Monday, October 3, 2011

2011 MLB Season is over for me

Don't get me wrong, I'll watch part of a game here and there through the playoffs, maybe even a few innings of the World Serious IF the Yucking Fankees aren't in it.... but for all intents and purposes, it's over.

And it wasn't satisfying.  I mean, sure my team, is riding a 2 game win streak into the 2012 season, but they also finished 74-88, 22 games out of first in the AL West.  We were 24th in the MLB in both BA and HR and 2nd in ERRORS.  

There were a few bright spots though, like some STELLAR pitching and relief work. Gio's 16W, 3.12ERA over 202IP and his All-Star appearance, McCarthy's 9W, 3.32ERA over 170IP and only giving up 25BB, Balfour's 62G, 59K and a .247ERA and Bailey's 42G with a 3.24ERA and 24 saves. And a bright light shining on the horizon? Moscoso... in 23G, he posted 129IP, 8W, 74K, a 3.38ERA and only 38BB. 

Although it was sad to the see the offensive decline and eventual departure of our veteran 2nd baseman, Mark Ellis (whose defense remained strong) NO ONE was sorry to see the emergence of our 2nd baseman of the future, Jemile Weeks.  Weeks defense was a bit (pardon the pun) weak when he first came up, but the miscues became less common, and his offense and base running make up for much of it.  This guy is FLAT OUT EXCITING to watch.. and his back-to-back home runs in the last week of the season show he has power as well.  Weeks finished with a .303BA after 97 games.  And let's not forget Josh Willingham's 29HR, 98RBI and .246BA or Hideki Matsui's 12HR, 72RBI and .251BA and both of their contributions in the outfield.

One of the most glorious days for me? June 9th, 2011... the end of the misery that was Bob Geren and the beginning of the Bob Melvin era.  As stated in an earlier blog post, (please read here) there was no expectation of an instant turnaround, but there was no question it was a move in the RIGHT direction. I have every confidence that the decision to sign Melvin to a 3 year contract as the season was winding down was the right move, and I hope he is able to weigh in on some critical decisions the team need to make in the off season.  I already like (most) of the moves he has made with the coaching staff.... not quite sure WHY Ron Romanick was released and REALLY not sure WHY Mike Gallego was retained, but I'm sure there is more to come.

Biggest concerns in the near term? What to do with the free agents, and how it will impact our outfield. HATE to see us possibly lose Willingham after the great season he had, his community consciousness, and the inspiration he is to others.  Undecided on Matsui, but I think I'd be okay with his departure or return.  Would REALLY like to see us re-sign Coco and I'm on the fence about DeJesus.  

Other issues/concerns?  I think the move to bring Brandon Allen in at 1B was a positive one, he seems to be getting used to the wide foul territory and his offense is promising. Sizemore has done a good job of making the move from 2B to 3B, and unless something drastic happens, I'm down with him remaining as our full time 3B. Pennington is solid at SS, a bit streaky at the plate, but definitely NOT a concern. We could SURE use a good utility player for relief- Rosales may not be able to fill the bill there. Suzuki had a good year, new baby, 134G, 1132INN, 237BA, 38CS and a .993FPCT... but I'm not sure Powell is what we need as a backup catcher.

Hopefully, Melvin's comments in the last few weeks and in the post season presser about increased fielding practice, working on fundamentals and reducing the number of errors will resound LOUDLY in the ears of EVERY PLAYER on the roster.  The two biggest failings of the Athletics in 2011 were the number of errors and runners left in scoring position.  I can't find the stat yet, but we left a TON of runners at 3B and 2B with 1 or fewer outs this year.  And by improving on this and reducing errors, we could have been in a much better position at year and- maybe not AL West Champs, but certainly not AL West CHUMPS.  And yes, I know we didn't finish last... but from day one, the Mariners never were in it.
Biggest distractions?  

1) Sigh... the horrible, HORRIBLE ownership and the constant bitching about the Coliseum and the City of Oakland.  It's even impacting our ability to sign free agents as the management is openly stating they are "...delaying decisions on player personnel pending a response from the League on the Stadium 'issue'..." .  Face up gents, no matter WHAT decision is rendered, the team will be playing here for 2-3 years and a lot of Division Championships (AND 4 World Series) were won in THIS STADIUM and in THIS CITY.  The tarps make us look like a boarded up business district and the empty seats are a testimony to your indifference. Open up your wallets and shut yer traps- you want attendance to rise? Put some talent on the field and lower your ticket prices.  Do the math- how many more seats do you need to sell at a lower price to make the same money? More money? It ain't rocket science!

2) Yes, I'm gonna say it Moneyball... the movie.  C'mon- a lot of us fans LIVED the 2001-2002 season, it was a great time, and when the book came out it demystified a lot of what took place to make it all happen.  BUT when the book came out, it was timely.  This movie is 10 years after the event, and the story is no longer relevant. Others have done 'it', and the situation no longer exists for ANYONE to do 'it'.  The portrayal is less than accurate, it has too little baseball and all it's missing to make it a romance is a good looking ADULT leading lady and a spit-swapping scene or two.  I know, I know... no one said it was going to be a documentary or a highlight reel, and they were certainly right about that.  But the commercials during the televised games, the banners all over the stadium, the chatter by the broadcasters- all of that was just a distraction to those of us who wanted more baseball out of our baseball season.

