These photos may be of interest to anyone whose fandom of Barry Zito extends beyond being an A's fan.
While I'm here, this is as good a chance as any to start a comment thread about seeing Zito on the other team Friday night. I'll be there, and will cheer him. (I cheered Tejada on his return, booed Giambi. Whether this is logically consistent is an exercise for the reader.)
These photos may be of interest to anyone whose fandom of Barry Zito extends beyond being an A's fan.
While I'm here, this is as good a chance as any to start a comment thread about seeing Zito on the other team Friday night. I'll be there, and will cheer him. (I cheered Tejada on his return, booed Giambi. Whether this is logically consistent is an exercise for the reader.)
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
A Comeback Win in the Bottom of the 9th!
There is no bigger victory than one in the bottom of the 9th. With the A's down 1-0, the bottom went hit, hit, pop out, strike out, GAME TYING SINGLE BY TODD WALKER, Intentional walk to a rookie, GAME WINNING DOUBLE BY MAKE ELLIS.
The pivotal plays both involved Posednik in LF for the White Sox. With the game tying run at 2b with 2 outs, Walker hit a single to left, Milton came around 3rd and he's going home no matter where the ball is, which I TOTALLY agree with. A perfect throw might have gotten him, but Posednik air mailed it over the catcher. Game tied. Then after the extremely dubious decision to load the bases and face Ellis, Ellis hits a deep drive to left, when I looked on the replays, it appears the ball actually bounced off Posednik's head! He ran back as fast as he could, but it looked catchable, he just couldn't handle the wall, the jump, everything it would take to haul that thing in.
So the A's win a big game. Ellis gets the game winning hit, but Walker got the hit that made the statement that the A's weren't dead. They were never dead, and they knew it, and the fans knew it. Hearing the crowd get pumped up in the 9th from my living room made me want to be there. Let's go A's.
There is no bigger victory than one in the bottom of the 9th. With the A's down 1-0, the bottom went hit, hit, pop out, strike out, GAME TYING SINGLE BY TODD WALKER, Intentional walk to a rookie, GAME WINNING DOUBLE BY MAKE ELLIS.
The pivotal plays both involved Posednik in LF for the White Sox. With the game tying run at 2b with 2 outs, Walker hit a single to left, Milton came around 3rd and he's going home no matter where the ball is, which I TOTALLY agree with. A perfect throw might have gotten him, but Posednik air mailed it over the catcher. Game tied. Then after the extremely dubious decision to load the bases and face Ellis, Ellis hits a deep drive to left, when I looked on the replays, it appears the ball actually bounced off Posednik's head! He ran back as fast as he could, but it looked catchable, he just couldn't handle the wall, the jump, everything it would take to haul that thing in.
So the A's win a big game. Ellis gets the game winning hit, but Walker got the hit that made the statement that the A's weren't dead. They were never dead, and they knew it, and the fans knew it. Hearing the crowd get pumped up in the 9th from my living room made me want to be there. Let's go A's.
Saturday, March 10, 2007
Barry has Barry's Back
Here we go, first blog post of the new year. Barry Zito is on the Giants now. Maybe the people reading the blog will change from A's fans to Giants fans? I have found that I am still a huge Barry Zito fan. The newest news from Zito, is that he says he has Barry Bond's Back. Read here: http://sanfrancisco.giants.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070309&content_id=1835084&vkey=spt2007news&fext=.jsp&c_id=sf
This is just the sort of high class thing I would expect from Zito. He is nothing but class 24-7. You can love Bonds or you can hate Bonds, but it is hard to argue he has made great friends with the media. Zito is saying to his most famous teammate, "I'm on you side here, no matter what." That is a non-trivial thing to say to someone. Leadership oozing outa Zito, even though he is the new guy in Giants camp. Just what you'd expect.
Here we go, first blog post of the new year. Barry Zito is on the Giants now. Maybe the people reading the blog will change from A's fans to Giants fans? I have found that I am still a huge Barry Zito fan. The newest news from Zito, is that he says he has Barry Bond's Back. Read here: http://sanfrancisco.giants.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070309&content_id=1835084&vkey=spt2007news&fext=.jsp&c_id=sf
This is just the sort of high class thing I would expect from Zito. He is nothing but class 24-7. You can love Bonds or you can hate Bonds, but it is hard to argue he has made great friends with the media. Zito is saying to his most famous teammate, "I'm on you side here, no matter what." That is a non-trivial thing to say to someone. Leadership oozing outa Zito, even though he is the new guy in Giants camp. Just what you'd expect.
