by Bill Moriarity / A’s Farm Editor
(photo: J.Meric/Getty Images)
Dan Feinstein first got his foot in the door of the baseball world by landing an internship in the Oakland A’s media relations department way back in 1994. And he ended up spending nearly a decade as the team’s video coordinator before eventually getting the chance to serve as an amateur scouting assistant for the A’s in 2004.
Feinstein then spent the next seven years doing stints with the Dodgers and the Rays before the northern California native eventually returned to the A’s just prior to the 2012 season. He was promoted to assistant general manager, professional scouting and player personnel in late 2015.
Feinstein’s duties include assisting vice president of baseball operations Billy Beane and general manager David Forst with all aspects of baseball operations, including contracts, trades, the construction of major and minor league rosters and arbitration. He also oversees the A’s international scouting department.
And as the A’s were busy wrapping up their 14-0 spring win over the White Sox in Mesa on Sunday, we took the opportunity to sit down and talk with Feinstein so that we could get his inside perspective on some of the A’s top prospects, specifically four players from A’s Farm’s recent Top 10 Prospects List…
AF: We were just talking to your guy who pitched in the big league game today, Jesus Luzardo. He’s just 20, and he looked really good out there on the mound today.
DF: Yeah, this is the second time now he’s pitched well over here.
AF: He just looks really confident and in control all the time.
DF: For a kid as young as he is, yeah, it’s impressive.
AF: You guys obviously must have had him on your radar before you targeted him in the Ryan Madson/Sean Doolittle deal with Washington last summer. So, despite the fact that he’d undergone Tommy John surgery, what had you seen in him that made you really want to go out and get this guy?
DF: We had history with him going back to when he was an amateur, when he was trending towards being a 1st-round-type guy. And then when he was recovering from the surgery…his stuff was even better than it had been in high school. So, when we were comfortable with the medicals and how the surgery went, he was certainly a guy we wanted to target in that deal.
AF: I guess you must have really pored over the medicals in his case before making that deal.
DF: Well, we really pore over the medicals in every case. But, yeah, once we were confident that the rehab was going well, he was an easy guy for us to target.
AF: And when you were originally scouting him as a high schooler, what really popped out about him initially?
DF: Well, it’s a unique combination of really quality stuff and a fastball at 97 [mph] with an easy delivery. It’s hard to say that a fastball at 97 will sneak up on a hitter, but when it’s such a nonchalant arm and an easy delivery and then it comes out at 97, it does sneak up on hitters.
AF: Given the surgery and the limited amount of work he was able to get in last season, I’m assuming you’ll be somewhat conservative with him and he’ll be on some kind of innings limit this year.
DF: Yeah, I mean, obviously he’s fully recovered and healthy and ready to go, but we’re not going to push him beyond his limit and what our player development people are comfortable with.
AF: Aside from the workload question, just in terms of challenging him competitively, as long as he’s healthy, are you comfortable pushing him along fairly rapidly or, because of his relatively young age and the surgery, would you prefer to go slow with him?
DF: You never really want to put a timetable on someone’s career, but with his combination of stuff and maturity, it could allow him to have more of an expedited path than somebody without his type of poise and command and stuff.
AF: So, given his makeup, it sounds like he could move pretty fast. Another guy you’d clearly targeted was shortstop Jorge Mateo, who came over from the Yankees last summer in the Sonny Gray trade. I’m sure you’d had your eye on him for a while. He’s obviously a very toolsy guy. What made you want to go out and get him when you could?
DF: He’s just a rare type of athlete who seems to play the game one tick faster than everybody else. It shows up most on the bases, but there’s really nothing he can’t do on the field. He was a guy we’d scouted extensively. He had one statistical blip in the Florida State League, whether that was the fact that he’d been back there for the third time or some complacency, we’re not sure. But his tools and skills certainly made him an easy target for us in that deal.
AF: Everyone talks about his speed, but he’s got a pretty strong arm as well. Given that, do you see him as someone who’s likely to stick as a shortstop?
DF: Yeah. It’s an interesting question that keeps coming up. But we acquired him to be a shortstop. We have a steadfast belief that he’s a shortstop. He’s still so young and he’s still learning the nuances of the position, but we see no reason why he wouldn’t stay at short long term.
AF: Well, I guess if he can, he will – and it sounds like he can!
DF: He dabbled in center field a little bit with New York. But when we acquired him, we absolutely believed he was a shortstop, and he’s given us no reason to think otherwise.
