EDIT: so, there was a typo on the original MLB.com lineup, listing Reyes at 3B and Polanco at SS. That was incorrect. I will adjust this post from its original form to show this.

Let me preface this by saying I really, really despise everything about this game. It was fine when it was an exhibition game, but making it count for home field advantage in the World Series, yet keeping all the parameters (letting fans vote) of the exhibition really just makes me sick to my stomach from a logic perspective. MLB is currently the only sport on earth that lets fans physically decide where the championship games are played, UGH. But that's only half of it, its a simple equation here: If its going to count, put the best possible players in. Now, where do you count from? It should be from the day after last seasons ASG, but no, its only based on under half a year....and the teams still aren't correctly represented.

Seeing as I'm bored/hungover and have the day off, here's who got in and who should have, with my own comments on the situations. Répartition après le saut...

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Or so says MLB Trade Rumors:

Despite agreeing to sign Grant Balfour, the Athletics still aren't done trying to upgrade their bullpen. Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports says that Oakland is "pushing" to sign Brian Fuentes, and he reiterates that the Blue Jays are a serious suitor for his services as well.

A multitude of teams have expressed interest in the free agent lefty this offseason, and with Balfour and Rafael Soriano now off the board, Fuentes has emerged as arguably the best free agent reliever available. Oakland already has two effective left-handers in its bullpen (Craig Breslow and Jerry Blevins), but there's no such thing as too many quality relievers.

We've also seen young, cost-controlled relievers traded quite a bit this offseason, including in deals for J.J. Hardy, Mark Reynolds, Jason Bartlett, and Cameron Maybin. Oakland could turn around and deal Blevins, Joey Devine, or Brad Ziegler for help at another position now or before the deadline. The market is certainly there, and adding Fuentes would help maintain the team's relief depth.

 

Hmmm Billy is certainly having some fun this offseason, isn't he? If Fuentes is added, that puts 2 players over the roster limit and its roster crunch/trade time! Where could we even upgrade? 3B? What about David Wright? Do we have enough to get him? Who else could Beane be targeting? Thoughts and suggestions, (you know you have them) post em below!

I've been reading that if Andy Pettitte does not come back, the Yankees will look to Soriano to form a formidible bullpen and thought: "Why dont we do that?". Funnily enough our rotation looks so much better than the Yankees at this point, but why not go the whole hog and make the bullpen an outright force too?

Soriano-Bailey-Wuertz-Breslow-Ziegler-Blevins with the loser of the Harden/McCarthy sweepstakes looks like one of the best in baseball. Thats an unscorable 8th+9th plus a bunch of guys who arent going to implode if the SP doesnt go 7.

A great point made on this site was that we did not need power hitters we just needed "good" ones. The same could be said about relievers. Soriano is the best available, so why not make a run at him?

PROS:

-Having Bailey and Soriano means never having to go a day without a legitimate closer available. Who says a team only needs one closer?

-Bailey's injury history so early in his career means we do not necessarily have to use him as a setup guy. He can do anything. If it means closing the night after a Soriano save, that works. If it means setting Soriano up with a lights out 8th, that works too. We have four years of cost-controlled Bailey, we can do what we want with him and Im sure he'd have no ego issues by being the "secondary" closer, as long as we win.

-I'm not sure if this goes into pro or con, but Soriano became a much different pitcher last year. Is this what people mean when they say "pitching to the defense"? In Atlanta, he was a K-monster (12.13 K/9) with a meh walk rate (3.21 BB/9). But Atlanta had a pretty bad defense in 2009, when he flipped over to the Rays, he went into challenge mode, which saw a substantial drop in both (8.23/2.02), as Tampa Bay has one of the best defensive teams in the game (as do we). Did he know this and did was it the source of his further success? It looks like it, but I'm all ears for other explanations, at least its good to know he knows exactly when he challenge hitters. Before 2010 his InZone percentage since 2002 was 54.2. Hitters struggled to do much with those pitches over the plate, as Soriano had the second-lowest percentage of in-zone contact among relievers. As Bailey took home first place, this could spell disaster for teams looking to score against us in the later innings.

CONS:

-There's only 1, really: $$$. Soriano would be here now if he didn't save 45 games last year. Sadly, that stat means he is going to get paid big money. Now, we do have money to spend and money coming off the books next year, but paying something like $7 or 8 million a year for 3 years isn't Billy's normal M.O. when dealing with relievers. I'm not sure what an adequate comp is either, its not Mariano's 2/30, is it Valverde's 2/14? Lets just say 3/21 gets him for sure.

