[The Elephant Walk is my weekly wrap-up of Oakland Athletics baseball. Results, performances, transactions or other thoughts I might have about the A’s]

Thoughts…

Are with Josh Hancock’s family. I know this is supposed to be an A’s thing, but when something like this happens it transgresses past teams and leagues and really affects everyone involved in baseball, including fans and observers. Its a sad day for baseball, the St. Louis Cardinals, and the Hancock family.

The Week That Was

Not quite as good of a week as last week, but once I overcame my grief of seeing both Milton Bradley and Rich Harden go on the DL on the same day I realized one thing, and that is that in a sick and twisted way, this is kind of why its nice to be an A’s fan; you never have to wait around that long to see your prospects. With the injuries, the A’s called up OF Danny Putnam and P Dallas Braden. Braden’s going to be fun to watch for a while because he is equipped with a pitch rarely thrown these days: a screwball. That might help to explain his 6k, 3 hit debut this week, and I’ll be watching this afternoon’s game to see how the Devil Rays fare against Braden.

On the positive injury front, CF Mark Kotsay appeared in uniform to do some pregame warmups, and is on pace to return some time in June. Kotsay’s health is really critical to the A’s in my opinion because as the Cubs are finding out with Alfonso Soriano, more injuries will occur with a guy playing center than right or left, so Kotsay allows Bradley to shift back to a corner outfield position and Swisher to go back to first.

As for this coming week, it’s a week of AL East matchups, and the A’s finsish their series with Tampa this weekend, go to Boston for a two game series, and go to Tampa for three more games on their turf. I think Boston will be a good litmus test as right now they are the team to beat in the AL.

On The Farm

The A’s got a new prospect this week, via a trade with the Cincinnati Reds. The Athletics acquired CF Chris Denorfia in exchange for cash and the ever so famous “player to be named later”. Right now, that player is unknown, but you have to think its probably going to be Brad Halsey, who this week stated he wants out of the Oakland organization for good after he felt that he deserved a callup over Dallas Braden. Halsey also complained about the A’s medical staff, which is concerning because he has not been the first as I believe Bobby Crosby and Rich Harden have made similar complaints. So Halsey wants out and the A’s just picked up Denorfia.

Speaking of Denorfia, this is, to me, a great pickup as the Reds really have no use for him with the success of Josh Hamilton, and he’s out for the year with Tommy John surgery so he probably came cheap (which to me suggests that it cost less than Halsey). The A’s have Bradley, Shannon Stewart, and Bobby Keilty all becoming free agents after this year. That leaves the A’s with only Nick Swisher, Travis, Buck, and Kotsay returning. With the addition of Denorfia and depending on the success of Danny Putnam, the A’s might be able to afford to leave Swisher at 1B/DH and let Dan Johnson, Daric Barton and Jason Stokes all compete for potentially one or two roster spots. But Denorfia hit .349/.409/.484 in the high minors last year, and was considered a top CF prospect, so well done Billy, poaching players when their value is lower than it should be.

Other guys to keep an eye on are still Jason Stokes (DH), Daric Barton (1B), and Kurt Suzuki (C). Stokes right now has the upper hand for a callup, and has been hitting for more power and striking out less over the past week. Two other guys who are coming into their own are a pair of middle infielders: Kevin Melillo and Donald Murphy. Both these guys are hitting around .300 and Melillo looks to have the upper hand of the pair with more walks than strikeouts (15BB and 12K) and is also leading the team in RBIs (13) and hits (23).

In the pitching world, Colby Lewis is standing out with an 0.98 WHIP, a 4.3 K/BB ratio and roughly 9 K/9 (or a strikeout per inning). Halsey is also not doing all that bad (5.7 K/BB), but since he wants out now, I’d look for him to be traded before the deadline. What I’d love to see is a Brad Halsey-Jose Capellan deal, since both players are fed up with their current teams and want out, its probably not too far fetched that they could swap them, except of course for the fact that Milwaukee is asking for like two to three prospects in exchange for the reliever, so nuts to that.