In the wake of the recent Trevor Cahill trade, fans are often left scratching their heads. They're confused as to why the A's are trading away their studs for unproven minor leaguers, and why the A's seem to do it so often. In this post, I'm going to attempt to clarify just why a rebuild is necessary, and hope to put things in context for this particular rebuild.

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I woke up this morning, and much to my surprise, the Wells trade was still a thing.  This made me very happy.  Here are some links for you.

Sam Miller made some amazing word clouds taking data from Halos Heaven and Blue Bird Banter.  He admits that if F**K were put in, it would be massive on the Angels list.

Dave Cameron of Fangraphs concludes that the trade is worse than Victor Zambrano for Scott Kazmir.

Christina Kahrl also agrees that the deal is silly.

Mass Effect 2: Game of the Year?  The Kotaku Editors went with Red Dead Redemption.  Lately I've just been tearing through the Borderlands GOTY edition with friends.

California's AB-962 was ruled unconstitutional, so you can still buy ammo over the internet.

Dump away!

Jack Cust has been nontendered.  Edwin Encarnacion has been as well,  as has Travis Buck.

Slusser: Ryan Sweeney has avoided arbitration with a one year contract.

This is not a DLD for baseball related discussions, though.  This is a DLD for sad, pouty music that I can get sad to.  Here's a few I've been bumping:  

Hall and Oates -- She's Gone.

Sarah McLachlan -- Angel

Eric Clapton -- Tears in Heaven

Bill Withers -- Aint No Sunshine

Here's some songs that should get me going in the other direction, though, in the wake of the announcements.

Bright side of the Road -- Van Morrison 

Wish you Well -- Bill Withers

Walk of Life -- Dire Straits

Do you have songs that you get sad to?  Post em!  Do you have songs that get you happy when you tell yourself to stop listening to sad songs?  Post em!

In other news:

NASA announced that they have discovered a unique (some say new) life form that survives on arsenic instead of phosphorus.

Reports of adding more jobs in the holidays may have been exaggerated.

And finally my Pasta Salad went over very well at the potluck.  Thanks OakA'sHoney, Athletica, and Lone Stranger!

Dump away!

Nico suggested someone should make one of these a while back, and when I threw out the idea in a DLD, it was generally well received (though some warned of impending badness.)  Regardless, I felt like it was a worthy endeavor.  If you feel I've missed the mark somewhere or want to add something, please do so in the comments.  The point of this post is simply to summarize what I feel are the most common issues new users run in to when they begin posting on this site, and for this link to be a helpful go-to when you don't quite have the time to explain in detail a certain subject.

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http://twitter.com/susanslusser/statuses/14981244198

#Athletics announced Duchscherer will have hip surgery and miss the rest of the season

Apparently the hip injury really is the same as before.  Props to Duke for pitching as well as he did, and trying to avoid the surgery.  So is this bad luck, Billy Beane should've known better, or FIRE ALL MEDICAL STAFF NOW?

Personally, while I am bummed by this move, by no means do I think we're doomed.  The rotation of Sheets/Braden/Cahill/Anderson (coming off the DL today, no?)/Gonzalez is performing admirably.  Topic #2 for discussion:  Should Duke have been in the pen all year, or was this injury unavoidable?

Discuss!

Today while my Office reruns were at commercial, I watched two outs of the As game (I'm a diehard fan that reads every post exactly like this but never comments on them, really) and I watched Jason Giambi not hit 10 home runs during those two outs.  I think its time to admit that Moneyball doesn't work and that we should trade Bobby Crosby for Hanley Ramirez.  Also, we need to tell Chavez, Nomar, Stomper, Banjo Dude, and Giambi to give us back the money (that's how contracts work guys, we can just stop paying them when we want to.)  Furthermore, I understand that the young guys are young, but I think they need to be older so that they can start producing.  As far as the old guys, they're too old and need to be younger like the young guys.  I think we need to be like the Giants--Brian Sabean knows what he's doing.  If only we had a total dice roll of an ace that happened to pan out instead of being injured every year and a little panda that is the only reason we score runs, we also would be a contending team.

