A few weeks ago, when Mark Ellis was traded, and in response to Ken Arneson saying that Mark Ellis was one of his top [five?] favorite players ever, I decided to make my ranked list of favorite A's position players of all time. That list is here. The list revealed certain things about my ballplayer preferences, mainly that I really really like fat, slow guys.

I've been told by sources that Ken is now working on his Top 25 Pitchers list, so I decided to build mine as well. This time, though, I'll include a few words on each pitcher. Away!

1. Mark Mulder - always loved his efficiency

2. Dallas Braden - the perfect game, grandma, the 209

3. Steve Karsay - no idea at all. Maybe it's this weird residual "oh he must be awesome if we got him for Rickey" thing that's never gone away. Maybe I really really liked his Upper Deck card in 1993 or something.

4. Ron Darling - his Mets broadcast work has probably pushed him up a few spots, but I can't separate that in my mind

5. Brandon McCarthy - Twitter

6. Dennis Eckersley - c'mon

7. Rich Harden - the way his fastball jumped out of his hand in 2004. He should've been Justin Verlander

8. Justin Duchscherer - the cutter + the slow curve + the inscrutability

9. Brett Anderson - love the way he wears his hat on the bench

10. Tim Hudson - the splitter

11. Dan Haren - throws like 17 pitches and it's impossible to tell them apart

12. Brad Ziegler - who doesn't love a submariner

13. Keith Foulke - I love change-up closers

14. Jim Mecir - the man could barely walk but built a major-league career out of a screwball!

15. Trevor Cahill - the two-seamer

16. Ted Lilly - something about his weirdly long stride and his surprising strikeout ability always appealed to me

17. Billy Taylor - the homeless man's Eckersley. Bonus points for being part of an all-time Beane Trade

18. Chad Bradford - see Brad Ziegler

19. Grant Balfour - an Australian reliever who throws hard and cusses more than anyone? Duh

20. Kenny Rogers - the pickoff move

21. Doug Jones - his Score Dream Team card. Also, the mustache and the changeup. And the even slower changeup.

22. Bobby Witt - Armando Galarraga before there was an Armando Galarraga

23. Curt Young - autographed a baseball card through the mail for me

24. Gil Heredia - the homeless man's Ron Darling

25. Steve Wojciechowski - honorary