Friday, December 29, 2006
The Morning After
In the Posideon Adventure, which scared the crap out of me as a 7 year old when I watched it, the people on this huge ship are trying to stay alive after it flipped. People are dying all over the place, but eventually a few make it out alive. Then they sing "the Morning After." There's got to be a morning after. Somehow things can get better.
Today is the morning after my favorite player on my favorite team signed with a new team. My buddy, Blez, wants to get rid of his Zito jersey and forget all about him. I find I can't blame anyone, and I don't even feel like going through the stages of grief. We all knew Zito was going somewhere. This isn't really shocking. There is quite a bit of Giants bashing amongst A's fans, but although I have written many times how in so many ways the A's are better, I can't really hate the Giants. Their park is nice. In principle, I agree with the NL rules that the pitcher must bat. The A's are an infinitely more likeable team, but the Giants are trying to be a team too. Somehow their announcers seem to like them.
My feeling is the Giants, by making this move, are showing an homage to the A's. They are saying, "We aren't really smart enough to build a team your way, but since you are letting your high priced guy go, we'd like to take him and see if some of that A's magic will rub off on us." If any other team has had a ringside seat seeing how the A's consistently kick ass on a budget it is the Giants. I guess the Giants forgot about the budget part, but are still hoping Zito's magic will rub off on their team. It might.
So now what? In the past few years if the A's and the Giants were on, I would watch the A's and flip over to the Giants for the Bonds ABs. You can hate Bonds all you want, but his ABs are almost always exciting. I figure this summer I will flip over to the Giants when Zito pitches. I expect a year or 2 of very good numbers for Zito. I remember last summer in one interleague game, some team from the NL was flailing away against Zito. Plenty of those NL teams have bottoms of the order that can't really hit. Zito will dominate for a while. The silver lining on this deal is that the Giants are on TV all the time locally. Zito will still be around. It won't be the same, but it wasn't going to be the same anyway. There's got to be a morning after. I'm ok with it.
In the Posideon Adventure, which scared the crap out of me as a 7 year old when I watched it, the people on this huge ship are trying to stay alive after it flipped. People are dying all over the place, but eventually a few make it out alive. Then they sing "the Morning After." There's got to be a morning after. Somehow things can get better.
Today is the morning after my favorite player on my favorite team signed with a new team. My buddy, Blez, wants to get rid of his Zito jersey and forget all about him. I find I can't blame anyone, and I don't even feel like going through the stages of grief. We all knew Zito was going somewhere. This isn't really shocking. There is quite a bit of Giants bashing amongst A's fans, but although I have written many times how in so many ways the A's are better, I can't really hate the Giants. Their park is nice. In principle, I agree with the NL rules that the pitcher must bat. The A's are an infinitely more likeable team, but the Giants are trying to be a team too. Somehow their announcers seem to like them.
My feeling is the Giants, by making this move, are showing an homage to the A's. They are saying, "We aren't really smart enough to build a team your way, but since you are letting your high priced guy go, we'd like to take him and see if some of that A's magic will rub off on us." If any other team has had a ringside seat seeing how the A's consistently kick ass on a budget it is the Giants. I guess the Giants forgot about the budget part, but are still hoping Zito's magic will rub off on their team. It might.
So now what? In the past few years if the A's and the Giants were on, I would watch the A's and flip over to the Giants for the Bonds ABs. You can hate Bonds all you want, but his ABs are almost always exciting. I figure this summer I will flip over to the Giants when Zito pitches. I expect a year or 2 of very good numbers for Zito. I remember last summer in one interleague game, some team from the NL was flailing away against Zito. Plenty of those NL teams have bottoms of the order that can't really hit. Zito will dominate for a while. The silver lining on this deal is that the Giants are on TV all the time locally. Zito will still be around. It won't be the same, but it wasn't going to be the same anyway. There's got to be a morning after. I'm ok with it.