In summation, STRICKOUTS!!!!11

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/recap;_ylt=AmM._6dzGaI3bbt8DN_pA8KFCLcF?gid=290330119&prov=ap

He says he's ready, which makes him our Opening Day 3B, which leaves somebody off.  Is it Pennington? Crosby? Nomah?!

My guess is that they send Crosby down to AAA by waiving him (let's see if anybody bites this time) to maybe work on a little 2B and 3B, because in all likelihood Chavez will get hurt again and Crosby may come back and platoon with Nomah at third.  What do you all think?

I've never done this before, so I apologize if I'm stepping on anyone's toes, but we haven't had a good DLD in a while, and Urban's recent release that the A's are close to signing Giambi to a one year (possibly two) deal with Giambi felt like a good enough impetus:

Everyone's favorite Jay Mariotti is now writing for AOL Sports:

Baby Mangino looks to pull over Buzz Bissinger for Deadspin's "Sports Human of the Year Award."

Joe Sheehan of BaseballProspectus still hates the Marlins:

And finally, ESPN is reporting that Milton Bradley has agreed to a 3 year deal with the Cubs.  I still wish we had Ethier.

Dump, Discuss, Do it!

Around this time last year I realized that the Bobby Crosby shirt I bought at Fanfest 2004 was near the end of its life, and I wanted to buy a new jersey or shirt.  When I perused the roster and trades we had made, I was the most excited about Daric Barton and Carlos Gonzalez.  I thought I would buy a shirt of one of them, but just never got around to it since they both underwhelmed, as well as my wallet.  Once again I am faced with the dilemma, but now it's even more nebulous.  Here are a few things I want in my jersey player:

1) The player will at least put up solid numbers on average, or be known to come through when it counts (Marco Scutaro) even if that stat can't be verified.

2) The player has a reasonable chance to be with the A's for at least the whole year, and preferably two or more.

3) The player can be expected to play most of their days in an ideal lineup, or pitch when their spot in the rotation came up (I'm reluctant to buy off injured players.)

Where does that leave me?  Daric Barton may not even start at 1st if we pick up a slugger, I don't know who's playing SS, Eric Chavez probably will get injured again, Travis Buck and Aaron Cunningham are battling for right, Holliday may very well be gone after this year.  As far as pitching, Duchscherer is oft injured and may very well not be an A after this year, Gio/Gallagher may bust like Barton, and any of the younger players I can't buy jerseys of because they haven't been in the majors not long enough or at all.

That leaves Jack Cust (2008 VORP 31.1) Kurt Suzuki (16.2) Ryan Sweeney (10.9) Mark Ellis (5.9) Brad Ziegler (30.0) Dana Eveland (24.6) Joey Devine (22.1).  I'm most inclined to go with Zook or Ziegler at this point, but I'm curious as to what other fans think.  Do you buy jerseys?  If so, do you put much thought into it, or do you just buy the one with the guy who had the clutch home run the one time you got to go with that one hot guy/gal from work?

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20081120&content_id=3687188&vkey=hotstove2008&fext=.jsp

mlb.com is reporting that the White Sox have reached a reported 4 year, $11 million deal with Dayan Viciedo, the cuban defect super-prospect that many ANers had their eye on.  The White Sox have always been the front runners in that race, but that didn't stop a lot of us from wishing in light of the deal the A's gave Michel Inoa.

In light of this, what's the A's best plan for 3rd base?  Should they go with the Chavez/Hannahan plan like last year considering that Chavez seems so optimistic about his rehab?  Perhaps make a play for Joe Crede, or more attractively, Josh Fields?  Should the A's begin grooming Adrian Cardenas to play 3rd base?  Discuss!

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080810&content_id=3286166&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb

The Astros have ruled out signing Bonds, but...."A lack of interest in Bonds doesn't mean the Astros aren't looking for outside help. They can still make a waiver wire deal between now and Aug. 31, and in the next few days, Wade and manager Cecil Cooper will discuss their options."

Emil Brown seems like he could very well make it through waivers to be traded, and perhaps we could get a few prospects out of him.  I doubt the Astros would deal JR Towles or anything, but a couple two star prospects like Mitch Einertson and Eli Iorg doesn't sound unreasonable.  Thoughts?