NOTES FROM THE NAT: Vancouver Canadians news

The Oakland A’s set their minor league rosters today for all teams from low-A to AAA, and there are few surprises.

Triple-A: Sacramento Rivercats of the Pacific Coast League
Pitchers
Blevins, Jerry
Braden, Dallas
Cate, Troy
Devine, Joey
Gonzalez, Gio
Gray, Jeff
Kilby, Brad
Knox, Brad
Saarloos, Kirk
Smith, Greg
Wing, Ryan
Ziegler, Brad

Catchers
Knoedler, Justin
Powell, Landon
Ortiz, Gabriel

Infielders
Baisley, Jeff
Bankston, Wes
Conrad, Brooks
Cornejo, Eddie
Petit, Gregorio
Rogowski, Casey

Outfielders
Fiorentino, Jeff
Gonzalez, Carlos
Linden, Todd
Robnett, Richie

Surprises: None. Robnett finally gets his AAA promotion, Baisley has impressed during the spring, so his Rivercats spot was assured, and the team couldn’t be more impatient to get Landon Powell into the major league side as Suzuki’s backup. Brad Kilby has made a quiet rise to the near-top, and will be worth watching, and how about Jeff Gray? From nowhere to the top in just a few seasons - nice work, Dorian.
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After writing this one the weekend, my computer froze so I’m writing this again - hopefully with a better result.

Anyone who has ever been to Spring Training and complained about anything they experienced, should really think twice.  The 9 days I was down there I had one complaint, and it was that it rained for an hour on one of the days.  That’s how nice it is.  The weather is around 90 degrees and sunny (the coldest day was 75), and there are at least 15 baseball games (professional and minor leagues) each day in the Phoenix area.

We decided to do half minor leagues and half majors leagues, which ended up working out for the better.  The last post I wrote was after the A’s vs Rangers game on Sunday, so I’ll try and do short recaps of all the other days.

Tuesday the 18th:

Monday we decided to head up to Sedona, Arizona because the weather in Phoenix was supposed to be the worst of the week.  Well, it was, but it ended up snowing in Sedona.  Just when we thought we’d get out of the bad weather, coming from Vancouver.

Anyways, James Heuser said he was pitching Tuesday, which meant we ventured to Papago Park to watch his Stockton Ports take on the Anaheim Angels High-A club.

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I forgot to mention this earlier (waking up at 3 am takes its toll), but team President Andy Dunn is in Toronto today with Rob Fai, and the two will be making a round to Bob McGowan’s Fan 590 show in this hour (10 minutes or so from now), where Andy will chat about being the last minor league baseball team in Canada. 

Check it out!

UPDATE from Oz: I caught the last minute of this, but heard McGowan asking Dunn about, more or less, how long he’d stay at the short-season level, considering where he’s been and how he’s achieved so much in the game. Dunn’s answer, and I’m paraphrasing here:

As I’ve gotten older, I like to think I’ve gotten smarter about things, and so for me it’s more about who I’m working with rather than what level of the business I’m working in. If you’re going to have the ultimate success in professional sports, you really have to kill yourself to do that, and I refuse to do that if it’s with people I don’t wanna work with. I think I’ve found a great place to be in Vancouver, and I’m going to enjoy the job, the city, and the people I work alongside.

I’m back from Phoenix, where 9 days in baseball heaven has me even more pumped for June 17th than I already was.  I wrote a very long post Monday afternoon about everything I encountered at Papago Park and everything else baseball, and then when I hit Submit my computer froze.  Give me a couple more days when I have an hour or two to write it up again, and I will.

It’s getting old, very old:

Remember a few months ago when I ranted about how the Kane County Cougars are holding their breath as to whether or not Shane Keough, ‘Real Housewives of Orange County’ star, will join their team or not?  This is after he told all of America he plays for the Midwest League affiliate of the A’s in January. 

With my weekly subscription to the Cougars online newsletter this morning, I got a notice from the front office staff.

REMINDER: Will Shane Keough from the "Housewives of Orange County" be part of the 2008 Cougars roster?  One of the stars from the Bravo TV show is drawing a lot of interest among curious Cougars fans.  Check out www.kccougars.com for the latest details.

Talking to Rick Magnante last summer I got the feeling that Shane gets a bunch of 20-year-old girls following him in the States (on the road), but this is just insane.

On the website there’s someone to email if you want to get an answer on where Shane will play as soon as Kane County knows.  Well, he might not be a big-leaguer, but Shane Keough has certainly made it big.

And yes, I’m still getting 10-20 incoming people on my other blog who all searched for ‘Shane Keough 2008 Kane County Cougar star’.  That’s one way to get traffic.