-There is a chance we would be bidding against the Yankees, making this a non-issue, but if we pressed Soriano now, he may bite. As strange as it sounds, we have a much better chance at making the playoffs than the Yankees do at this point (their pitching staff is the worst its been in many years), so maybe Soriano will ride the Cliff Lee wave and go to a team he knows can succeed over the biggest dollar payout.

-Yeah, Soriano got lucky last year with a .212 BABIP, but with our shiny defense, he could expect a similar result. Even if he doesn't, look back to 2009 with the Braves when he had a .297 BABIP, yup, still had a good year. Plus as mentioned above, he is wily and can challenge hitters or try and paint corners.

-Allotting money to a closer isn't usually smart baseball, but that's for teams who have reached their payroll ceiling. We have not and even with this move, have plenty of cash to make a run at Jose Bautista, JD Drew or re-up Willingham or DeJesus next year, and outside of dramatic, code red falloffs (Kouzmanoff?) I like this idea. Do you?

I found this gem today, its from 1917 and even then, paints the prettiest picture of why you should always take errors with a grain of salt, in baseball and in life. Figured I'd share....

“When the fielder loves his record
      More than victory for his team
  Doubtful chances miss his glances
      For his caution is extreme.
  Going after every grounder
      Means a slip-up here and there,
  And in terror of an error
      He will choose the chances fair.
  Spotless records are enticing
      In a ball game as in life,
  And the cunning pick their running
      To avoid the stony strife.
  Many a mortal swaggers slowly
      Down the years in proud parade,
  Boasting to the meek and lowly
      Of the slips he never made.
  Well it is that wise commanders,
      When they call for sterling men,
  Place the workers o’er the shirkers
      Though they err and err again.
  Men who try and fall when trying
      Try again and win at last,
  Never brooding, never sighing
      O’er the errors of the past.”

- William F. Kirk, 1917.

The next post I'm making here in the name of finding some great off-season targets in addition to adding to my pointless list-making itches that I have to scratch, is the old "who was lucky, who was unlucky?" starting pitcher one.

FIP is a pretty genius metric because it tries to take away defense and leaves you with who was actually good, instead of who was on a good defensive team. When analyzing players, its always more important to look at the individual rather than the individual+his teammates impact on his numbers, yet that rarely happens. Now it does. The lists are after the leap.

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Now I know many of you do not trust fangraphs WAR for pitchers, but you can pretty much generalize that if a pitcher scores 2.0 on their scale, then they are definitely not better than a pitcher who scores 7.0. Argue the close calls, that's pretty fair, but there's been some absolute clunkers over the years and its nice to see them rectified. Some of these are simple fixes: they were based entirely on wins and nothing more (see Welch, Bob 1990).

Who wouldn't get a warm feeling inside knowing Nolan Ryan's 8-16 1987 season really was the best pitching performance that year? Randy Johnson's 16-14 2004? There's something about the real best players being ignored because of the team theyre on, its a huge, lovable flaw: the games voters get swayed by emotion. Sure the sounds of "Sweet music Viola" defined the 1987 playoffs and wafted into his 1988 24 win season, but he simply was not a better pitcher than Roger Clemens in 1988.

Just like the point they tried to make with Felix this year (although that is under fire too, Lee outperformed him by fangraphs WAR), we realized it was not their fault their offenses refused to score runs for him, and that should never be a factor when discussing a singular players true performance? My findings have shown that there have been a lot of obvious, win-related blunders over the years, as well as the obvious gaffe of including relievers, who usually pitch a third or a quarter of most starters, therefore making them by nature, a pitcher of lesser value. If you hate fangraphs, do a baseball-reference one instead, I'm getting tired. List after the jump...

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Day 1 brought us an extremely low result for Dan Uggla, nettng the dumb Marlins only Omar Infante and Mike Dunn. Atlanta performed highway robbery here, selling high on Infante and buying (miraculously) low on Uggla. This is not how you do good business. I know its only for one year of Uggla, but c'mon.

The Marlins did spend money though, signing their biggest free agent since Carlos Delgado, inking catcher John Buck to a 3 year, $18MM deal.

The Rockies released Manny Corpas.