So Ladies and Gents, that's about all I've got to say about that.  Except I'd like to thank CSN Athletics and the folks in the A's Ticket Offices for being so supportive of the Twitter Fans this year and giving us all a forum to voice our thoughts, and for those who could make it to the park mid week for the game, an opportunity to "Tweetup" and meet in person.  I didn't make it, but  I "met" some great people during this season and there is a lot of love and respect for this team, its players and tons of historical knowledge of the past 44 years in the Twitter fans.  It was also great to exchange thoughts with players (and their wonderful wives!), journalists, broadcasters and fans near and far (can you say #FossePosse?) 

Larry Medina
A Native Son of Oakland
An A's fan since 1968 

Sunday, June 26, 2011

E-Mail to Bob Rose, Oakland A's Director of PR

Bob-

It's too bad that you made a decision to strip Dale Tafoya of his press credentials, especially seeing as the only thing he was guilty of is telling the truth. For more than a month prior to Bob Geren being stripped of a title and position whose duties he was unable to properly fill, more than 100 fans in the twitter base and other reporters were actively calling for his dismissal. They were all regularly criticizing his decisions and abilities, we and the credentialed reporters were commenting on the poor lineups, decisions on pitching changes, failure to execute in actions with runners on base and not engaging his players OR coaches. Here's an example from my own blog http://bit.ly/iq7WGR

Instead, Geren excelled in ENRAGING both fans and beat reporters... and Monte Poole, Chris Townsend, Lowell Cohn, Ray Ratto, Susan Slusser, Ann Killion, Paul Guiterrez, Henry Wofford, Fernando Vina, Kate Longworth, John Shea and others took plenty of opportunities to voice their concerns about Geren retaining his position and even openly questioned Billy Beane's abilities to be objective with him due to their personal friendship. Yet none of them have been openly chastised or had their credentials stripped- so where is the equity?

I urge you to reconsider Dale Tafoya's 'punishment' for acting within the realm of reason for a reporter and reinstate his press credentials. The only thing he was guilty of was expressing his trained view of what was obvious to hundreds of others and reporting on it as ll of the other beat reporter in print. on the radio and on TV have done.

Respectfully submitted,

Larry Medina
A passionate A's fan since 1968


For those of you who would like to contact Bob about this,
brose@oaklandathletics.com or if you want to call, he can be reached at 510-563-2380.

Friday, June 10, 2011

As Rome wasn't built in a day...

... neither will the problems of the Oakland A's be fixed in a day. On June 9th 2011, the Oakland Athletics took the first step towards reclaiming their once brilliant history by ending their 5+ year engagement with lackluster Manger Bob Geren. While last years .500 performance wasn't staggeringly poor for the AL West's overall mediocrity, it was a high point for Geren's performance and that sounded a resoundingly FLAT tone with long-time Oakland A's fans.

During the off season, the promise of a "Future so Bright, We Had to Wear Shades" was being spoken of and written about by local media and fans alike. Pitching- both starting and bullpen was looking sterling with Braden, Harden, Cahill, Anderson, Gonzalez some solid middle relievers and we had a shut-down closer in Andrew Bailey. The infield was showing promise with Kouzmanoff, Barton, LaRoche, Rosales and the ever strong anchor at 2nd base, Mark Ellis. Lots of confidence behind the plate with Suzuki and Powell... and the outfield looked strong with DeJesus, Jackson, Willingham, Crisp and the possibility of Hideki Matsui, "Godzilla" himself, roaming on an as needed basis.

There were questions on offense though, even then... there were a number of hitters struggling to keep themselves above the ever unpopular "Mendoza Line", even though they had better lifetime averages than their recent numbers. Hopes were that Spring Training would see a resurgence of offense and our bats would come to life before the series with the dreaded SF Giants that signals the beginning of the season every year for Oakland A's fans. Do the games matter to the season's bottom line? Hell no... but they establish Bay Area bragging rights early on and setup the decades old "Season Long Taunting Match" between fans.

Well no sense recapping what happened in THAT series, after all the games don't matter (yes, *WE* know what THAT means) and we won't get into the other series with THAT team that DID impact the bottom line either. In fact, there are numerous games we won't talk about... 34 of them to be exact as of last night. Well, I WILL talk about causes for 9 of those 34...

The 9 I'm thinking of are the 9 consecutive losses that ended Geren's term with Oakland, and to a small degree I'll talk about the 10th that started Bob Melvin's tenure. I don't think I can begin to express my feelings about the miserable effort we've seen on the field and at the plate by Oakland A's players on the whole this year- it's nearly impossible to pin the tail on any one donkey. There have been a few bright spots, CoCo Crisp to name one and a some stellar defense, especially double plays involving Pennington, Ellis and Barton. But these 9 games were also loaded with errors, players left on base, 3rd strike looking outs, walks that resulted in runs, injuries, and a showing of unparalleled "who gives a shit" management and coaching style.