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The 2008 pre-season (or 2007 post-season, I guess) was a time of change for the Oakland A’s. Call it an organizational epiphany if you will, but using the DL 22 times in a single season seemed to make it abundantly clear to the A’s that, though they had achieved great things for next to no money for many seasons running, they had more recently been traveling a road that should perhaps be left less traveled; the road of ‘finding value in the injury prone’.

The theory was, at least as far as I can deduce, that if you grab guys who have a crappy health record, you get them cheaper, and they bring a potentially high upside… if they can stay on the field long enough to finish a game.

Ryne Tacker is a good example of this tactic in action. Tacker was a solid college pitcher, his low-90’s fastball having taken the Rice Owls to the 2007 NCAA College World Series, while registering a 9-1 regular season record. But a year earlier, Tacker’s elbow blew out and he missed the entire season.

Result? Nobody wanted him at draft time, even after a rock solid senior year.

Nobody except the A’s, that is. They took him in the 34th round.

Tacker may well prove to be as nifty a grab as Jeff Gray (32nd round ‘04, currently in AAA) or Dallas Braden (24th round ‘04, currently on the ML roster), or Mike Piazza (62nd round ‘88 for the Dodgers, soon to be Hall of Famer). Or he might end up a complete bust. But he came cheap, and thus he fit the ‘old’ A’s needs.

The 2007 Oakland Athletics major league season changed all that. With kids called up from AA to fill in at the MLB level all season long, clearly it was time for the A’s to reinvent the wheel, and that they have, with a rash of changes to the way things are done at the front office level that has ramifications all the way down to short-season ball.

How will those changes affect the Vancouver Canadians? Here’s my take.

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OMURA NO MORE-A
According to the folks at Scout.com, 2005 Vancouver Canadians second baseman, Isaac Omura, has been cut by the Oakland A’s as they try to find room for new players in their minor league system.

The Flyin’ Hawaiian (or Windjammer as he was sometimes known) was the sixth player cut this spring, behind such former prospects as Scot Drucker, Brad Davis, John Herrera and Eric Sheridan, but his departure might come as less surprising than some of those names. Omura had a miserable ‘07 (hitting .194 in Low-A and .195 in High-A before breaking his thumb), after a strong ‘06 (.294 avg), and a similarly miserable rookie year in Vancouver.

Sorry to see you go, Moo.

UBC GETTING POUNDED BY BIG GUNS
The other tenant at Nat Bailey Stadium, the University of British Columbia Thunderbirds, have been in strong form in divisional play of late, but got utterly smoked by Lewis-Clark State in their recent double-doubleheader. L-C is a perennial giant around these parts, with plenty of stars at small colleges eventually transferring over to the school where they know the scouts will be plentiful.

That said, the Birds won’t be happy with losses like 23-8, 13-6, 11-0 and 11-3, especially after they took three of four games off Oregon Tech in the series prior.

OAKLAND A’S vs BOSTON RED SOX ON TV TONIGHT
Well… perhaps ‘this morning’ is a more accurate way of describing it.

The Oakland A’s open their season tonight with the first of two games against the Boston Red Sox in Japan, and Vancouver folks looking to see former Vancouver Canadians in Major League action will be in luck for a change, as TSN is showing the game live at 3am.

Get your Tivos working, people… or program your VCRs (if you’re still living in the stone age).

Former Vancouver Canadians, Joe Blanton and Rich Harden, will start both games for Oakland.

The stars of the C’s from years 2002 to 2007 are all over Arizona right now, and some familiar names were yesterday not just notching hits, but also runs, RBIs and even homers while wearing Oakland green.

As part of an 11-6 loss to the Texas Rangers, ‘07 Vancouver Canadians star, Uptown Corey Brown [seen right], came on to register a pinch-hit dinger in the 9th (not a bad debut), while 2004 C’s shortstop hero, Gregorio Petit, continued his push for major league consideration with a 2-4 day, including an RBI. His spring training average to date is .351.

Another former C in the green and gold was 2005 Van City outfield speed demon Mike ‘Michiro’ Massaro [seen left]. He went 1-1 in a late inning appearance for Chris Denorfia, and touched home plate for a run, as per tradition.

2003 C’s hot corner man, Eddie ‘Cornball’ Cornejo, came on late but failed to get a hit, as did Dan Johnson (’01), Kurt Suzuki (’04), Sean Doolittle (’07), and Travis Buck (’05).

On the mound, Santiago Casilla (formerly Jairo Garcia) went 1.1 innings and have up four earned runs to continue his frigus horrendus, but at the end of the day, Casilla was named to the roster that will be playing four games in Japan next week.

Also on the trip? Gregorio Petit. Welcome to The Show, Greg.