AF: Let’s talk about a guy you just reassigned to the minor league camp today, Sean Murphy. Obviously, good catchers are hard to find, and it looks like you found a good one there. So, what stood out about him that really made you want to grab him in the draft when you did?
DF: Obviously, his defensive skills really stood out. He was probably the best defensive catcher in college baseball, with the strongest arm to go with it. But he could also hit too – he can hit for power. And he’s made quite an impression this year in spring training. And like you said, it’s evidenced by the fact that we just sent him out today. He’s known as a defense-first catcher, but he also can hit.
AF: He seems kind of like the Matt Chapman of catching.
DF: Yeah, similar arms from each position certainly.
AF: I was just talking with Bob Melvin about him today, and he said he thought it was just a matter of time before he was a front-line catcher.
DF: Yeah, just watching him back there, it’s not only the receiving ability but, obviously, the arm strength catches everybody’s attention.
AF: I guess the question is just how much he’ll end up hitting.
DF: Yeah, he did really well in Stockton. And then the jump from Stockton to Midland is a bigger challenge than most people realize. It’s a really large leap to go from the ballpark in Stockton to the hitting environment in Midland. And although his batting line may not have looked as gaudy in Midland as it did in Stockton, a lot of the underlying metrics were similar to what he had done in the California League. He actually had a higher line-drive percentage in Midland. He controlled the strike zone better than he had in the Cal League. So, we feel that any lapse in offensive numbers was strictly due to the environment and not any of his batted-ball profiles.
AF: So, your analysis of what he did in Midland made you feel a lot better about it than the average observer would from just looking at his batting line.
DF: Yes.
AF: Okay, now let’s talk about Lazaro Armenteros. He’s still just 18 and a very toolsy young outfielder. When you look at him right now, what do you see and what do you project?
DF: He’s still so young. He was one of the youngest kids in the Arizona League last year. And he more than held his own. He had a really nice summer in the AZL. He’s another really, really good athlete. If he had grown up in the States, he would probably be in spring football practice somewhere in the SEC and not playing baseball. That’s the kind of athlete he is – a speed/power combination. It’s hard to predict when and where he’s going to go. But it’s been fun to watch some of his raw abilities turn into some useable skills at a young age.
AF: Is there anything in particular that you really want him to try to focus on improving this season?
DF: Yeah, I think the main thing we’re focused on is improving his reads and routes in the outfield. The one thing he wasn’t blessed with was a plus arm. So, we want to make sure that he’s mechanically sound throwing and he’s hitting the cutoff man. But also, he’s still learning to navigate life in the States. And we’re trying to make his life as easy as possible off the field so that he can concentrate on just playing baseball. And there’s a lot of work that goes into that behind the scenes from people both in the Dominican who come up and assist with the process, but also a lot of our player development folks who are helping with English classes and establishing his residency and all sorts of things away from the field that we’re trying to make a little bit easier for him.
AF: And is it still to be determined if he stays down in Arizona till June or if he goes out to a full-season team in April?
DF: Yeah, we’re going to challenge him. Whether that means we send him to Beloit or just keep him back here and extend him and send him to Vermont, it’ll be one of those places. But we’ve still got a few weeks to figure out exactly where he’s going to spend the first part of his year.
AF: I guess that probably applies to both him and Austin Beck as well.
DF: Yeah, there’s some similarities there. Obviously, Austin is more of a polished center-field type, but their skill sets aren’t all that dissimilar.
AF: It seems like one could imagine them climbing the ladder together pretty easily.
DF: Yeah, that’s our hope.
AF: How much fun is it still for you to identify raw talent and then work with it and watch it develop and evolve through your system?
DF: It’s a part of our job that we all really like – going out and seeing young players and trying to project what they’re going to look like and how they’re going to play six, seven, eight, nine years down the road. I think watching young players is really the most fun part of our job. Focusing on the big league team and doing everything else that we need to do behind the scenes to get the major league team ready on the field is our main focus, but I think we’d all say the most fun part is going out and actually watching young players.
AF: And finally, at this point with just a couple weeks left in spring training, what do you find yourself primarily focused on and thinking about every day?
DF: Right now, it’s just praying that everybody stays healthy. The last week here everyone’s main focus is making sure we get into the regular season with healthy players. And from the group of healthy ones, then whittling that down to the best 25 we can is really our main focus.
AF: So, at this point, do you walk around the clubhouse every day asking guys, “How are you? Are you feeling okay?”
DF: [Laughter] I have asked. I have asked players how they’re feeling – I think we all probably have.
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