I'm sure some of you have heard the phrase "The Fish Stinks From the Head Down" and that certainly applies to the condition that lead to this 10 game slide. (I'll save my comments about the ownership for another post at another time, but there is some blame there as well) While Billy "MoneyBall" Beane (The Head) isn't involved in the day to day on the field operation of the team, the touting of his 'genius status' has floated around the League for a long time, and many of us as fans bought into it. I think some of us were expecting the see him rub the magic lamp again and the Genie that popped out would be the one we needed to solve our problems.

The Genie many of the fans and the local (and some National) media were looking for was a change at Manager. Following the much discussed blowup between Brian Fuentes and Bob Geren (who never exchanged words until after it was over, but it was a Bitch-slap Heard Round the Baseball World) it was apparent that what many of us had been expressing was true- Geren had lost control of the team and was NO LONGER in a position of leadership. Which brings us to a list of what was wrong with Geren... okay, this is a blog post, NOT War and Peace, so I won't list it all, but here's a few of the things EVERYONE seemed to agree on.
  • Inability to Communicate with Players
  • Failure to Motivate Coaches to Engage with Players
  • Inability to Create a Consistent Lineup
  • Failure to Recognize Players Playing Hurt
  • Inability to See When "Small Ball" was Beneficial
  • Failure to Realize Something was WRONG
And this wasn't ALL his fault on his own, but these are all things that are part of the day-to-day duties of a Manager, whether it's in Baseball or in Business- you have to be aware of what's going on around you, motivate staff, be 'agile' and make changes, and meet the organizational needs to achieve success. Well, finally Beane rubbed the lamp and out popped Bob Melvin and I know I wish him well, and it seems most of the other fans are "feelin' the love" and the local media is also willing to allow him a Honeymoon Period.

Then there's the Coaching staff. No need to name anyone individually, but it sure would be nice to better understand what a hitting coach is supposed to do when a team ISN'T hitting. And what an Infield coach is supposed to do when you have a 3rd baseman with 9 and a 1st baseman with 8 errors on a team with 44. And how about base running? I don't want to pick on Pennington, but how many pickoffs? And how many times have we been thrown out at the plate, Mr. Gallego? And what about CONDITIONING- why have there been so many injuries during the first 1/3 of the season? Most of these are mechanical things, and seemingly a lot of those are linked to a lack of proper between game conditioning and preparation, insufficient rest or overuse of certain players (partly due to a lack of depth in a variety of positions) and what seems like players who just aren't properly prepared by the time they hit the playing field.

The coaching staff is supposed to recognize shortcomings and help players work on FUNDAMENTALS... and help instill a sense of confidence in players. They're hired into these positions because they were SKILLED PLAYERS themselves and they're supposed to be able to pass along some of that knowledge and help build the abilities of the players on the field. I haven't seen ANY OF THAT this season... and maybe a lot of that is due to Geren's inability to recognize the mounting problems and failure to communicate with coaches and players about what needed to be done.

So, now what? Will Bob Melvin be able to turn this around? Well, obviously NOT IN A DAY. He arrived in Chicago at about Noon, press conference was over at about 2, game time was 6. He probably only had enough time to shake hands with and meet the players and although he's a Bay Area Native and lives here still... in one interview he said that he's a fan of both the Oakland A's and that other team, and he tends to follow the one that's winning the most. So that would mean to me he hasn't been "engaged and enraged" like the die hard fan base, ESPECIALLY not like those of us who tweet mid-game! I think a week or so of pouring over the recent numbers, assessing the current 25/40 man roster and getting some input on what's up in Sacramento is going to result in some changes beyond the few he made in the lineup last night.

If any of you are fans of the movie Iron Man (the first one) you may recall the scene where Obadiah Stane is conversing with his Engineer and is wondering WHY it's taking so long to build him an "Iron Man Suit"... the close of the exchange went like this:

Obadiah Stane: [shouting] Tony Stark was able to build this in a cave! With a box of scraps!
William Ginter Riva
: Well, I'm sorry. I'm not Tony Stark.

I know Bob Melvin isn't Tony Stark... I think the rest of the fans recognize this as well... but we don't need Tony Stark, we need a manager who is passionate about the game, well rooted in fundamentals of baseball and able to work with OUR box of scraps! On second thought, maybe a little bit of Tony Stark WOULD be nice =)

What are my expectations? I'm hoping to see some consistency in both the lineup and the use of the bullpen and some in-depth review and assessment of the manner in which the players are being supported and worked with by the coaching staff. I'm hoping to see a manager who is ENGAGED with his coaches and players and who recognizes when things are going wrong and openly admits we need to work on fundamentals. AND I'm hoping to see fewer runners left on base and consequently some WINS!!