The Diamondbacks shocked everyone by being up front about their wanting to listen to offers for their franchise player, Justin Upton. One exec noted Logan Morrison & Ricky Nolasco would get it done. How about Chris Carter and Trevor Cahill?

Less shocking: Boston announced they were willing to trade Marco Scutaro

Boston's largest offer to Adrian Beltre? 4 years, $52MM. Are you in favor of Beane beating that?

The Tigers showed that teams still massively overvalue relievers, signing Joaquin Benoit to a 3 year $16.5MM deal, ouch. If the Tigers are serious about spending this offseason, this is not the way to start.

Hopefully this thread will contain all the rumors, moves and surprises of today.

(note: will be edited for details as they come to light)

BREAKING 6:55PM PST: Apparently the A's are about to sign the #1 Dominican Republic prospect, potential superstar Vicmal De La Cruz!!!

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2010/11/as-likely-to-sign-vicmal-de-la-cruz.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2010/05/dominican-republic-top-10-july-2-prospects.html

Right off the bat: this solves a HUGE problem with our pathetic OF. Dejesus had the most trade value at last years deadline and then promptly tore his thumb ligament crashing into a wall. He was headed for a 4.5+ WAR year when he went down, and this isnt a long term injury, it was a freak one, so its not a risk. Mazzaro was totally unnecessary and I dont think we could have gotten a better player than DeJesus for him. Looks like Billy woke up this year.

Hello David DeJesus:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/d/dejesda01.shtml

http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=1825&position=OF

Goodbye Vin Mazzaro:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/mazzavi01.shtml

http://www.baseball-reference.com/minors/player.cgi?id=mazzar001vin

http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=5231&position=P

Goodbye Justin Marks:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/minors/player.cgi?id=marks-001jus

http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=sa501220&position=P

DeJesus:

31 in 2011. Makes $6MM. In the final year of his contract. Was having a career year in 2010 until a freak injury

First official post: http://twitter.com/OaklandAs/status/2503506128801792

Up to the second thoughts: hhttp://twitter.com/#search?q=dejesus

Posanski: http://twitter.com/JPosnanski/status/2506054306897921

http://www.rotoworld.com/content/playerpages/player_main.aspx?sport=MLB&hl=308492&id=3771

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2010/11/as-acquire-dejesus-for-mazzaro-marks.html

Slusser: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/athletics/detail?entry_id=76820

There's a good chance he will regain his type A status too, here's an article about it: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/david-dejesus-and-type-a-status/

In 2010 the A's finished 9 games back of the Rangers.

The Rangers pythag was 91-71.

The A's pythag was 85-77.

According to fangraphs, all of the OF the A's used this year combined for a 3.4 WAR.

All of the OF the Rangers used this combined for a 16.4 WAR.

Josh Hamilton had a 8.0 WAR

Carl Crawford had a 6.9 WAR (6.1 more than our incumbent Sweeney)

Adrian Beltre had a 7.1 WAR (4.2 more than our incumbent Kouz)

This shows that getting a high WAR star player should be paramount this offseason. Beltre is certainly an improvement over Kouz, but not as much as Crawford is over Sweeney or Raj. The closer we bridge the gap the better, here's why:

In interleague: the A’s went 4-8 against the Giants, Cardinals and Reds (all very good teams) and went 8-10 overall, while the Rangers went 10-2 against the Astros, Brewers and Marlins and 14-4 in interleague overall. That's 6 of our 9 game difference, folks. So, mathematically if things play out better for us schedule-wise, things will be even closer this year.

What does this mean though? Nothing because we went 81-81, that's in the books. But it does show that this year, we might not have been as bad/average a team as our record showed. I'm sure if we were given 9 games against the Astros, Brewers and Marlins we might have made a better shake of this. Here's a rundown of 2011's "Selig curse" (rant ahead) this worthless unbalanced schedule that's been an outright plague on the game since its inception. It is simply unfair to have one team play a cellar dweller while the other plays that seasons' WS victor. It should be completely done away with, interleague should not exist ever for any reason. (end rant)

OAK: Phillies, Giants, Mets, Marlins, Diamondbacks

LAA: Braves, Dodgers, Mets, Marlins, Nats

SEA: Phillies, Braves, Marlins, Nats, Padres

TEX: Phillies, Braves, Mets, Marlins, Astros

Luckily the Rangers and A's have a pretty equal interleague this year. We play the Giants+Dbax they play the Braves+Astros. We won't see the clear divide that existed this year thanks to Bud screwing everything up that's right and logical about the game, but it still should not even be there in the first place. I think its an interesting point for those who were on the fence about whether this season was a success or not, and shows how important we improve as much as we can in the offseason.