Friday, November 03, 2006
This is the End
Last night my wife and I went to a Buddist meditation class. The teacher talked about "the Equality of Self", the idea that I think "me" is the real self, but to someone else I am "other" and they are self. He talked about how if we treat everyone as important and understand that everyone wants to be happy, we will learn to treat people better. I believe that. I get really mad at people at work when the world isn't how I want it, I have to do a better job accepting things. The teacher also said that problems don't exist on their own, we make the problems important. Maybe they are just opportunities in disguise.
Then we meditated. We were supposed to clear our minds of everything. Forget our troubles, forget about the outside world. Imagine ourselfs surrounded by light. Then imagine ourselves as light, now only a shadow in the light. No thoughts at all. I am not so good at really clearing my mind of everything. I always count things or think about something. Sometimes a teacher will tell us to have a mantra and say it over and over until it doesn't mean anything.
I thought about my troubles at work and home, my life and everything that it isn't like I wish it was. Then I came upon a mantra. Almost spontaneously I started to say in my head, Zito, Zito, Zito. I imagined the release point of Zito's curveball in my head. I imagined the way he quickly pulls his arms over his head and back down in the windup. I started to wonder if Zito would do better in the late innings if he changed his windup so that by the 7th inning he hadn't lifted his arms over his head 100 times that game. Maybe that energy used to lift his arms all those times causes him to lose his stuff a few pitches earlier than he could have. Then I thought those thoughts were too cluttered and tried to back off and just focus Zito's left hand right at release. Over and over I have watched that hand release the ball, many times on TV from the centerfield camera of the coliseum with Zito wearing the white jersey and the high green socks and the yellow brim on his hat. In my meditative image it is a night game and the colors are bright. In my mind there was a lefty at the plate, his uniform is grey, but I can't really see who the other team is. It doesn't matter.
I thought about the times when Zito had snapped off the perfect curveball, and subconciously he knew it. He would sort of start to walk off the mound to his right almost as he releases the pitch. Zito knows he has just released the perfect pitch, it is already strike 3, the batter just doesn't know it yet.
I looked on Baseballreference.com today. Barry Zito is 13th on the career active ERA list. In the last 5 years he is #1 in starts. He ranks high on many season pitching stats every year since 2001. If he is not a #1 starter he certainly is a good starter. And at 28 he is younger than anyone on that best career ERA list except Santana, who is 27. Just some food for thought.
So I guess this is the end. Barry Zito is going to the highest bidder. Maybe it is not a problem but an opportunity for the A's to get another starter, or some other free agent. Maybe a big bat? Maybe this loss I feel for a guy not yet gone is misplaced, maybe it is an opportunity. But I don't share a lot of ANer's feelings that the A's need this or that to revamp the lineup. I feel the A's had a wonderful season and a really decent shot at winning the WS this year. It didn't happen, but when it turned out that the 83-win team won it all, it certainly appears Billy's right, it's a crapshoot. The A's do NOT stand pat from season to season. Players will come and go. But deep down I wonder if there is a reason why the A's pitchers are so good? I see that Lidle, Lilly, Foulke, Koch, Bradford, Hudson and Mulder all seemed to have about the best years of the careers as Athletics. People say it is the park, or the coaching. But you look at all the factors and besides the park with all its foul ground, what is constant is that Barry Zito has been in that rotation, he's pitched well and he hasn't missed a start. I just get the feeling that sort of quality has rubbed off on the others. And now it appears all but over. Surely the A's will be a quality team next year. Won't they? I just don't know.
Last night my wife and I went to a Buddist meditation class. The teacher talked about "the Equality of Self", the idea that I think "me" is the real self, but to someone else I am "other" and they are self. He talked about how if we treat everyone as important and understand that everyone wants to be happy, we will learn to treat people better. I believe that. I get really mad at people at work when the world isn't how I want it, I have to do a better job accepting things. The teacher also said that problems don't exist on their own, we make the problems important. Maybe they are just opportunities in disguise.
Then we meditated. We were supposed to clear our minds of everything. Forget our troubles, forget about the outside world. Imagine ourselfs surrounded by light. Then imagine ourselves as light, now only a shadow in the light. No thoughts at all. I am not so good at really clearing my mind of everything. I always count things or think about something. Sometimes a teacher will tell us to have a mantra and say it over and over until it doesn't mean anything.
