S2E21: 2023 A’s System Q&A #2

S2E22: Pitchers On The Move

One major theme of the A's minor league system's August has been the widespread promotion of pitchers from one level to the next, especially in the teams' starting rotations. With only a few weeks remaining in the 2023 minor league season, I look at fourteen recently-promoted pitchers across the system and discuss what led to each of them getting the call, how their early returns in their new assignments have gone, and where their recent developments put them in the A's organization's pitching picture down the stretch and looking ahead to 2024.

S2E21: 2023 A’s System Q&A #2

In the second Q&A episode of the 2023 minor league season, I fielded sixteen questions about different topics across the A's system (and beyond), ranging from macro topics such as putting the organization's starting pitching and top position players in context, to anticipating key offseason events like the Rule 5 Draft and Arizona Fall League, to discussing the progress of several specific players at different levels and stages of performance.

S2E20: Talking All Things Broadcasting and Lansing Baseball With Jesse Goldberg-Strassler

This week's episode is an Excessive Prospect Analysis Podcast first: a chat with someone else, namely Jesse Goldberg-Strassler, the tremendous lead broadcaster of the A's organization's High-A affiliate in Lansing. Jesse was incredibly generous to take a full podcast's worth of time out to talk with me about a wide range of subjects delving into both on- and off-field aspects of minor league baseball. We spend the first 1:10 or so of the conversation focusing on various aspects of broadcasting and the role folks in Jesse's position play in shaping our understanding of what goes on with the teams they work for. We get into Jesse's particular path to his current position and broadcasting acumen, his broadcast philosophy, all the things that go on behind the scenes in a broadcaster's day, the minor league broadcast audience, and plenty more. For the rest of the chat, we discuss various topics around the Lugnuts team: find out how several of the team's new players have looked, what trends Jesse's noticed in being around the team every day, his take on the biggest stories of the 2023 Lansing season, what you might expect from Lugnuts players in batting practice, and learn about some of the cool things some of the squad's players have done off the field as well. Even as closely as I've followed the Lansing team this year (like all A's affiliates), and as familiar as I've become with Jesse's broadcasting style, I learned so much from him about so many different things in this conversation, and I'm sure you'll find plenty of insight from it as well.

S2E19: Demystifying the DSL A’s

Following last week's breakdown of the players and trends from the A's Arizona Complex League affiliate, this week examines the other A's Rookie-level team, that of the Dominican Summer League. I discuss the team's overall performance from a number of angles and put it in conversation with A's organizational trends at the Rookie levels and the development of international players specifically, then discuss the skillsets and underlying talents fourteen different DSL players are showing early in their pro careers.

S2E18: The Arizona Inflection Point

The final week of July finds the Athletics' Arizona Complex League affiliate in a time of transition. When this episode was recorded (on July 24), the organization's 2023 draftees had yet to make their professional debuts, but it was clear they were imminent, and they indeed began playing the following day. While we wait on the early results of the draft class, I wanted to spend an episode examining the players who have been playing for the ACL team over the previous seven weeks; next week, I'll be focusing on the organization's other Rookie-level players, those in the Dominican Summer League. Since the show is thus preoccupied with Rookie-level developments over this episode and the next, I begin this episode with an overview of important considerations in evaluating players at this early and often mysterious stage of their professional careers. I then discuss fourteen players who have made interesting impressions during the ACL season, including three recent promotees up to the Low-A level. Throughout, I reflect on the talent on this team as a whole and what it might mean for the possibility of this group of mostly international signees supplementing the 2023 draft class in forming an improved team in Stockton next season. Since this episode is quite lengthy, here are some timestamps for particular player analyses and topics if you want to navigate this discussion for more specific information: 0:00 Intro 3:25 Overview of Important Considerations in Rookie-Level Evaluation 32:40 The ACL Pitching Staff, Overall 34:20 Tzu-Chen Sha 53:30 Luis Morales 1:08:15 Jesus Silverio 1:14:25 Brayan Restituyo 1:24:50 Dairon De Jesus 1:30:35 Camilo Hernandez 1:38:35 The ACL Position Players, Overall 1:46:10 Yeniel Laboy 1:55:00 Angel Rivera 2:09:10 Angel Arevalo 2:23:15 Joseph Rodriguez & Moises Gallardo 2:34:15 German Ortiz 2:39:35 Mario Gomez & Javier Pariguan