With the re-up of the surprisingly excellent Coco Crisp (who took it back to his awesome Indians days last season) and our corner spots severely lacking good hitting, Rajai and Ryan seem primed to be traded, as there is next to no FA market for CF's this year. Rajai, for all he's gets hated on around here, is really no worse than any number of quick-footed/OK CF defenders, its just a fact: players like him get regular roles on teams. Sweeney is just too weird a player, he clearly is awful at hitting in Oakland, but is great on defense and would probably excel in the NL, so lets replace him too. A quick peek at mlbTR's free agent CFs looks like this:

Rick Ankiel (31) Willie Bloomquist (33) Melky Cabrera (26) Jim Edmonds (41) Jody Gerut (33).

Thats, uhh....it? Um, yeah. Strangely enough both Rajai and Swingles are MUCH better CFers than any of those "options". So, what teams are actually looking to upgrade at CF this year?

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Over the last bunch of weeks and essentially all this season, every poster on here has given their views on who we should target in a trade this offseason. This post will give you our current team's WAR (fangraphs) per position, where that ranks, and who is available via a FA (or trade) that is a significant upgrade over what we have.

*PERSONAL NOTE* I'm really happy with 2010 although it was frustrating watching us trot out replacement level garbage in the corner outfield positions, I feel like a Ryan Ludwick type really could have made things more interesting with Texas, but it appears Billy Beane looks gun-shy after the Matt Holliday fiasco and sat on his hands, combing over the garbage and throwing it at the wall to see if it stuck. Only Chris Carter really got the fans excited in his last 30 PA's, and so ends our night. Nevertheless the team satisfied both sides of their fanbase, securing a protected pick AND finishing at .500 and in 2nd place.

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In this thread we shall talk about what players we would trade to attain this marvelous young superstar in the making.

MLBTR link: http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2010/09/la-russa-confirms-rasmus-trade-request.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

I will be the first to offer my opinion of: literally any single player we have. Or anyone on the farm. Really, who do we have any single player that is of more value than him? Gio? Maybe Barton? I cant think of anyone else. However, we do have plenty of pieces that combined, should be enough to get him. We could throw any 5 players we have at them and that should get it done....

I might update this post at actual seasons end, but seeing as our season pretty much ended and we have infinity kazillion posts about upcoming free agents, it might be wise to look at actual numbers for once (kidding!) and see where we can upgrade by spending uncle Lew's money. There's a few out of position guys I missed, like Huff can play at like 3 or 4 different positions, but feel free to make amendments in the comments section to anything I might have missed.

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Travis Buck is, by all rights and logic, a complete and total waste of a roster spot. Perpetually injured and very bad at hitting, MLB does not need a poor mans' Gabe Gross, which is what he is. A BABIP-fueled (.347) 3 months wayyy back in 2007 is what won peoples hearts...well, that and wild sexy caveman hair and a winning smile too. This is why, AN, you need to let go. He's never going to love you or give you joy, he simply doesnt have the capability to. He's the cornerstone and pillar of this "fail" era we have been locked in since 2007. He represents all that we do no not need. I know its tough AN, but he is not the player we need to keep trying to waste a roster spot on.

Constantly injured? Check.

Not good at hitting? Check.

Great smile? Check.

These are 3 things I do not want in a player, and they exist in Travis Buck. AN, get off this guy, I know its hard and he's got a good vibe about him, but that vibe should not cover up the fact that he is terrible at baseball. Please stop this AN, you are only hurting yourself.

Mark Ellis, he of sparkling defense and a current not-too-shabby .284/.350/.364 slash line, looks to have some trade value right now, and is out of contract at the end of the year. He does, however, have an option for $6.5MM next year that we can pick up and hope he can push himself into type B status for 2012. However, his current contract was signed before the FA market crash and $6.5MM can buy you a better player than Ellis these days. Orlando Hudson, who is excellent and not as injury prone as Ellis, signed a $5MM 1 year deal this year. To put it in perspective, his WAR from 2008-present is 6.3, Ellis's is 4.7. So playing Hudson over Ellis adds 1-2 wins to your team every year, yet Ellis would be in line to make more money than Hudson, but Ellis isnt as valuable as he, so that in mind..