I thought about my troubles at work and home, my life and everything that it isn't like I wish it was. Then I came upon a mantra. Almost spontaneously I started to say in my head, Zito, Zito, Zito. I imagined the release point of Zito's curveball in my head. I imagined the way he quickly pulls his arms over his head and back down in the windup. I started to wonder if Zito would do better in the late innings if he changed his windup so that by the 7th inning he hadn't lifted his arms over his head 100 times that game. Maybe that energy used to lift his arms all those times causes him to lose his stuff a few pitches earlier than he could have. Then I thought those thoughts were too cluttered and tried to back off and just focus Zito's left hand right at release. Over and over I have watched that hand release the ball, many times on TV from the centerfield camera of the coliseum with Zito wearing the white jersey and the high green socks and the yellow brim on his hat. In my meditative image it is a night game and the colors are bright. In my mind there was a lefty at the plate, his uniform is grey, but I can't really see who the other team is. It doesn't matter.
I thought about the times when Zito had snapped off the perfect curveball, and subconciously he knew it. He would sort of start to walk off the mound to his right almost as he releases the pitch. Zito knows he has just released the perfect pitch, it is already strike 3, the batter just doesn't know it yet.
I looked on Baseballreference.com today. Barry Zito is 13th on the career active ERA list. In the last 5 years he is #1 in starts. He ranks high on many season pitching stats every year since 2001. If he is not a #1 starter he certainly is a good starter. And at 28 he is younger than anyone on that best career ERA list except Santana, who is 27. Just some food for thought.
So I guess this is the end. Barry Zito is going to the highest bidder. Maybe it is not a problem but an opportunity for the A's to get another starter, or some other free agent. Maybe a big bat? Maybe this loss I feel for a guy not yet gone is misplaced, maybe it is an opportunity. But I don't share a lot of ANer's feelings that the A's need this or that to revamp the lineup. I feel the A's had a wonderful season and a really decent shot at winning the WS this year. It didn't happen, but when it turned out that the 83-win team won it all, it certainly appears Billy's right, it's a crapshoot. The A's do NOT stand pat from season to season. Players will come and go. But deep down I wonder if there is a reason why the A's pitchers are so good? I see that Lidle, Lilly, Foulke, Koch, Bradford, Hudson and Mulder all seemed to have about the best years of the careers as Athletics. People say it is the park, or the coaching. But you look at all the factors and besides the park with all its foul ground, what is constant is that Barry Zito has been in that rotation, he's pitched well and he hasn't missed a start. I just get the feeling that sort of quality has rubbed off on the others. And now it appears all but over. Surely the A's will be a quality team next year. Won't they? I just don't know.
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
How are we going to keep Zito?
This is the question I have been pondering for a few days now. Is there any chance at all? My hope was the A's would have won the WS this year and the excitement of it all would have made A's management and Zito and his agent decide they'd like to try again. But this year ended on a sour note, when the A's got swept.
When you can pay Blanton and Haren less than a mil each, how do you justify paying Zito 10 mil or more per year? That's the tough question. My answer is: Zito never gets hurt, Zito is a proven commodity, Zito may make his peers better. But is that worth 10x the salary of whoever gets that spot? Tough to justify.
Here is my pitch: the A's should offer Zito 4 years 40 mil plus incentives and a mutual option which would make the deal 5 worth years 60 mil. If you do this, and Zito doesn't pan out, 4 years 40 mil is not so bad. If he does like he has done or a little better, you get good value for your money. But it is a tough sell, and probably would not keep Zito in green and gold anyway. I just hate to not even try.
This is the question I have been pondering for a few days now. Is there any chance at all? My hope was the A's would have won the WS this year and the excitement of it all would have made A's management and Zito and his agent decide they'd like to try again. But this year ended on a sour note, when the A's got swept.
When you can pay Blanton and Haren less than a mil each, how do you justify paying Zito 10 mil or more per year? That's the tough question. My answer is: Zito never gets hurt, Zito is a proven commodity, Zito may make his peers better. But is that worth 10x the salary of whoever gets that spot? Tough to justify.
Here is my pitch: the A's should offer Zito 4 years 40 mil plus incentives and a mutual option which would make the deal 5 worth years 60 mil. If you do this, and Zito doesn't pan out, 4 years 40 mil is not so bad. If he does like he has done or a little better, you get good value for your money. But it is a tough sell, and probably would not keep Zito in green and gold anyway. I just hate to not even try.
