Jose Canseco, age 48, has left the Worcester Tornadoes of the Can-Am League and signed with the independent Rio Grande Valley WhiteWings of the North American League. The Valley Morning Star reports that Canseco—still an official member of the Tornadoes—will make his debut with the WhiteWings in the coming days. Canseco played 20 games for the Tornadoes, putting up numbers you would expect from a 48-year-old: .194 BA, one home run, seven RBI, and 24 strikeouts in 84 at-bats. Aside from his low numbers, the fact that his former club had no prior warning of ...
The Oakland Athletics recalled their surprise phenom Daniel Straily in time to start last night's game. I wrote in a previous article that the element of surprise might benefit Oakland. The borderline prospect suddenly became a strikeout machine against Toronto.It was smart to bring him to the majors to record punchouts before any scouting report caught up with him.What Straily experienced in his debut against Toronto was a microcosm of the 2012 Oakland season.Straily contributed his share to meeting Oakland's expectations. He is a young pitcher who virtually nobody has heard of, and who contributed on the big league stage ...
It was if they were waiting for the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) to sound last call before winning. Either way, the Oakland A's won their second 15-inning game this week, using a Coco Crisp sacrifice fly to beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 at the Coliseum. The win moved the A's to 58-48, a game-and-a-half ahead of the Los Angeles Angels for the first AL Wild Card.The game went on for so long that many had long since forgot about the solid debut of super prospect Dan Straily, who went six innings allowing only one run on five hits ...
Raiders fans are prepared for Carson Palmer to lead their silver and black to the playoffs. On paper they certainly look like worthy champions of a tough AFC West division—with talent at nearly every offensive position and a defense that has some pieces to put together stops. But with new head coach Dennis Allen and new faces in the front office, there is no guarantee that everything will run smoothly beginning Week 1. Here are five keys for the Raiders to reach their full potential in 2012. If they manage to do so, they'll make 10 wins a low-end prediction.Begin ...
Sounds silly right? How could a kicker possibly be the most important player on any football team?Well, when it is all said and done, Sebastian Janikowski is going to impact more Raider football games than any other player on the roster. So with all due respect to Carson Palmer, Darren McFadden, Richard Seymour, Rolando McClain, and Tyvon Branch, here is why Janikowski is deserving of that description.First and foremost, the Raiders play a lot of close games. Palmer can throw for 300-plus yards and the starting back could pile up nearly 250 total yards (at San Diego, Week 10), but ...
On Friday night, Oakland Athletics right-hander Dan Straily will make his major league debut at home against the Toronto Blue Jays. Widely unknown and left off nearly every prospect ranking headed into the 2012 season, Straily has emerged as the top “pop-up” prospect in the game. Leading all of baseball with 175 strikeouts this season, the 23-year-old right-hander has been absolutely dominant—and no, it’s not a fluke. Selected by the A’s in the 24th round out of Marshall University, Straily has quietly put together a quality minor league career over the last two seasons, but nothing that suggested that he ...
As fans of the Oakland A's brace for the first start of unlikely phenom Dan Straily, the fallout of his potential impact could be felt into the month of October.The man who leads all of baseball with 175 strikeouts in 2012 is, at worst, another option for a team that could honestly use another arm or two.At best, Straily has the chance to have the kind of surprise impact that Francisco Rodriguez brought to the Anaheim Angels on their way to the 2002 World Series title.But before we can get to October, it is very important to establish what is ...
While we’ve learned not to question Billy Beane and his seemingly heinous transactions over the years, it’s awfully difficult to wrap your head around the post deadline Kurt Suzuki trade. The A’s sent their long-time fan-favorite catcher and cash considerations to the Washington Nationals in exchange for catching prospect David Freitas. Oakland sits just 4.5 games out at the time of the deal. While Suzuki’s season-long slump has diminished his value to the A’s lineup and kept him on the bench for a good portion of the season, it can be a bit difficult to grasp why the A’s would ...
The A's were not particularly active at the trading deadline this season. General manager Billy Beane's only move was the acquisition of catcher George Kottaras from the Milwaukee Brewers. Beane then dealt the under-performing incumbent catcher, Kurt Suzuki, to the Washington Nationals on Friday, after the non-waiver deadline had passed.However, Beane's offseason was so outstanding that deadline activity was not a necessity to keep the A's in contention. Even if the A's fall short of the postseason this year, Beane should still be named Major League Baseball's Executive of the Year for what he accomplished this winter.After five straight seasons ...
Long before it was a $100 million film starring Brad Pitt’s rakish haircut, Moneyball was an introspective glimpse into the inner workings of Major League Baseball. And in his bestselling book, author Michael Lewis described the traditional way teams were run, prospects were graded and the revolutionary changes brought about at the dawn of the century by Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane. Along with his team of mathematically-inclined assistants—sabermetricians, as they've become known—Beane brought to the table a new way to measure players efficiency: statistical analysis. He used this metric to gauge players on the team, players he wanted, ...