A tall, Athletic man gazes out of his outdated "luxury box" down onto the field.

The Overstock is decidedly understocked with fans tonight, as it has been for the last 40 years, and once again the home team is stinking up the joint. Three measly singles in seven innings is the extent of the damage against the 22 year old Seattle rookie, who comes in with a record of 1-6 and an ERA of 7.39.

Fuentes is already warming again in the 'pen, preparing for another meltdown. The ringtone of the man's cell phone momentarily dispels the crushing boredom that is 2011 Oakland A's baseball, and he quickly flips it open.

"Hey, Lew, what's going on?"

The man's voice feigns preoccupation with the riveting action down on the diamond. "Billy, we need to talk about where this team is going. I have reputable and objective sources advising me to make a managerial change. They say the players have tuned Bob out, and that his strategic mishaps have cost the team several games this year. Where do you stand on all this?"

"Gosh, Lew, I don't know...Bob is a great baseball guy. Most of his decisions can be justified from a baseball standpoint."

"Billy, do you really get the feeling everyone is on the same page down there on the field? Is the coaching staff a functional unit? How well are they communicating with the players? If everyone is doing their jobs, why is the product on the field so piss-poor?"

"Lew, Bob has assured me that there is light at the end of the tunnel. The bats will warm up with the weather, all the injured players will miraculously heal, Grant Desme will give up the priesthood to come rescue us, and Brian Fuentes will win the Cy Young. I've known Bob a long time, Lew, and I've learned to give him the benefit of the doubt."

"What if there were no doubt, Billy? Do you have it in you fire Bob if it were in the best interests of the team?"

"I'm not sure the team's interests would be served by making a move right now, Lew. Can't we just let his contract expire at the end of the year and chalk it up to experience? We're basically doing the same thing with Ellis and Kouzmanoff."

"The difference being that Ellis doesn't stand up in front of a mic every night and babble about how our guys are trying their best, but that Phil Coke was really "dealing" tonight...blah blah blah. He's lost credibility with the players, the media, and the 934 fans that still bother to come out to this infernal albatross of a ballpark."

"Gosh, Lew, I dunno." There followed an extended and tangible silence, punctuated only by the A's 8th backwards K of the evening, this time Dale Barton getting rung up looking at an 86 mph meatball right down Peachtree.

"Well, Billy, I had hoped it would never come to this, because our working relationship has been so solid, but the same trusted sources that are advising an on-the-field shake-up seem to feel that an organizational change is due as well. It seems that your personal loyalties are interfering with your ability to run the team. Regretfully, I'm gonna have to let you go."

Billy Beane couldn't mouth a reply. He slumped back in his chair, stunned. No one is above the law, and no one is untouchable. This always comes as a surprise to those who make the laws and do all the touching.

...Perhaps such a 5th starter is out there, and he would love to come pitch for us. He needs a change of scenery, and would probably cost us no more than $6-7 mil per year. He has successfully mentored young pitchers before, and he is the very definition of "innings eater". His career numbers at the Coli are excellent, and he has a WS ring...any guesses who I'm thnking of?

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We have such a long way to go...

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Rudy Jaramillo is unemployed! Bring him to Oakland, Billy!

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    While it has been fun for the fans and good for the youngsters' confidence to win 2 series on the road against good teams, everyone from the front office on down to the 7-year old kid in the stands (who, in 1973, was me, watching Catfish win the Cy Young) needs to step back and be realistic. This team IS NOT a contending team, it WAS NOT put together to be a contending team, and even in what could play out to be one of the weakest divisions in the history of MLB, the likelihood of our team contending is very slim. There are MANY VERY OBVIOUS REASONS why this is hard to ignore, and they are based around the three basic skills which in large part determine the outcome of individual games and thus entire seasons: pitching, hitting, and defense.

     Our rotation has precisely one proven commodity--Joe Blanton. He is our ace, and he would be #3 in any TRUE contender's rotation. Behind him we have, well....the AAA callup of the week? Come on--we were all excited when Harden and Duke started off strong, because even a team that averages 2 runs a game can be dragged aloong by a stacked rotation. However, when they both went down (and honestly, was anyone surprised when they did?), that left the #2 spot to Gaudin. Gulp. Has he fully recovered yet? it sure doesn't look like it. Any production we get from Eveland and Smith is FANTASTIC and bodes well for the future, but their contributions are very unlikely to make us contenders now. Considering that Blanton will probably not be with us very much longer, the rotation, which has historically been an Oakland strong suit, looks shaky...and the bullpen, which has looked fairly OK so far, can only provide so many save opps to Street, thanks to our dismal offense, but of those provided, he will blow 25-30% (until Billy can find some sucker who believes he's better than that).

      Our offense is absolutely horrendous. We have exactly one player (Ellis) who is above average offensively at his position, and he's just barely so. He's also a prime candidate to be playing somewhere else soon. When the sticks come up with one run on 5 hits for an evening's work, why are we all surprised and indignant? When you send up 9 guys who have practically no power and limited ability to even put wood on the ball, we are just really hoping the opposing pitcher is wild/ineffective that particular game. When you've got two guys in your lineup that couldn't even hang on with the KC Royals, that's not a good sign. Cust is showing why he is a career minor leaguer (ditto Hannahan/Murphy), and even promising players such as Buck and Barton have taken a step back. Suzuki and R. Sweeney have been bright spots, but we need a bigger "sample size" before we know whether they'll eventually be league-average (or, God forbid, above average) offensively. Only the Giants have a weaker offense than we do.

