The small-market Oakland A’s are outperforming expectations — they have a habit of doing this — and, as always, their front office deserves plaudits. Billy Beane famously fronts the group, with David Forst acting as his right-hand man in the general manager’s chair. And then there’s Dan Kantrovitz, whose primary duties are encapsulated with this line in the team’s media guide:

[Kantrovitz] is involved in all aspects of the A’s baseball operations department with a primary focus on overseeing statistical analysis for evaluating and targeting players in the amateur draft, free agent and trade markets.

Currently in his fourth season as Oakland’s assistant GM, Kantrovitz has both the background and the expertise to thrive in his role. The possessor of a master’s degree in statistics from Harvard, he’s served in multiple capacities within professional baseball, including a three-year stint as the director of scouting for the St. Louis Cardinals. This is Kantrovitz’s second go-round with his current club, as he previously worked in the Oakland front office from 2009 to -11.

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Kantrovitz on the A’s outperforming expectations this season: “With three weeks left, a lot can happen. I wish I had a good answer to explain the team’s performance so far, but I think you’ve got to start with the guys on the field. So many of our players are having great years — and, in some cases, career years. Then you can factor in that David [Forst] and Billy [Beane] and the coaching staff have made some good decisions along the way. Maybe we have had some good fortune on top of it?  Also — and this is maybe hard to quantify — I think the effect of a guy like Jonathan Lucroy on our pitching has been significant.”

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Are today’s analytically inclined players the next generation of top-level front-office executives? According to several baseball insiders, there’s a chance that could happen. While some to whom I spoke expressed skepticism, it does make a certain amount of sense.

A common criticism of your stereotypical Ivy League GM has been, “He didn’t play the game at a high level.” Conversely, former players in decision-making positions have often been accused (sometimes for good reason) of being behind the times. They have on-field experience, but they aren’t critical thinkers who embrace analytics.

A former player who thinks much like an “Ivy League GM” would offer the best of both worlds. He would know what it’s like to go through the grind of a 162-game schedule, and he’d also place a high value on objective analysis while showing a willingness to think outside the box.

I asked a cross section of players, coaches, managers, and front-office executives if they think such a trend is forthcoming.

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Manny Acta, Seattle Mariners third-base coach: “Eventually it’s going to happen, but it will take a little while. The percentage of players that believe and think like the new generation of GMs is still very low. It’s a transition that even coaches are going through right now: how to explain to players what is valued today by front offices and to convince them that they are not being valued as much by the old traditional stats.”

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Not just anyone can close a game. The ninth inning is different than the first eight innings. Along with quality “stuff,” a certain mentality is needed to walk out to the mound and get those last three outs with your team leading by three runs or less.

Or is it?

Managers are typically averse to using someone other than their designated closer in a save situation — they do so only when necessary — but should that really be the case? Could most teams not realistically expect their “second-best reliever” to get those final outs if their “best reliever” was used in a high-leverage situation earlier in the game, and it was prudent to not have him return for the ninth?

I recently asked that question (albeit not always in those exact words) to a cross section of relievers, pitching coaches, and managers. Here is what they had to say.

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Cody Allen, Cleveland Indians reliever: “I understand that teams want to keep guys in roles — for the most part, even us — although I feel we’re kind of ahead of the curve in terms of usage. There are times we put guys in different situations, because it might be a bigger point in the game.

“If you have guys who have been here for awhile, or if you bring somebody over who’s proven, like we did last year with Andrew [Miller]… that’s a luxury we have that a lot of teams don’t have. [Bryan] Shaw has been here long enough that Tito knows he can handle just about any spot — any part of the lineup, any inning, any circumstance.

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It’s quite possible that — as recently as last night, with the Orioles preparing to finish their series against the Brewers — that Manny Machado had no idea who’d be on the mound for the Twins this evening. That sort of knowledge, and the preparation that goes along with it, would have to wait until Baltimore was finished with Milwaukee. The young third baseman doesn’t like to look too far ahead. I learned that when I spoke to Machado earlier this season.

At the time of our conversation, the Orioles were in Boston to play the Red Sox. His club would be facing the White Sox next, and I was interested to know when Chicago — and, specifically, their pitchers — would begin entering Machado’s consciousness. Here’s what he had to say.

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Machado on preparing for a series: “I don’t really think ahead. I think it’s the same way for most of the guys in this clubhouse — you have to stay in the moment. Today we have to face Chris Sale, so why would we think about the White Sox coming up? We have to worry about one of the best pitchers in the game, and what we’re going to do against him. We just prepare for the guy we’re going to face tonight. We stay with our same routines in the cage, and on the field, as well.