CHOICE A: picking up his option, does not seem like a wise move, as we could in theory get a better player on the FA market next offseason. 32 year old 2Bs dont exactly set the market on fire these days as evidenced above. Options here are to:

1. Trade him. Even though it will be basically a O-Cab-Ladendorf deal, let him go. Next year we can get a better player for him (or might even have one internally) who will give us the same value for less money, bye Mark, its been fun.

2. Trade him, but re-sign him for less money in the offseason. Is there a team who will pay him $7MM next year? No way man, he's pretty much a $3MM player at this point. If you like our chances of us getting him (he doesnt seem like a bitter or spiteful guy, he's a professional and understands how teams try not to overpay for people). This option gets us a player, plus Ellis, plus if Ellis suddenly goes bezerk, 2005 style, and launches himself into Type A/B status, then we get draft picks. Its the most risky move, but has the potential for the highest reward.

CHOICE B: Keep him and pick up the option. He might not be that easy to sign as a FA, plus you might not have confidence with our internal options.

Ah, the All-Star Game, a ridiculously pointless break in the year where players half-ass it to avoid injury, but now the game is now apparently "meaningful" as it decides home field advantage in the World Series. This completely ludicrous "event" however, seems to have completely avoided that new meaning, and still carries on as if the players selected actually deserve it, when we have statistics that clearly show many do not. Before writing this I hadnt even looked over the All-Star selections yet aside from knowing Cahill was our rep and Votto didnt make it...

/CUE SEETHING ANGER

...but we are pretty much at the halfway mark so I thought I'd throw up the top players at each position and the top 10 pitchers and see who is having a nice year. I used WAR because I don't have the time nor brainpower to come up with a better 1-stop-shop stat to value players. At least with hitting its pretty right on, but it wavers too much defensively. Anyway, without further adieu...

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We currently are 6-15 in June. If we win the rest of our games for the month (1 against Cincy, then 5 against freaking Pittsburgh and goddamn Baltimore) then we end up somewhat okay at 12-15 for the month. Because of our 16-12 in May and .500 April, this stands to reason that we arent completely out of it. July indeed becomes our make or break month, where we take on:

Indians

Yankees

Angels

Royals

Red Sox

White Sox

Rangers

We have 6 games against div rivals, 6 games against poor teams, 6 games against great teams and 3 games against the White Sox (no idea what to think about that team at this point). July marks a great opportunity to make up ground and get back into the pennant race. Sadly, that stretch run will be without Devine or Outman, who SuSlu just twittered were shut down in Arizona. No to worry though, Blowers will be replaced soon and hopefully Ross & Blevins can be sent down as well. I hope everyday Wuertz figures it out again, but that's a true bummer about this team: our bullpen isnt as mighty as we thought it would be.

Moreover, the problem that everyone is glossing over here is not our weak offense, its actually our pitching that has failed us this month. In our 15 losses this month, our pitchers have only given up under 4 runs ONCE. Only that one game can you blame the offense for not stepping up, its the other 14 that our pitchers have not kept us in the game.

It seems clear that when we pitch well, we win. This has not happened lately and the way our team is constructed, it cannot afford to happen. Blame Geren all you want, true he has made some blunders, but honestly, its our newly-shoddy bullpen and overall poor pitching that has costed us games, not our weak offense.

Although we posses great depth at 2B in the minors with Cardenas (23 next year), Weeks (24 next year) & Sogard (25 next year), we also have a $6MM option on Ellis, who has been injured but has been hitting better than the last 2 years. $6MM seems a little steep, when we also have Rosales now as well.

Consider this though, Orlando Hudson had to struggle to find a place to play this year, finally landing a 1/$5MM deal with the Twins. He was a 3 WAR player last year, and is again being awesome this year, is up to a 1.9 WAR already (our highest WAR player on offense is Kouz with 1.6). O-dawg is only making $5MM this year. Ellis's option is for $6MM. Now Ellis was a 4 WAR player in 07 and a 3 WAR player in 08, but hasnt been very good lately. I'm saying no way in hell we pick up that option, so what to do? Funnily enough, Hudson is again available as a FA, and we are looking for a stop-gap 2B to handle the position for a year until our prospects finally look ready. But here's another look at the 2B FA list, with some names that may be worth kicking the tires on.