      When the pitching is barely average and the offense is nonexistent, a team really needs great defense to stay in games and close out games it has a chance to win. The A's defense has been atrocious, and looking at the players involved, again only (possibly soon to be shipped) Ellis stands out as being really strong defensively. We are mediocre at best at all other positions, and downright weak at several. Barton and Crosby come immediately to mind as having struggled defensively so far.

      Again, this early in the season, the sample sizes are too small to come to any definitive conclusion about where things are headed. However, those who are projecting us to be contenders based on 2 series may want to step back and have a look at the capabilities of the (non-perpetually injured) players on the roster before they reserve playoff tickets. BB has designed this as a rebuilding phase, and although early returns on the offseason trades are excellent and set us up for a bright future, the current edition of our Oakland A's falls way short of having enough ammo to contend in the stacked AL. To contend, players wearing the Green and Gold need to dramatically improve in 3 areas crucial for success in baseball--pitching, hitting, and fielding. This team could be fun to watch, but like all previous rebuilding phases (I've seen several since '73), there will be stretches of ugly play and bad results. We all just need to be patient and keep the faith....

   Again the NY Mets have reared their unsightly head in pursuit of Widebody #55. For one, I hope we do deal Blanton, although not necessarily to the Mets. All the names that have been thrown around in the rumor threads (Humber, Pelfrey, Heilman, Gomez, etc.) seem like AAAA players--marginal roster filler without the kind of upside that BB has targeted in the Haren and Swisher trades. Perhaps Gomez or their other OF prospect (Martinez?) have decent ML careers ahead of them, but aren't we pretty solid in the OF at this point? I don't know, I'm just not really sold on these names. I would much prefer if Beane raided the NYM system of players that are a little further out time-wise (B+ prospects who played A or AA ball last year) with big potential (a la Anderson or De Los Santos) than low-ceiling guys that might wear Green and Gold in '08 or '09. Perhaps Minaya would bite at a trade including the kind of package we got for Swish, because in the NY market he is under pressure to WIN--AND WIN NOW. He is apt to be less concerned about 19-year-old kids in A ball and more perhaps more likely to give them up...
 

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  Whether you wanted it or not, the rebuild and accompanying fire sale are upon us. Personally, I have been looking forward to this, as rooting for a team that is "Stuck in the middle" is boring. I think it's better to be lousy for a couple of years while developing organizational depth than it is to hope that the mediocre status quo will pleasantly surprise. The "Swingin' A's" of my youth were sold off and pieced out too, but that was a different scenario entirely. This rebuild will hopefully set the entire organization up for a long run of success coinciding with the opening of the new park. The Finley A's were just dismantled, with no plan for the future.
  It's fun in times like these to speculate who will be the next Athletic(s) "voted off the island". In a way, it's a compliment for them, because it means that the league values them. Another positive for them is that their new teams will almost certainly be closer to contention in the short run than the A's will be. I have broken the team down into the following "groups" based on what I think will/should happen to them this season:

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  Yesterday I made a "trade proposal"-type post in another member's diary that I at first intended to be sarcastic, but the more I think about it, the more it could make sense for both teams. The proposed trade would have the following players going from OAK to NYY:
  SP Dan Haren, SP Joe Blanton, CF Mark Kotsay, SS Bobby Crosby
The following players would be acquired by our beloved Oakland A's:
  SP Phil Hughes, SP Ian Kennedy, CF Melky Cabrera, 2B Robinson Cano
  Add-ons to this deal could include Mark Ellis to NYY to fill the void created by Cano's departure, Street to NYY, Chamberlain to OAK, NYY AAA ss prospect to OAK, etc.etc.
  This deal would make sense for NYY because instead of three rookie "maybes" competing for spots in the rotation, they would acquire two proven, durable, quality "yes's". A team with a $200m payroll cannot possibly feel good about maybes, and in NY thre's no margin for error, no "we'll shoot for next year"...
  This deal would make sense for OAK because BB would be exchanging two todays for three tomorrows. If you think we can compete "AS IS" with DET, BOS, LAA, etc., you should probably stop reading now. This deal only makes sense as the cornerstone piece in a rebuilding phase.

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   If we look at the A's current roster, we find maybe 4 or 5 players that have not been on the DL for extended periods over the last few years. Among the pitchers, only Haren and Blanton have held up, and among position players, only Swisher and Ellis can honestly say they show up for work nearly every day ready to go. The success of the RiverCats last year is truly amazing, because most of the players that should have been in AAA spent huge chunks of the year in Oakland filling in for our no-shows.  
    Few would argue that the team needs to get substantially better to become a factor again. Teams can get better several different ways: they can go out any buy top-tier talent from the FA pool, they can use their tradeable assets to fill in major weaknesses, they can develop quality players in their farm systems, or the players already on the ML roster can progress and improve. Although I am a die-hard A's fan, looking at our current roster options, it's hard for me to see this team playing in October anytime soon.

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   Billy Beane has done a tremendous job and he seems to enjoy trying to beat the big-budget teams at their own game. However, this is becoming more difficult every year because a fundamental quirk in the financial reality of baseball has been discovered by GM's around the league. I refer to the relative costs of hitting and pitching to a team's payroll.
   In past years, the truly huge contracts always went to hitters, so Oakland was always on the outside looking in when it came to acquiring proven power bats. We had home-grown power like Giambi and Tejada, who bolted for the big money as soon as they could. However, even though everyone knows that pitching IS baseball, the cost of a true impact pitcher was much less in recent years than the cost of a position player of equal impact. Thus, Billy was able to assemble a roster consisting of five solid starters (who gave us a chance to win every day), a ragtag bunch in the pen (hey, ya gotta scrimp somewhere), and a lineup full of guys hoping to see ball four before strike three. That mix was potent enough to keep our beloved A's in the playoffs several years running.
   

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