Got to hand it to the guys at Athletics Nation - they’ll be the first team blog that gets media accreditation by a major league franchise, if there’s any justice in the world. Today they unveiled an interview with new A’s manager Bob Geren, on the same day they ran the latest in their series of diaries by A’s prospect Brad Ziegler.

And that all comes barely a week after an indepth interview with A’s GM Billy Beane (part 1, part 2).

We may get some good interviews with new draftees here at Notes From The Nat, but that’s some serious heavy-hitting over at AN - and some interesting observations have come out of those pieces. Like this one from Ziegler, that answers the question I’ve always had about why pitchers never seem to know what speeds they’ve been hitting on the gun after a game.

While velocity is definitely important, the A’s prefer that we focus a little more on some other various aspects of pitching and not primarily on velo. One of the biggest reasons teams use radar gun readings in pro ball is to make sure pitchers are healthy (consistent velocity every outing), aren’t tiring in games (no velocity drop in the late innings), and making sure off-speed pitches are at effective velocities in relation to that of the fastball.

Huh. I did not know that. Here’s me always thinking they’re looking for that fastball that touches 96mph, and in reality they’re looking at the slow stuff more intently. I guess it makes sense.

Ziegler also discussed the events that surrounded the Philadelphia Phillies cutting him from their organization, saying that he "wasn’t good enough to pitch low-A ball".

When I was released, the first thing my agent (Rob Martin) did was contact A’s assistant GM David Forst to see if the team was interested. We hoped that they would be, based on the previous interest they showed by drafting me in 2002. However, at the end of spring training, everyone’s always cutting down rosters, so there wasn’t much room. The A’s wanted to ensure I was healthy from my tendonitis issue, so they suggested I go play in an independent league first and then see if a spot opened up at some point during the season.

After a month in Schaumburg, IL (Northern League), I received three or four offers from teams (including Oakland) presenting me with a opportunity to get back into affiliated ball, but Rob thought I could potentially hold out for a slightly better offer. Less than a week later, the A’s offered me a chance to pitch in the starting rotation in high-A Modesto. I agreed to the deal before Rob finished his sentence.

If you’re anything like me, you’ve seen a million ‘player diaries’ over the last couple of years, and usually they’re a great example of sleep-inducing cliche-speak (see Travis Buck’s MiLB.com Fall Ball diaries and Kevin Mellilo’s Scout.com diaries as proof). Ziegler’s AN series, on the other hand, is great ‘inside baseball’ stuff, and if he can keep it up on a bi-weekly basis as he has been to date, it promises to be a must-visit stop on my bookmark list for a long time.