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No care ever if this has been brought up before, and it must be noted the language is NSFW,

it really does need its own link.

I honestly do not know why other sports exist. This is maybe the coolest thing captured on video maybe ever.

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Buster Olney twittered today that the White Sox are officially calling their season and are willing to sell and re-stock the farm. Beane and KW have a GREAT relationship (In that, Beane hosed the living daylights out of him on the Swisher deal), do they have any parts we could use? That being said, perhaps Beane's biggest error all-time was wasting roster spaces on Chavez, Fox & Patterson in a winnable division, however its safe to say those 3 would absolutely not be a part of the team if we go into buy mode.

Another point: if the White Sox, who are 8.5 games out, become sellers, then wouldnt that by proxy make the Royals, Indians, Orioles, Pirates, Brewers, Astros and Diamondbacks sellers as well? Do they have any parts they don't need in the near future that we could use? Lets hear your thoughts AN...

He's mashing for the way out of it Orioles, to the tune of a .391 wOBA and a 912 OPS (better than anyone on our team). He, like Rosales, plays just about every position except C and CF. His current BABIP is actually slightly low at .284, meaning he wont regress much. I think he fit in pretty swell in LF, while also being able to spell at 1B, 2B, 3B and DH and even play SS and RF in a pinch. He's seems like a nice fit here, no?

Hey, we are currently carrying 2 absolute abomination pathetic excuses for MLB players in Patterson and Fox, because they can "play" at "multiple positions". Why not get a guy who perhaps can play even slightly better than them defensively while throwing up a 900+ OPS? I dont think he would cost anything more than a mid-level prospect or two.

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Many have suggested those players as being a "fit" for Oakland, given our struggling offense. Why on earth do people think that trading defense for offense is a good idea, given our entire gameplan this year was to go pitching and defense-heavy, is beyond me. But hopefully I can shed enough light here as to what is a good thing for this team to win games with and what is not.

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Well, Billy went a little cray this offseason, flipping and dealing and signing in a rather haphazard fashion. He did this thinking that he couldnt get a good 3B and that Chavez would be a nonfactor. Well, that was wrong. Its safe to say our lineup on opening day will feature Barton, Ellis, Pennington, Kouzmanoff, Suzuki, Davis, Crisp, Sweeney and Cust. Our pitching will have Sheets, Duke, Anderson, Braden, Gio, Devine, Bailey, Ziegler, Wuertz, Blevins, Breslow & Ramirez. That leaves 4 spots. We have about 6 or 7 guys who could take those spots. Uh oh....

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The general consensus is that Pennington is one of our biggest question marks in 2010: we know he's capable of at least league average defense, but will that 760 OPS remain steady or fall off so bad he will hinder the team?

Cameron thinks we need to chill:

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Now I know what you're thinking: "hurry up and do another Dugout ripoff already!" but screw that, I have needs too: the need to talk about incredibly far reaching conspiracies that are directly connected to my own paranoias! Or maybe its just some relatively hack-y investigative journalism, I dunno, I don't have much of an ego so I'll let you draw your own conclusion there.

Look, Jose was is and will always be RIGHT about everything he wrote in Juiced. He has been 100% so far on everyone he called out for roids, and silenced many critics (who still called him a douchebag regardless, because, well, he is.). One thing that always got me was when he said he was "blacklisted by MLB because he knew the TRUTH and was about to blow it up" many thought: "Oh get out of town Jose, MLB doesnt secretly blacklist anyone, its baseball not the Illuminati!" guess what: it looks like he was RIGHT. He OPS'd 850 in his final year and wasnt looking for an outlandish contract, he was still a useful DH yet no one offered him any kind of contract for the 2002 season. I used to laugh at the WWE because of how insanely irrational and illogical and corny the storylines were, and that baseball was better to waste my time thinking about because it was real. Now after seeing the crazyness thats gone on in Jose's life, Im starting to think MLB might be just as absurd, only (sadly) this is real life. 

How does this all pertain to the A's getting Adrian Gonzalez? Read on...

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As it stands right now we are giving a roster space to Aaron Miles as our MI bench player. CHONE has him at -0.3 WAR in 2010. He is an utterly miserable, useless player who has no chance of succeeding in the AL. We got him because we wanted Jake Fox because fangraphs loves Fox. Fox however, doesnt even really have a spot here, we arent the best team for him, so now we are stuck with Miles, who we had to take on to get Fox. Im not sure Miles is better Patterson, the incumbent.

