SB Nation User Blog: Eck

What's the Goal?

Eck — Wed, 02 Mar 2005 00:06:29 -0000

[EDITOR'S NOTE] I think this is a fascinating discussion and a great post by Eck. I wanted to call this to everyone's attention because I think it's especially relevant after this past winter for our A's.

See, I believe that the A's goal is field a competitive team in the American League West every season. The A's front office truly believes that the playoffs are a crapshoot, so all they have to do is field a team good enough to win the West...and I think part of the impetus for the moves this past offseason was to make the team good enough to compete in the division for the next 5-10 years. Keeping Mulder and Hudson would've made it possible for the short term, but Billy wants to always be ahead of the game. He prides himself in being ahead of the game. But the hypothetical question that Eck proposes below is a good one. Would you trade one World Series victory for years of stagnation? I don't think I would. - Blez

There are many excellent discussions going on in the "Hudson Signs!!!" diary, and I wanted to draw special attention to one point.

The obvious point is that signing a great player to a long-term contract usually means you are paying for past performance and, at the end, the team gets stuck with a rediculously expensive player who is not very productive.

That's the debate about Hudson. We all loved him. Most of us agree he'll be more productive than Meyer, Cruz and Thomas THIS year. And most of us agree that by the fourth year that's gonna be $13 million the Braves will wish they could use for something else.

xbhaskarx posted a very interesting hypothetical question on that diary:

"what about jason giambi?"

Today it looks like the A's were super smart to let the Yankees pay Giambi so much over so many years. Let's face it, even the A's offer of $91 million over seven years would have killed us in 2004, 2005, 2006 and beyond.

BUT ... I would argue that Jason Giambi on the 2002 Athletics would be our best shot at winning the World Series.

Sure, it's all hypothetical and nothing is guaranteed, but building a team is ALWAYS hypothetical.

Isn't the goal to win a World Series? Or is it to simply field a pretty good team for as many years as you can?

If we could have won in 2002, would it be worth the pain of the team being pretty bad now?

Now this is different from the dabte over Hudson because I don't believe the A's wcould win the World Series in 2005 even if we kept him -- and, obviously, neither did Billy Beane.

Dan Meyer

Eck — Fri, 17 Dec 2004 21:41:12 -0000

I've been as down on this trade as anyone, and have said it smells like the Mark McGwire for TJ Matthews and Blake Stein deal, but maybe Dan Meyer is the real deal.

John Sickles, the prospect guru on ESPN.com seems to think so:

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?id=1948458

Let's hope he's right.

I know this will be controversial ...

Eck — Mon, 13 Dec 2004 07:55:02 -0000

... so I'll just throw it out there:

Isn't it possible that our beloved Oakland Athletics' recent success is due more to the talent of Hudson, Mulder and Zito than anything Billy Beane has done?

Not to take away from the fact that our GM does the most with the least, but wouldn't the A's be pretty darn ordinary if we didn't have the good fortune to develop three number one starters at the same time?

There was an article a year or so ago -- and forgive me for being so vague because I can't remember where I saw it -- pointing out just how rare it has been for any team to have three home-grown inexpensive and young aces at once. It's like catching lightning in a bottle.

Remember, Hudson was a sixth-round pick. And wasn't Rich Harden taken in the 17th round? Let's face it: having them on the A's is more by luck than design.

Yes, Billy Beane has made some fantastic trades (getting Izzy and Foulke are my favorites) but he's also missed the mark a couple of times too (i.e. Boby Kielty.) We've certainly over-valued a handful of players: Rhodes, Long, Dye and maybe Hatteberg and Durazo.

And isn't it possible that the money spent on Chavez would have been better used on Tejada (Yes, I know we had Crosby coming up, but he's no Miggy) or Hudson?

The Moneyball phenomenon is fascinating, and, no question, Billy Beane has been able to find the undervalued commodities. But without The Big Three (or Four), where would that get us? I would argue that we'd be looking up at .500. Let's face it, Jeremy Brown ain't cracking the bigs any time soon.

To me, this begs the question: shouldn't the most creative GM in the game be doing everything possible to avoid breaking up our starting rotation?

I know ownership has put impossible budget constraints on the payroll. And I don't want to say Billy Beane hasn't done an amazing job. I'm just arguing that genius alone didn't make the A's a perennial contender.