Called that one. Sigh.

not that irvin is amazing, but that is a surprisingly small return

Maybe Aguilar will be their new #1 SP. He's not particularly useful as a 1B/DH addition.

Maybe the As can sell to agents the idea that they'll have Aguilar pitch against their guys who are pending FA and get some side payments from the agents in question. I'm not seeing a viable ML team with real intent anymore though. A real commissioner would take the team and auction it off to find a serious ownership group.

sigh indeed.

I'm no prospect hound and Hernaiz is a long way away regardless but his 2022 numbers look pretty promising, especially if the defense is good. He hit very well at A, well at A+ ... then stunk in 59 PA at AA. But also 3 years young for his level at A and 4 years at A+ ... and 32 for 36 in steals. The K-rate is under 20% and the walk rate is OK. That's where the glove comes in, a solid defensive SS with excellent speed is a useful player even if he can't hit very well. From the ages of 21-26, Elvis Andrus put up a 83 OPS+ but 184-69 in steals and, even with just average defense, that was 15 WAR, 1 WAA. I thought this was the kind of player everybody's been clamoring for in the age of oafball.

Granted, if that's his upside then that's not worth an average SP. But if his upside is above that, then the A's did fine here ... excepting losing 120 games this year but what's a few losses among friends when the team is guaranteed about $260+ in revenue?

With the Angels no longer for sale, maybe Lacob can pivot to the A's. Please.

Boo-boo, 3 years young at A+, 4 years young at AA

Zips has Hernaiz at average d at short; scoring reports (and usage) suggest otherwise. Minus arm, ok range but he’s expected to lose that as he ages, error prone up the middle (hard hands?). I kind of like the offensive profile but I’m not sure where on the diamond he’ll land.

I saw Hernaiz in Salisbury once this year. He looked like he could possibly be 2B in MLB but not a SS. He might even be a decent 2B.....arm insufficient for more than occasional utility duty at SS in MLB was my take. He botched two potential GDP in the game I went to. One simply bad transfer so only got the one out, booted the other one into center and no outs recorded at all.

If he adds 15-20 lbs of muscle and a little bit of launch angle to his swing he could be a good-hitting 2B perhaps though. Juan Samuel with less Ks is probably what you're looking at as upside. I mean, that isn't so bad I guess. But, I see that as his 15-25% best outcome.

Juan Samuel with less Ks is probably what you're looking at as upside.

That strikes me as a hell of an upside.

the ultracompetitive American League East

Gee, ya think...?!

Actually, "ultracompetitive" makes me imagine all the players dressing up as this guy.

Reynard: Juan Samuel with less Ks is probably what you're looking at as upside.
SoSH: That strikes me as a hell of an upside.

Less speed too (mlb.com has him with 55 speed - say he's now the 18th best prospect in the A's system), though I don't think this is a bad ceiling comp and get the impression that people expect the adding size/strength is likely.
If he had a better arm, third could work out well - but... ah well. It'll be interesting to see where they use him relative to a roughly equally valued prospect already in their system Euribiel Angeles (less range, more dependable glove but so-so athletic tools, could suffer from that thing when someone has really good bat to ball skills but not a lot of power so they make too much weak contact (see Nick Madrigal and a host of other people) to succeed in the bigs.

Good luck Cole. I'd put his ERA over under around 5 in the AL east.

That said he's been solid on the A's so why give him away for peanuts?

What a trash organization. This latest strip down came with no exciting prospects, except maybe Shea Lango-whatever. At least back in the old days you could get excited about a Dan Haren or Daric Barton or even Kiko Calero.

If the owners don't want to spend money on the A's, then neither do I.

That said he's been solid on the A's so why give him away for peanuts?

Have you seen their mascot?

#15 I thought they traded Stomper for this guy.

If he can't play SS and especially if he slots in at #18 on the A's list, then forget everything I said in #5. The bat has upside and if he becomes anything close to Juan Samuel then I'll cite #5 as proof of my brilliance.

Zips has Hernaiz at average d at short;

I'm pretty sure that's just ZiPS saying "we have little/no reliable data so he get regressed all the way to league average."

Less speed too (mlb.com has him with 55 speed

Now that seems odd. He's 59 for 69 in steals. I can imagine steal success rates are quite high in the minors but if a guy with blah speed can have that success, he must be darn good at the other aspects of baseruning.

So I'll toss out another pie in the sky comp: Davey Lopes

By the way, Samuel K'd 21.6% of the time which would be a smidgen better than league average these days. Just a reminder of how things have changed.

So the A's tore down and traded their entire team for prospects, and after all that that they have TWO of the top 100 MLB prospects, one of whom they drafted.

Don't know what your guys problem with Stomper is. Stomper is awesome.