The A’s have called up Barry Zito from Nashville, setting up a potential Barry Zito vs. Tim Hudson “Goodbye, farewell, and thanks for the memories” matchup when the Giants play in Oakland the 25th-27th.
I don’t think Dave Dombrowski gives a crap at this stage of his career, nor do I think he’s the slightest bit afraid of such things. He has enough capital built up to take the risk Hanley Ramirez will have a good year or three wherever he goes.
I think it much likelier the Red Sox will hold on to Ramirez not because they are afraid to trade him but because it probably would be stupid to do so now. Ramirez LOOKS terrible, so you’re going to get nothing for him, or you’d have to eat most of the contract. If I were another GM I literally wouldn’t take him for anything unless Boston paid 100% of his contract.
The Red Sox would be much better off resting him the rest of the season, letting his shoulder heal, and then seeing if he hits well enough in 2016 to either help the team or become attractive to a rich and contending team. He’ll probably hit better next year, so why not?
That does appear to be the plan, RickJay.
How bad did their relationship with Sacramento get that they thought it was better to have an affiliate so far away instead?
The Giants made Sacramento an offer they couldn’t refuse. In truth their relationship with Oakland had been fine. Sacramento did incredibly well as an A’s farm team, usually leading the PCL in attendance, but they figured they could make more money with the more popular Giants.
Wasn’t that a gem that Wood pitched last night? I can see him being a middle of the rotation starter for the Dodgers for years.
And they topped the AAA attendance charts again this year, drawing 672,354 fans, which was an increase of almost 10% from last year.
The biggest change I’ve seen since the affiliate change is in the marketing of the team. Last year if you went to a Rivercats game, you might not have known which MLB team they were affiliated with; there were little to no signs to inform you of the A’s affiliation. This year, there is no doubt that this is the AAA Affiliate of the San Francisco Giants; the dugout store is half Rivercats gear, half Giants gear. There is no doubt which organization is behind the team now…San Francisco’s marketing team is light-years ahead of Oakland’s in promoting their brand and their affiliation.
But can he do it again? Everybody is capable of a fluke now and then.
But yeah, it was pretty. But it helps to be playing a team like the Rockies, who are really mid-AAA on their best day. But that’s enough to beat the Dodgers if the Dodgers really put their minds to it!
Once must again wonder if this isn’t the A’s playing a long game to get out of Oakland. That seems to be their primary organizational goal, and to be honest, I can’t really blame them. The city utterly ruined the limited value their ballpark had by turning into Ugly Raiders Stadium and Oakland is a tough market anyway, being in competition with San Francisco.
I think there is a legitimate question as to whether the Bay Area is big enough to have two baseball teams. I mean, obviously it CAN in the sense that it has, now, for fifty years, but on and off throughout that period of time one or both teams were not in the best financial shape. (It is often forgotten now that San Francisco used to be a basket case; at one point they actually were putting their stuff into trucks to move to Toronto.) Two teams in a market is fine in a place like New York or LA, which are immensely larger than any other metropolitan area; LA’s metro area has as many people as Chicago and the Washington-Baltimore area COMBINED. But in the Bay Area I’m not sure it’s a fantastic idea.
Still, there is no other obvious candidate. Nobody is stepping forth to build a stadium somewhere else and move the team in.
This quote from SI at the time the dodgers obtained Wood:
As Sports Illustrated’s Cliff Corcoran states Wood “has four more team-controlled years remaining after this one, won’t be arbitration eligible until after next season and has posted a 3.09 ERA in 54 major league starts.”
I wouldn’t call a 3.09 era in 54 games a fluke. And he’s ony 24, so arguably he’s still got a lot to learn about pitching.
Let’s hope so. He’s got two of the best mentors around in Greinke and Kershaw.
Amen, brother. Of course, we’ve gotta resign Greinke, now, and he’s sure not going to come cheap after the year he’s having.
And at least so far this season, it worked. Their attendance is higher this year as a San Francisco affiliate, even though it already had great attendance as an Oakland affiliate.
Giants brought in Madison Bumgarner to pinch hit last night, and he worked a 7 pinch walk off of Aroldis Chapman.
Jung-Ho Kung of the Pirates has had his season ended by a knee injury that he suffered when the Reds tried to break up a double play. I wonder when the takeout slide will go the way of the home plate collision. I know that the traditionalists will be up in arms when I say this, but IMO that’s just not good baseball. The Reds player knows that he’s dead meat and he’s not even trying to get near the bag.
Well, management hasn’t been reluctant to throw around money, and Zack is pretty happy in LA, so I’m not (too) worried. Especially if we go deep into the playoffs this year.
Zack is 31 and he’s been pitching in the bigs since 2004, apparently. I’m not worried about the money as much as I am about the length of the contract he seeks. Some of these studs are looking for 6+ years guaranteed.
The area in Oakland around the Coliseum and Oracle Arena is like an apocalyptic wasteland. It’s no wonder at all the Raiders, and possibly A’s, are trying to get out.
Down goes Latos. Hopefully adding an extra reliever will allow our starters to not have to go so deep and we can use them more often.
It was a Cubs player, and it’s not the first time he’s injured somebody on that type of play. And to be completely fair, he did get near the bag (I think he even touched it with his hand) - he was just very late and very high with his leg.
I do agree that there’s really no reason to go in so late with the leg so high, but as the rules are written the only punishment is to award the double-play (which the Pirates got anyway). I’d be open to allowing for a suspension for that type of slide.
And good too. We got him for free, but it wasn’t a good deal. Glad to have Frias for the bullpen in the post season instead. This is exactly the type of move that Colleti never would have made.
Here is a quote from Kang. - “It is unfortunate that what would be considered heads-up baseball would cause such a serious injury,” Kang said in a statement released through agent Alan Nero. “That said, Coghlan was playing the game the way it should be played.”