Been a while

It's been a while since I made a posting, and I figured tonight would be the time to finally do it again. A whole lot has happened since my last post, so let me go through the positives real fast.

• The A's traded Matt Holliday, and got exactly who they wanted. I'm happy to have Brett Wallace in the Organization now, and Mortenson and Peterson look to be pretty decent.
  
• They also traded Orlando Cabrera for the exact value he was worth to the A's: A second round draft pick. Tyler Ladendorf is now an A.
  
• Brett Anderson is a stud. His streak of amazing appearances started in Boston. A complete game with no runs scored. This guy is the real deal.
  
• Gio Gonzalez is starting to shine. I always loved this guy, because he had oodles of potential. His curve is just nasty, and with his fastball being used to confuse hitters... He's going to be excellent.
• Rajai Davis has decided that he is no longer DFA worthy. Good for him, if he keeps it up he might be worth keeping around.
  
• The A's traded Jack Hannahan. Wow.

The minor leagues are stacked with great hitters. I'm just so happy that everything started turning around. Let's go through a few of the good guys.

1. Chris Carter: 1B, AA Midland. .325/.422/.553 in 105 games. Wow. This kid is making AA look like rookie ball. He hit HR 19 last night, to go with double #34. Midland isn't a hitters park. It actually drains HR totals and boosts double totals. Carter is a stud.
2. Grant Desme: OF, A+ Stockton. The toolsy outfielder was taken in the second round in '07, only to miss out on the next two seasons due to injury. Desme has rebounded making sure his dreams of playing pro ball don't die. How's he doing? Hitting .275 with a .347/.540/.897 line between two levels. He needs to cut down on the K's, and if he can do that, he's going to be an all-star. Oh, 23 HR's between two levels with 27 doubles and 34 SB's.
   
3. Jemile Weeks: 2B, AA Midland. After losing most of the '08 season to a hamstring injury, Weeks came roaring back to baseball in June. In his first 23 games back he had a hit. Impressive stuff. Just promoted to Midland after showing good hitting skills in Stockton.

I must say, the A's are a lot more watchable now that Holliday is gone. Really weird, because I would have thought the opposite. At 45-60, they're still a craptastic team. At least they're nowhere near as bad as the Nationals. The only things I'm really disappointed with on this team are the fact that Cahill and Mazzaro aren't progressing anywhere near the rate Anderson did. That's fine, I just hope they can fix that. The other thing I'm disappointed with? Bob Geren is still the manager.

Blah.