As expected, at least as I expected, baseball's winter meetings featured a lot of hot air but not a lot of hot stove action. The Athletics' contingent got some national T.V. attention, including this MLB network chat with Oakland skipper Bob Melvin. But the A's were typically their quiet selves, unless A's beat writer Susan Slusser's tweet regarding Stephen Drew is an accurate prediction.
But one piece of pretty minor news got this blogger's attention earlier today. Baseball's Rule 5 draft took place Wednesday, and the A's gained two players and lost two players in the minor-league portion of the draft. The one addition that turned my head was selecting infielder Tommy Mendonca from the Texas Rangers' farm system. Mendonca has been mostly respectable but not dominant during his four-year career in the minors with Texas. But the 2009 second-round pick made his biggest impact to date in college at Fresno State. In 2008, the Bulldogs stunned the college game with a run to the national championship despite being one of 16 No. 4 seeds -four teams per regional- entering the 64-team tournament. Fresno State's title was equal to a No. 13-to-16 seed winning the basketball NCAA Tournament national title. And no, the latter has never happened by a seed that low.
Why is this relevant here? Like Mendonca, I too am a Fresno State alum (class of '94), so I'm just taking a moment to brag about what was just the second team national championship in Fresno State history. There were a ton of Bulldog heroes during that 2008 postseason. But Mendonca, particularly when the Bulldogs got to Omaha, was at a different level than anyone else. In seven CWS games, including beating Georgia two-games-to-one in the best-of-three championship round, Mendonca hit four home runs with 11 RBI. But he was almost more impressive on defense at third, making highlight reel plays one after another. Mendonca didn't care he also set the NCAA single-season strikeout record with 97 that season.
Mendonca now becomes the Bay Area's second -OK, a distant second to one of those dreaded Nevada Wolf Pack alums- most famous current pro player from the Central Valley California city of Turlock. And who knows how much of a factor he'll ever be as a member of the Athletics' organization. Rule 5 guys are rolls of the dice. Mendonca again has struggled making contact in the Texas organization. He's struck out 485 times and walked just 100 in four seasons. Last season splitting between Double and Triple-A, he hit .229 with 12 home runs with 51 RBI and a Billy Beane-unfriendly .238 OBP. He is slated to go to Triple-A Sacramento and would be a longshot to make the team out of spring training with Josh Donaldson the no-brainer third baseman and versatile players like Adam Rosales, Eric Sogard and Grant Green favorites to be the team's utility man.
But one variable to remember about Mendonca (and excuse my biased feelings about a former Bulldog player): He's still just 24-years-old and won't turn 25 until after the start of the 2013 season. If he can begin hitting more consistently and compensate for his strikeout issue with some power in Triple-A, the A's might have themselves an infield sleeper going forward. Just to stroke my homer-ness further, here are a couple of videos reminiscing about Fresno State's title and a Mendonca interview during that College World Series performance.
But one piece of pretty minor news got this blogger's attention earlier today. Baseball's Rule 5 draft took place Wednesday, and the A's gained two players and lost two players in the minor-league portion of the draft. The one addition that turned my head was selecting infielder Tommy Mendonca from the Texas Rangers' farm system. Mendonca has been mostly respectable but not dominant during his four-year career in the minors with Texas. But the 2009 second-round pick made his biggest impact to date in college at Fresno State. In 2008, the Bulldogs stunned the college game with a run to the national championship despite being one of 16 No. 4 seeds -four teams per regional- entering the 64-team tournament. Fresno State's title was equal to a No. 13-to-16 seed winning the basketball NCAA Tournament national title. And no, the latter has never happened by a seed that low.
Why is this relevant here? Like Mendonca, I too am a Fresno State alum (class of '94), so I'm just taking a moment to brag about what was just the second team national championship in Fresno State history. There were a ton of Bulldog heroes during that 2008 postseason. But Mendonca, particularly when the Bulldogs got to Omaha, was at a different level than anyone else. In seven CWS games, including beating Georgia two-games-to-one in the best-of-three championship round, Mendonca hit four home runs with 11 RBI. But he was almost more impressive on defense at third, making highlight reel plays one after another. Mendonca didn't care he also set the NCAA single-season strikeout record with 97 that season.
Mendonca now becomes the Bay Area's second -OK, a distant second to one of those dreaded Nevada Wolf Pack alums- most famous current pro player from the Central Valley California city of Turlock. And who knows how much of a factor he'll ever be as a member of the Athletics' organization. Rule 5 guys are rolls of the dice. Mendonca again has struggled making contact in the Texas organization. He's struck out 485 times and walked just 100 in four seasons. Last season splitting between Double and Triple-A, he hit .229 with 12 home runs with 51 RBI and a Billy Beane-unfriendly .238 OBP. He is slated to go to Triple-A Sacramento and would be a longshot to make the team out of spring training with Josh Donaldson the no-brainer third baseman and versatile players like Adam Rosales, Eric Sogard and Grant Green favorites to be the team's utility man.
But one variable to remember about Mendonca (and excuse my biased feelings about a former Bulldog player): He's still just 24-years-old and won't turn 25 until after the start of the 2013 season. If he can begin hitting more consistently and compensate for his strikeout issue with some power in Triple-A, the A's might have themselves an infield sleeper going forward. Just to stroke my homer-ness further, here are a couple of videos reminiscing about Fresno State's title and a Mendonca interview during that College World Series performance.
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