Worth a quick mention, an article from the San Jose Mercury News on new A’s OF Michael Taylor. Of everyone that got traded in the Halladay/Lee swap (and there were 9 players total), to us the biggest winners, by far, were Halladay (gets contract extension and pitches for a winner) and Taylor.

Now an Athletic, the soon-to-be 24-year-old (by soon we mean tomorrow) Taylor has a chance to step in and be the everyday leftfielder in Oakland, a chance he was not going to get in Philadelphia.

“We just think that not only is he a very good prospect and player now, he continues to get better each year,” A’s general manager Billy Beane said. “We think he’s a potential monster talent.”

That said, Taylor has played just 30 games in AAA, even though he’s hit .333 with 39 home runs between Lo-A and AAA over the last two seasons. So Michael, are you ready?

“You know, that’s a tough question, because I think every player thinks they’re ready,” Taylor said on a media conference call. “I think you don’t know until you’re put in that situation and get enough at-bats at that level. I’d like the opportunity sooner rather than later.”

Because of two trades this week, looks like he will.

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It will be hard for any player to have a better half in Lo-A than Taylor did with the BlueClaws in 2008: .361-10-50 and 10 stolen bases. Probably the only player who’s come close is a pitcher: Cole Hamels, who went 6-1, 0.74 with the BlueClaws in 2003 as a pitcher.

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Brett Wallace, who was traded to Toronto for Taylor, was originally drafted by St Louis and traded in July to Oakland in the Matt Holliday deal. So that makes three organizations in six months. Welcome to the pros.

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This entry was posted on Friday, December 18th, 2009 at 1:47 pm and is filed under Past BlueClaws. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.