Felipe Lopez is a FA, and CHONE has him at 2.2 WAR, which, curiously, is more than the 1.1 CHONE has Pennington at. Lopez can play a decent 2B, a bad SS and can hold down 3B or a corner OF spot as well. He also had a 4.6 WAR in 2009, which is really really good. Miles is bad at fielding, completely useless at the plate and might be what costs us in the long run in 2010. I think we should throw $3MM at Lopez as Pennington insurance/our MI bench guy. If Pennington plays well and Lopez hits, we could also trade Ellis and let Lopez play at 2B, where he works best at.

But even in a sparsely-used role, we should be looking to improve. Even in a sporadic role, playing Lopez over Miles DOES make a difference over 162 games in my opinion. Do you agree?

According to Buster Olney, only the A's and Mets are the teams left who can actually afford Ben Sheets's demands. I ask you, fellow AN reader, would you pull the trigger on this signing? Lets say 1/$9MM gets him.

Obviously I would do everything to get Sheets in the green&gold, throwing a rotation out there of Duke-Anderson-Sheets-Braden-Gio, in addition to our arguably best-in-mlb bullpen as well as plus defenders at every spot, we would pretty filthy and would *gasp* perhaps finally silence those who can't fathom us being in a pennant race in 2010.

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***EDIT***

Screw this original post, can anyone do the math of seeing what current FA's there are out there (listed below) that have better CHONE predictions than the player listed on this roster? Apparently all of our team's projected WARs puts us 2nd place! Can we make up 3 wins easily?

Chone projections
(using lineup, 1 Backup C, 2 extra IF, 2 extra OF, Starter Pitchers totaling between 875-900 Inn and 6 main relievers)

Angels

Hitting Roster – Napoli, Mathis, Morales, Kendrick, Aybar, Wood, Izturis, Sandoval, Rivera, Hunter, Abreu, Matthews, Willits, Matsui
Pitching Roster – Weaver, Kazmir, Santana, Saunders, Bell, Fuentes, Shields, Rodney, Bulger, Jespen, R Rodriguez
(I used Bell instead of Plamer or O’Sullivan because he is projected to be the best. The Angels still fall short on innings, so I gave O’Sullivan 50 innings at his projected FIP)

Hitting WAR = 21
Pitching WAR = 15.3
Total WAR = 36.3

Mariners

Hitting Roster – Johnson, Moore, Kotchman, Lopez, Wilson, Figgins, Woodward, Hannahan, Bradley, Guiterrez, Suzuki, Saunders, Langerhan, Griffey
Pitching Roster – Felix, Lee, Rowand-Smith, Snell, Fister, Aardsma, Lowe, League, Petit, White, Kelley

Hitting WAR = 17.7
Pitching WAR = 19.5
Total WAR = 37.2

Rangers

Hitting Roster – Teagarden, Salty, Davis, Kinsler, Andrus, Young, Greene, German, Cruz, Borbon, Hamilton, Murphy, Boggs, Guerrero,
Pitching Roster – Harden, Feldman, Hunter, McCarthy, Holland, Feliz, Harrison, Francisco, Wilson, O’Day, Ray, Oliver, Mathis
(Harrison and Feliz used to give enough starting innings. CHONE thinks this rotation will see turnover, unlike the other two. Looking at the pitchers, it makes sense and I agree. Overall innings still less then other three teams, but really close)

Hitting WAR = 26
Pitching WAR = 15.9
Total WAR = 41.9

Athletics

Hitting Roster – Suzuki, Powell, Barton, Ellis, Pennington, Chavez, Miles, Patterson, Davis, Crisp, Sweeney, Hairston, Fox, Cust
Pitching Roster – B. Anderson, Cahil, Bradon, Mazzaro, Duchscherer, Gonzalez, Bailey, Wuertz, Ziegler, Devine, Breslow, Blevins
(again, Geo Gonzalez used to meet inning needs)

Hitting WAR = 20.8
Pitching WAR = 18.2
Total WAR = 39.0

Overall standings based off CHONE WAR scores (with 48W representing replacement level team)
Rangers rough record of 90-72
Athletics rough record of 87-75
Mariners rough record of 85-77
Angels rough record of 84-78

***END EDIT***

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To me, Beltre looks like the best FA option we have seen for us in years (knock on wood!). In this post I am going to try and exhaust as many positives I can out of it while addressing some of the negatives.