“Every time you go into a series, you kind of want to know who the three or four starters are going to be, but that’s just right before the series starts. I don’t know who is pitching for Chicago yet. Once the series here is over, I’ll take a look to see who we’ve got coming. I’ll kind of prepare myself mentally and start creating my plan for that series.

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Chris Gimenez is good with a quip, and he came up with a classic earlier this month. Following a game in which he homered twice, the 34-year-old journeyman told reporters, “Hopefully I’m one of the better hitting pitchers in the league.”

Gimenez is, of course, a catcher by trade — but the lines are getting blurred a bit. He’s started 24 games behind the dish for the Minnesota Twins this season, but he’s also taken the mound six times. That’s rarified air. Researching the subject requires interpretation — for instance, was Willie Smith an outfielder or a two-way player in 1963 and 1964? — but it could be reasonably argued that Gimenez is tied with Eddie Lake (1944) for the most pitching appearances in one season by a position player.

More certain is the fact that Gimenez is the first player both to catch and pitch in at least six games, in the same season, since the late 1800s. And his versatility doesn’t stop there. Gimenez has also appeared in five games at first base, and one each at third base and in left field.

Gimenez talked about his crappy fastball and about his hopes of one day following in the footsteps of Campy Campaneris, earlier this week.

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Gimenez on not thinking like a pitcher when he’s on the mound: “I think I’ve pretty much stuck to the catching side of the thinking. I feel like that’s the more beneficial side, because chances are — at least hopefully — I’m going to catch more games than I’m going to pitch the rest of the year. But it is good to have the two somewhat different mindsets.

“Being a catcher, you need to think along the same lines as a pitcher, so you’re essentially thinking like a pitcher back there. But when I’m on the mound, it’s completely different, because I want guys to hit it. Pitchers are usually pitching for no contact or weak contact, and I’m trying to throw it down the middle. They can try to hit it as far as they want. I know that hitting is extremely difficult. You can tell that from my career average.

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Mound visits have long been a part of the game. They happen for a variety of reasons, but with one constant: whether it’s the catcher or the pitching coach who jogs to the hill, the ensuing confab delays the action. And while the delay is typically short of duration — the home plate umpire does his best to ensure that — the idiom “straw that broke the camel’s back” exists for a reason. In the opinion of more and more people, enough is enough when it comes to repeated trips to the mound.

Pace of play is an increasingly important issue for MLB, and some — commissioner Rob Manfred among them — have suggested limiting, if not entirely eliminating, mound visits. Fans would certainly be on board with such a change, but what about the people who be directly affected?

With the help of colleague Eno Sarris, I asked a cross section of players — mostly pitchers and catchers — the following question: “Just how important are mound visits, and how much would limiting, or even doing away with them, impact the game?”

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Larry Andersen, Philadelphia Phillies broadcaster: “I don’t know if you can get rid of them. If you have a starting staff like the Phillies had five years ago, with Cliff Lee, Roy Halladay, Cole Hamels, and the like, then you don’t need the mound visits. Those guys were experienced veterans who knew how to slow the game down and make adjustments on the fly. But if you have a staff like we do now — a lot of these guys are young and don’t know how to slow things down. They need to be led a little bit. They need to be helped out. They need to be given a break.

“It’s hard to say that mound visits shouldn’t be allowed, but there are also times where… we had one recently where a pitching coach went out to the mound with two outs in the ninth inning when we brought up a pinch-hitter. It was a four-run game, and there was no one on. I mean, is that really necessary? There are coaches going out simply to give relievers more time. I don’t know where you draw the line, but I’d certainly like to see a line drawn.”

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Zack Granite is hitting the ball as hard as anyone in Triple-A. Not in terms of power — the 24-year-old Minnesota Twins prospect is a slasher, not a basher — but the line drives have been coming fast and furious. Granite leads the International League in batting average by a whopping 30 points. Jump-starting the Rochester Red Wings’ offense out of the lead-off spot, the left-handed-hitting outfielder is slashing .349/.404/.494.

When Eric Longenhagen profiled Granite in his Twins top-prospect list, he wrote that “his ability to play center field well, run, and put the bat on the ball, points toward a near-certain big-league role of some kind.” When (and if) that comes to fruition is yet to be determined, but the 2013 14th-round pick out of Seton Hall University is making a case for it to happen soon. Since June 2, Granite is 37 for 75, with nine doubles, three triples, a home run, and 11 walks.

Granite talked about his game — and tossed a few playful jabs in the direction of one of his teammates — when Rochester visited Pawtucket over the weekend.

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Granite on an adjustment that’s helped fuel his surge: “I’ve moved a little closer to the plate. I think that has kind of helped me see pitches better. A lot of pitches away that were strikes, I was taking. That’s my game — going the other way — so I was kind of getting away from my game. I also just feel really good at the plate right now, which is obviously helping a lot.

