Takin Stock

So I passed my two classes last quarter. Sadly, that was not expected. B in Japanese, which pisses me off. My grades were way better than a B average, teacher just hated me cause I never went to class, probably lost a whole grade because she chose to weigh attendance/participation so heavily. Phonetics I managed a C+ somehow. Don't know how. Really. I barely went to class. I didn't attend a single discussion section, and they were supposedly critical to success in the class. My grades on tests/homework were...well...horrendous. Not complaining though, with this out of the way I can focus my attention on Mandarin. If I can somehow pass this summer intensive (hopefully a good grade, going into this really positive and focused), I'll be right in line to graduate next year, may even have enough flexibility to add a minor. Mandarin seems a beast though. There's 20(!) books for the course. I have no fucking clue why, I bought four today, I'll get the rest as the course goes on. Saw the first assignment posted too. 36 pages. Hopefully that's a weeks worth...if that is one day I'm dead.

Connor Jackson!

I really like this move. Like, more than I thought I would by a minor move like this. I've always liked Connor Jackson as a player. Has some power, walks a fair bit, doesn't strike out much, plays average-ish defense in a corner. He's a useful player, and a candidate for a fluke awesome year if only because he's in his prime and puts the ball in play a ton. Will he push us into the playoffs this year? Probably not, that fate pretty much rests on the shoulders of our savior, Brett Anderson, and I don't think thats going to happen this year. But we get to see what Jackson is made of this year, and hopefully he's a healthy part of our domination plan for next year. If Taylor continues to suck, Jackson probably will not be a bad player. If Taylor turns out to be awesome again, we flip Jackson in the offseason/next year or keep him around as a fantastic, albeit expensive, bench guy. We got a potentially very useful corner bat on a team that has almost no offense. And we gave up a decent minor league relief arm for it. I mean I couldn't have drawn this up any better, bought way low on a guy who is likely to rebound, gave up a piece that we have about 3 billion other equivalent/better options than. I love it, fantastic start to the hotstove season.

Strasburg

WTF. I managed to watch his 4th inning where he got into trouble. Had some issues with his command that inning, still though, his stuff is insane. I'm not sure insane really captures how fucking talented this guy is. The fastball is just...well...god its not fair. Upper 90's with movement! Fucking sharp movement! Not to mention triple digits when he feels like it. And then the curve, everyone was saying it was a plus pitch but holy shit it looked better than that to me. Remember when Kerry Wood was fucking awesome and threw that curve that looked like a fuckin 80 mph frisby? That's what Strasburg's curve reminds me of, just unworldy/unnatural movement. And if that weren't enough his changeup. Fucking high 80's-low 90's with, wait for it, disgusting movement. I am just blown away by the guy. Health permitting, he will be the best pitcher in mlb, and I'm not sure it will be particularly close. And not just down the line, shit he may not win the cy young this year but I wouldn't be surprised if he proves to be amongst the best from june on in the NL.

Choice

I don't know much about Michael Choice. I didn't really follow the draft all that closely this year. From what I could tell though was that the way things happened, we had about 3 billion options at 10. And we took Choice. He seems like the kind of guy the A's would love. Lots of power, quite a bit of upside, college bat, and walks a TON. I'm pretty satisfied with the pick, really. The way the big league team goes up and hacks away, nice to see a guy enter the system who has a rep of walking often.

The one guy that really kind of intrigued me in this draft was Yasmani Grandal. Well, obviously harper and taillon intrigued me too, but I never thought we would get a shot at them. Grandal actually did fall to us, but we passed, presumably because of signability. I wouldn't be too surprised if the A's had Choice higher on they board though. Well, obviously they did, what I mean is I wouldn't be surprised if, just on talent alone, the A's had Choice higher than Grandal, just because of his awesome power potential and crazy patience. Reds ended up with Grandal. They got the guy I was really hoping would fall to the A's last year too in Leake. Mike Leake, btw, is fucking awesome. I thought people were under selling him as the safe but near mlb ready college pick. Turns out it wasn't under selling, he really was that mlb ready/safe of a pick. And more importantly, not only is he mlb ready, hes like an above average pitcher.

Anyway, excited to see how the rest of the draft turns out. Hopefully Choice will not be a tough sign so we can see some stassi/krol-esque signings in the coming rounds. Because seriously, our farm system is performing so miserably, those two are about the only two I'm optimistic about now. Krol has been awesome, and Stassi, despite the K's, is flashing some crazy power for a teenager in A ball. Hope we can get Choice signed quick, I'd really like to see what he can do. Gosh I love the draft, acquiring new talent is always way too much fun.

Oh Giants

Buster Posey debuted yesterday. He had a fairly productive day, playing first base. I suppose I don't mind that much that he isn't catching at the moment, I mean, his bat probably is better than anyone not named Sandoval on that team, and bengie isnt terrible. Well, for now at least. But bengie wasnt playing yesterday, fucking whiteside was. Youre really going to start whiteside over Buster fucking Posey? The whole excuse for keeping him down was to work on his receiving, why the hell would you not play him at catcher on bengies off day. At least it wasn't the stupidest occurrence yesterday. That would belong to kendry morales. holy crap was that funny. I mean, yea, score some bad karma points to me for laughing at a guy for breaking his leg, but when an angel hurts himself during a celebration, i'm going to laugh.

Hanging Around

Around the .500 mark that is. Pretty much what I expected out of this team. BUT! But, the difference is that this team has been absolutely raped by injuries. I mean arguably our best position player and best pitcher have already missed time. Still have a free agent signing that hasn't seen any playing time. Ellis has missed time. I could keep going but we all know the injury luck we've had. And yet we are still managing an even record. When Anderson comes back we should be right back in the mix for first. And if the young pitchers can improve a bit as the year progresses (is that way too much to ask?) this team could get really really exciting really really fast. I hope the whole Ross in the rotation thing works out, I'm really optimistic about this guy, mostly because he's a local guy.

PERFECT

Never in a million years did I think this could happen. I mean come, it's Dallas Braden. Craft lefty with a mid 80's fastball. And it's the Rays! One of the better offenses in baseball. I only wish I could have seen it on something other than gameday. You know between the hilarious interviews, the "get off my fucking mound!" hysteria, and now a perfect game, I'm pretty sure Dallas Braden is like the most entertaining A I've ever witnessed. Dude is pure awesome.