Interview with Kevin Goldstein of Baseball America

For anyone interested in A's minor league prospects, there is an excellent interview with Kevin Goldstein of Baseball America with Elephants in Oakland.

On the 2005 draft, where the A's surprised many by drafting a number of high schoolers, Mr. Goldstein indicates exactly what most of us A's fans already know : It's just the A's being the A's :

They're not about on-base percentage and they're not about drafting college players, they're about finding market inefficiencies, and that's where they thought it was this year.Both Lansford and Italiano were very good picks. Their long-term strategy is to find what kind of talent is undervalued in each draft - so it's going to change from year to year.

He also mentions that one of the A's weaknesses is a lack of power hitting corner outfielders in the current system and suggests that Matt Watson, Andrew Beattie, Jack Cust, Hiram Bocachica, and Jermaine Clark are all "minor league veteran/major league fill-in guys".

Read the whole thing here, lots of good stuff.