talking in a non-dickish way about the oakland a's

Title: Talking in a non-dickish way about the AC Transit fight

Have at it. They won't hit for shit.

Don't ride AC Transit if you like your teeth.

sorry to be a dick but um...

Oakland  	IP  	H  	R  	ER  	BB  	SO  	HR  	ERA
Sheets (L, 0-2) 	0.0 	8 	10 	9 	1 	0 	1 	31.15

"I felt great," Sheets said.

"I guess my shit doesn't work in spring training."

Someone had to do it.

"sorry to be a dick but um..."

Very dickish.

0.0

Cust DFA'd.

25 HRs in '09, 84 since '07.

Very interesting.

Well, Beane is a man of mystery, a perpetual cellar-dwelling mystery that is.

they did non-tender him...

uh...

here, let me try to put this in perspective, top 2 A's HR leaders over the past 3 seasons:

07: Cust 26, Swisher 22
08: Cust 33, Emil Brown (?) 13
09: Cust 25, Suzuki 15

They only thing I can think of is that the A's are hoping Chavez (the new DH) goes on a tear and they can trade him for 3 minor league players so that the A's can continue their dominance at the AA level.

dr. emil brown the 3rd?

yeesh.

Cust:
“I think it’s messed up,” Cust said in a phone interview with The Chronicle after leaving the stadium. “They’re going to go on 50 at-bats after three years of what I’ve done here? It’s ridiculous. A lot of other guys have had bad springs. This is a joke.
“The fact is, this team has no power and they’ve just released a guy who (averaged 28 homers and 103 BBs) the last three years. That’s amazing.”

cust not following thread title instructions iirc

I sort of understand the thought processes on this one. You're paying Chavez $16B so you might as well let him play and see if his bat has any value. Kind of surprised they bothered resigning Cust only to DFA though.

kurt suzuki is supposed to be good?

well... he hit 15 HRs last year, the most of any current A.

he's pretty good for a catcher

and most rbi's amongst his fellow a's last season. he seems like he has good plate discipline, compared to most a's.

Seattle is 3 for 5 stealing bases against him so far... 40% CS rate is not bad.

Kouzmanoff with a rough first game as an A

0-4, 2GIDP w/ a throwing error that blew the game and let the M's eventually win 5-3

Kurt Suzuki's quite good, guys. It's the rest of the team that's more problematic.

Suzuki is okay but if he's one of your best hitters, you're fucked.

Actually I think Rajai Davis is still the A's best hitter (including Cust), which is scary because he was acquired off the waiver wire from SF when they DFA'd him.

When your best hitter is an SF castoff, then you truly, truly are fucked.

Who needs Rajai Davis when you have the heir to Barry Bonds, Fred Lewis, on the roster?

sorry this is on the Oakland thread but I have to tell this story (think I've told it at least once on ILB).

Girl I knew had tix to see the Giants play SD late in '06 (?), and they were LF bleachers which is Bonds country. Opening line-ups confirmed that Bonds was out but his defensive heir-superior Fred Lewis would be starting instead, according to the season tix holders that surrounded us and were really talking him up in a major way.

First AB, first pitch is to Brian Giles who smacks a line drive hopper right to Lewis who charges it, skips under his glove and ends up in the corner. Lead-off single with a 2-base error. Nice job Freddy.

"Suzuki is okay but if he's one of your best hitters, you're fucked."

No doubt. A's offense is in trouble.

for alex because i was unable to meet up tonight: http://l.yimg.com/a/i/us/sp/v/mlb/players_l/20090407/8014.jpg

raj davis is possibly my fav player in mlb currently

so happy he's on my fantasy team in ilx

yea hes on the other team i got

GET OFF MY MOUND

OW MY BUTT HEAD IT HURTS

Neyer talks in a non-dickish way about the team that has quietly dropped to the lowest attendance in the majors:

http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/3480/as-attendance-continues-spiral-down

"One of Commissioner Bud's Blue Ribbon Committees has been studying the Athletics' ballpark problems for 14 months. Cut them some slack, though. You can't rush genius."

medium strong zing imo

really no reason to give money to a team that's about to leave your city

er replace 'about' with 'well...one day going'

i forgot to tell you guys.... i went to Fremont for the first time after living in the bay area for almost 14 years... it really is a plastic, fake, Westfield-ready former garbage landfill. Corny-ass suburbia with paper thin walled condos everywhere and stamped concrete as far as the eye can see. I would never, ever, ever go to a game there and would pretty much get rid of all my A's paraphenalia if they ever make good on their threats.

sorry to talk like a dick about Fremont.

at least it's east bay though

I mean yeah fremont sucks, but is san jose any better? if the giants are going to be 2x closer to the east bay than the A's, I can't imagine the A's are going to have much of a non-south bay fanbase in the future.

San Jose is better, but Fremont is closer and BARTable.