“Opposite field is my security blanket, but I’m getting better at pulling the ball. I worked on that a lot last year with my manager, Doug [Mientkiewicz]. I’d always been ‘stick to left, stick to left,’ and he helped me learn how to pull the ball — how to attack it the right way. That’s another repertoire, another factor, to my game now.”

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Last year, Eno Sarris wrote that Shane Greene “features a cutter and a slider, but where one begins and the other ends is tough to decide.” Sarris concluded his article by opining that the Detroit Tigers right-hander “has four breaking balls.”

PITCHf/x shows something different. They don’t have the 28-year-old reliever throwing a cutter at all. What they have is a combination of sliders and curveballs, with a notable flip-flopping of usage. Per PITCHf/x, Greene threw 46.6% sliders and 7.9% curveballs last year. This season, the pitch-tracking algorithm has him at 13.3% sliders and 30.1% curveballs.

And then there’s his heater. Greene has been two-seam heavy since moving to the bullpen last year, but while PITCHf/x has him throwing just 1.8% four-seamers this season, the system indicates he threw 19.6% four-seams (versus 25.2% two-seams) in 2016.

Intrigued by these conundrums, I went directly to the source. Greene, who has a 1.71 ERA and a 10.2 strikeout rate per nine innings over 33 appearances, broke down his repertoire when the Tigers visited Fenway Park last weekend.

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Greene on his repertoire: “The pitch that’s 88 to 91 [mph] and is moving like a slider, I call it a cutter. I call it that because when I earned the pitch, I already had something I called a slider. It’s harder, so I try to use it more as a cutter — not so much as a swing-and-miss pitch, but to miss barrels with. And sometimes it gets big, and sometimes it stays smaller.

“The pitch that is 82 to 84-ish, sometimes 85, is what I call my slider. A lot of people think it’s a curveball, but that’s been my slider since I was in high school. Same pitch.

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His season is over and Kyle Garlick is headed home. Like most minor leaguers, the 24-year-old Los Angeles Dodgers outfield prospect will spend his offseason working. He has a pair of part-time jobs lined up, which will help him make ends meet until spring training rolls around. He’ll then resume his underdog quest to make it to the big leagues.

He’s already exceeded expectations. A 28th-round senior sign in 2015 out of Cal Poly Pomona, Garlick dominated A-ball last year, putting up a .987 OPS between multiple stops. This season he slashed .293/.348/.508, with 42 doubles and 19 home runs, between Rancho Cucamonga and Double-A Tulsa.

As recently as two years ago the one-time Oregon Duck was uncertain about his baseball future. An injury, followed by a family health issue, preceded a season in which he put up mediocre numbers and was subsequently bypassed in the 2014 amateur draft.

Garlick talked about the challenges he’s overcome — and the ones still in front of him — prior to suiting up for the final game of his 2016 season.

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Garlick on what it’s like to have the minor-league season end: “A couple of weeks ago I would have told you I was really excited. This being my first full season, my body wasn’t feeling too great. I was drained, both physically and mentally. But now that the last game of the year is here, I’m actually feeling kind of sad. I don’t really want it to end. I love playing this game and I’m going to miss is it over the next five months or so.

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Tim Lincecum used to be freakishly good. He no longer is. Hampered by hip woes, the 32-year-old right-hander went from winning Cy Young awards and tossing no-hitters to the precipice of pitching oblivion. His velocity down and his ERA up, he succumbed to surgery last September.

He’s on the comeback trail, but not with the team he helped win three World Series. The former Giant signed with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in May and debuted with his new club in mid-June. His performances have been underwhelming. In four starts, the once-overpowering righty has allowed 29 hits in 18 innings. His fastball is averaging a pedestrian 89 mph.

The extent to which Lincecum can return to his old form remains to be seen. His surgically-repaired hip appears to be holding up, and his damaged psyche is healing as well. He’ll likely never be an elite power pitcher again — or a power pitcher at all — but he feels he can be a productive starter. Only time will tell.

Lincecum talked about his early development as a pitcher, and his career going forward, prior to a recent game at Fenway Park.

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Lincecum on pitching: “When you’re younger, you don’t have a plan. You either trust your stuff or you don’t, or you just throw it and hope. I always trusted my stuff. My fastball didn’t always play, but my curveball made my fastball better. That’s what I could execute. Some guys have an idea of how they can pitch — what pitches they should throw in what counts — but guys like me just end up throwing the ball and trusting it. There’s an aspect of that even at this level. You have a plan, but you’re basically throwing the baseball. It all depends on how well you can execute.

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