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!!