Fremont is really not any different than Pleasanton or Walnut Creek or Mountain View or San Mateo, though.

more indians

Fremont is arguably BARTable (from Oakland only tho, dudes, I'm not sitting on a train for over 60 mins to watch this POS club) but more importantly I think you're forgetting the developers plans for the stadium are ~2 miles from the Fremont BART station!

the abandoned stadium plans, nevertheless

and yeah that was a retarded idea

2010 Oakland A's
3B/DH Eric Chavez: .220/.275/.305

2010 Sacramento River Cats
3B Dallas McPherson: .259/.310/.593
DH Jack Cust: .260/.436/.455

also want to point out that Sac is in last place in their division which is pretty surprising since they've been dominating the AAA circuit for the past 10 years, could this be the END OF SABRMETRICIAE?

No longer an A but...

Fremont is arguably BARTable (from Oakland only tho, dudes, I'm not sitting on a train for over 60 mins to watch this POS club) but more importantly I think you're forgetting the developers plans for the stadium are ~2 miles from the Fremont BART station!

I thought there was going to be a free shuttle system?

Anyway, I don't think people from San Francisco are really their intended audience in the first place.

"also want to point out that Sac is in last place in their division which is pretty surprising since they've been dominating the AAA circuit for the past 10 years, could this be the END OF SABRMETRICIAE?"

A lot of guys are underperforming right now. I suspect that they'll turn it around before long.

xpost: well yeah, i (SF resident) was an A's season tix holder for most of the past decade and it's an easy commute from SF to Oakland. Fuck a Fremont.

dallas braden needs to stfu

lol I just saw that article. for someone from the 203 (where people don't talk much, apparently), he's doing an awful lot of talking

"I think Major League Baseball reads the same articles as we do," Rodriguez said. "Now, look, I really don't want to extend his extra 15 minutes of fame."

!!!

<3 a-rod

He is a treat.

2010 Oakland A's
3B/DH Eric Chavez: .220/.275/.305

2010 Sacramento River Cats
3B Dallas McPherson: .259/.310/.593
DH Jack Cust: .260/.436/.455

― _▂▅▇█▓▒░◕‿‿◕░▒▓█▇▅▂_ (Steve Shasta), Thursday, May 6, 2010 11:17 AM

2010 Oakland A's plan-B safety DH in case Chavez shits the bed on a daily basis:
DH Jake Fox .200/.241/.320

lol Dallas Braden awesome

susanslusser
Dallas Braden's grandmother is here and speaking to the press. She says, and I'm not joking, "Stick it, A-Rod." #Athletics

Such a happy occasion, so many empty seats.

Sadly the Sacramento RiverCats (Oakland's AAA affiliate) have been outdrawing the A's at almost 2:1 margin in recent weeks. Paid attendance was ~12k but at max the physical attendance was probably 75% of that.

Maybe they should just trade locations this season.

yeah, the strange thing is that the A's are doing much better than expected and the RiverCats are uh... not.

In search of pop for their scuffling lineup, the A's have recalled Jack Cust from Triple-A Sacramento, according to CSNBayArea.com.

The A's had not confirmed the transaction early on Saturday.

Cust re-signed with Oakland during the offseason but was designated for assignment after struggling during Spring Training. The left-handed-hitting slugger then cleared waivers and chose to accept an assignment to Sacramento rather than become a free agent.

"I'm so excited," Cust told the website. "I can't wait to try to help the guys. They've been playing great baseball, but they're having some problems scoring runs, and hopefully I can change that a little bit. I've been feeling really good about the way I've been swinging the bat the past couple of weeks."

i wonder who they're releasing? Chavez?

lol is Chavez really doing that bad? i really don't pay much attention to the American League.

^^scroll up^^

Adam (NY)

Billy Beane. Still one of the best GMs? His teams have been really bad past 4 Seasons.

Rob Neyer (12:44 PM)

It's been some time since I've talked to Beane, but from afar it's not clear to me that he's particularly focused on winning baseball games.

Brian (NJ)

Pretty strong statement "but from afar it's not clear to me that he's particularly focused on winning baseball games." Care to elaborate? There are a lot of ways that could be interpreted.

Rob Neyer (12:51 PM)

He's got other ambitions, is all I'm saying. He's got capable people working for him, so the organization's in good hands even when Beane is watching a soccer game or whatever. But there's only one Billy Beane, and I think sometimes the A's miss that guy.

makes sense

other ambitions like...watching tv

every time I see the score for an Oakland game I think of this thread title and I lol with joy

If you have access to TV, check out the GLORIOUS throwback jerseys of both the A's and the Pirates, it's seriously the greatest thing ever.

turning channel now

those are great, love the A's colors.

also love how they show their socks.

so i turned on the Pirates broadcast, then switched over to the A's. 1080i really does look better than 720p. also on the A's telecast they are using old school graphics, classic!

Braden upset about these shirts:

http://outofbounds.nbcsports.com/getoffmymound.jpg

ha ha hhahahaa

"yeah, the strange thing is that the A's are doing much better than expected and the RiverCats are uh... not."

They are now.

Sheets out for season:
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=ap-athletics-sheets

Complete waste of money.

Kurt Suzuki is hitting clean-up?!

First guy named Jackson to homer for the A's since Reggie in '87.