Firstly, can we compare what Beltre did in Seattle with what we had? Im just going to use WAR because its quick and easy. Here's the year, Beltre's WAR, our 3B WAR:

2005  2.5  4.3
2006  4.6  3.6
2007  3.0  2.4
2008  4.1  1.4
2009  2.4  2.2

That's 16.6 from Beltre vs 13.9 made up of (a declining) Chavez, Hannahan and Kennedy. So if we had Beltre all along, we would have had better production than we did. He's available now, so lets go get him...

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"The internet has given everyone a voice, yet not everyone deserves a microphone."

A friend of mine said this to me the other day, and I couldn't agree more. Here at AN, anyone who wants to can say just about anything as long as it follows the guidelines of the site. Do we all agree universally on anything? No. But it is fascinating to hear what other people think and you can even learn a thing or two and perhaps even change your mind on a certain topic based off another person's argument. Ultimately, every single post here is the viewpoint of the person writing it, however, its not paid journalism or anything. No one's "job" is on the line (unless you are spending your regular job day making posts, like I'm doing right now----OOPS!), and most of all, we aren't getting paid to do the analysis, humor, interviews etc. Its all just because we love the game. Its this reason alone that I'm not a huge fan of people nitpicking other people's posts or calling them out for hypocrisy or inconsistencies: no one writing posts is making any money out of it here, and no one is forcing you to read the posts and respond, and if you write stuff here thinking you are journalist of some kind, then you are only deluding yourself.

Actual paid journalism however, is a whole different thing.

The internet "digital media" era has indeed opened the doors to the joe average fan who might actually have some writing skills, and the old hard-copy media, the old fashioned "journalists" are getting called out for making money and taking jobs away from people who are better than they are at their jobs. The old, greying, "writers"  are fighting back from this not by assessing the changing ways of the world and improving their game, but by staying rigid and even getting more arrogant about their position as a paid writer by writing and saying (and in Joe Morgans' case: winning Emmys)  pieces that have no logic or real thought behind them, they have turned almost into radio shock jock DJ's. They do what they do to make that word count, to make copy, and to sensationalize non-sensational things. They know they are a dying breed, and there's literally millions of young, hungry writers out there who can out-write, out-analyze and basically out-do them at their job. And they aren't getting paid a dime to do so. The old school guys are perpetually on their high horses, scoffing at those who do research, form valid logic streams that perhaps don't follow "traditional baseball" ones, and basically do the job they should be doing, whilst they blabber on about completely irrelevant and insult us by passing their ignorant, poorly (if at all) researched and uneducated views as something I should pay money to read.

In this case, its perfectly fine to tear these guy's pieces to shreds.

For the uninitiated, that's what they did over at www.firejoemorgan.com, a no longer active blog (its writers got a little tied up with their new day jobs: writing for the hilarious TV show Parks & Recreation), that was an utterly spectacular takedown of America's "finest" baseball "journalists", both ruthless and beautiful in practice. On the site they would systematically take apart (often line-by-line)  poorly written and/or thought out pieces of paid journalism citing lacks of logic, ridiculous olde tymey baseball paradigms, making fun of old-school trains of thought and generally pushing forward how outdated and ridiculous many of those trains of thought are (and how irrelevant they are to the game today) and how it can even hurt players careers by having a writer critique a player based off absolute nonsense logic that doesn't break the players performance into the simple (and what truly matters) "how does having this guy on your team help win you games?". Nope, instead we get fluf pieces about small white guys who cant play very well but "have tons of heart" and "was a punter in college therefore he's the toughest guy in the game!" (nevermind the 620 OPS from an OF position). I find it perfectly fine to tear down these last bastions of lunacy because lets face it: baseball for years, made little sense. We are slowly but surely (Thanks Zack Greinke) going about changing the broken logic and irrelevant stats championed by these old, outdated writers, who have refused to do the right thing and change with the times and instead become even more hard-headed in their anti-change rhetoric. That's why they need to be made fun of with extreme prejudice.   

CLIFF NOTES Simply put: FJM was based off the theory that there's many sportswriters out there who get paid simply to exist as a person. Sometimes words will fall out of that persons mouth or appear via pen to paper. Those people get paid a lot of money to do this (and win Emmys). Sometimes those words are about baseball. Most of the time, they have no fucking idea what they're talking about. This is one of these times...

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