I love the facial hair, and man those were some good times.  But, uh, Giambi can't really hit any more.  i know with Crosby and Hannahan and Davis and so forth in the lineup, Giambi doesn't really stand out.  But it's kind of interesting that G seems to get a free pass.  Yeah, he walks and he'll hit a home run now and then.  But he plays a pretty lousy first base and he's about to be hitting .199.  Would it make sense for the A's to simply cut him and put Barton there every day?  You know the defense would improve tremendously, and it's hard to believe Barton wouldn't hit, I don't know, .220 but without the walks.

Be realistic for a moment:  what should the Giants do with Zito?  He got killed again today:  lots of walks, lots of hits, 5 runs in 2 innings.  He isn't just bad any more.  He isn't just really bad.  He's the worst pitcher in all of baseball.  What should the Giants do?

I tend to think they should send him down to AAA, but what do I know?

Here's what I do know:  the Giants are actually a reasonably interesting, reasonably likable, reasonably competititve team.  Without Zito, they might actually have a decent shot at getting to .500.

I like Sabean, too.  Whenever you hear the guy on KNBR he always seems like a kind and decent human being.  But on the same day I sent Zito down, I'd fire Sabean.  You just can't sign a contract like that to Barry Zito and keep your job.  No way.

Hard to argue with that game Lidle pitched, game 4 of the ALCS against the Yankees.  Hard to argue with the A's going 0 for 13 (was it?) with RISP in game 1 of the ALCS against the Tigers.

But then there was tonight.  I made the first 7 innings and just couldn't take it any more and had to come home.  Now they're going to the 10th and I can't bring myself to watch.  20 walks, horrible situational hitting (hey, Bobby, runners on first and third, the pitcher has walked everybody in sight ... no check swings into DPs, OK?) and, above all, a personal commitment never to pay money to watch another game started by Eveland.  That guy just hates throwing strikes.  Chad Gaudin, please!

I've never seen a guy look at horrible at Willis looked tonight give up no runs.  The A's couldn't catch up with his 84 mph fastball.  Ug.  

With Chavvy set to come back soon, and apparently fully healthy, I'd be curious to know what ANers think he will do this year.  Yeah, it will probably take him some time to adjust to big league pitching again, etc., but what you do you think Chavvy will do over the course of the rest of the season?

Here's my prediction:  Chavvy will play a fabulous, glorious third base and you'll again shake your head in wonder that 'he got that ball'.  You'll be reminded what a joy it is just to watch Chavvy play third.  (And with Barton at first, Ellis at second, BoCro at short, Suzuzi behind the plate and sometimes Rajai Davis in center, you'll see a lot of clubs get discouraged when the A's defense wins a good number of games ...)

Offense from Chavvy will be more of a challenge.  Chavvy will hit about .265, with so-so power and so-so run production (equivalent to 20 HRs and 85 RBIs over a full season.)  He'll be a complete disaster with runners in scoring position in close games, especially in later innings when he'll see lots of left-handed relief pitchers.  Left handers that throw him curve balls will eat him up, and he'll swing at a lot of pitches 8 inches outside, and take a lot of pitches right down the middle.  Looking back, you'll note that most of his home runs will come in games and ABs in which the A's are either well ahead or well behind, and his HR did nothing to change the outcome of the game.

In summary, and in short, I predict that the injury-free Chavvy of 2008 will play a lot like the injury-plagued Chavvy of 2006 and 2007:  great glove, frustrating offense. 

Although I go to about 20 A's games a year I never actually buy tickets at the box office.  I always buy them from the scalpers on the bridge from BART.  So what's this about $1 off Sunday tickets for every A's hit tonight?  Do I buy these tickets on line somewhere by entering some special code?  Pick them up at willcall?  Help, please.  Daddy's little girl wants a chocolate malt.  (Good advice:  If your kids are learning to sit through a whole ball game, tell them they can have the ice cream or the cotton candy in the 5th inning.  My daughter has learn the 3 outs per inning, 2 halves to an inning think very, very quickly ...) 

Nice to see our small market club in first place, and I was just going to enjoy it for a while.  Then I saw this on the internet today: 

A friend called last week to tell me he'd been offered 4 season tickets at the new Yankee stadium. 4th row behind home plate. Wider seats with covers. Food is free.

Cost -$850. per seat, per game.
81 game season.
$68,850. for one seat.
$275,400. for 4.

Can you imagine what the Yankees payroll can be if they can get $275,000 for 4 season tickets?  Ug ...

Like most on AN, I know I spend too much time following the A's.

But did you read what Crosby said to the Chron this morning?:

Crosby got the MLB TV package so he could follow the A's while away from the team, but he wasn't entirely up to date.

"I was kind of embarrassed today," Crosby said. "I came in and I didn't know Adam Melhuse was with us again. I was like, 'OK, the Rangers were just here... did Adam stay back after they were here?' For 15 seconds, I was totally flustered."

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ANers know I have a long-time and exaggerated sense of the worth and contribution of Mark Ellis.  I'm 43 years old and actually have the Ellis name on an A's jersey - how pathetic is that?  

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I lucked into amazing tickets at the last minute for last night's All Star Game.  I've been to 4 All Star Games now (the last 3 Bay Area games plus 1979's in Seattle) and this was the most interesting game of the four.  I particularly like the sensation of hesitating, for one night, to consider what it would be like to have Vladdy on my team (the A's) in right field and Jeter at short and so forth.  Probably about as useful as scanning Sports Illustrated and wondering it would be like to be dating Petra Nemcova.  It was still nice to boo Lackey - lustily.

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For my money, this whole Bradley thing make me sick, and I think him being gone clearly makes the team worse on both offense and defense going into the most important two weeks of their schedule.  But enough about Milton.  Look at the next couple of weeks:
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Obviously Billy did what he felt he had to do, but is it too early to begin drawing conclusions?  I'd like to hear your thoughts.  For the same of discussion, please assume that the A's get basically nothing for Bradley.  (Doesn't a guy's trade value rise when you play him for two weeks and he shows he's healthy, as opposed to playing him one day and you throw him off the club?)

Personally, I went to yesterday's game with a handful of friends.  All of us watch the A's closely and all of us agreed, throughout the game, that the A's offense just seemed so much more potent with Bradley in there.  No, he didn't do anything, but it just felt great with him in there - and the play Swish made at first, because Milton was in the outfield, probably saved the game for the A's.  Anyway, we can't wait to see what the offense can do the rest of the season, we all agreed (whenever Kendall wasn't up) ...

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Just looked it up ... Kendall's OPS (on base plus slugging) is .414.  The next lowest player in all of baseball is .541.  Think about that.  127 points separate Kendall from the next worst guy in the game.  That's a Grand Canyon of awful.  And yet last night with a decent fly ball winning the game for the A's, Geren sent Kendall up to hit.  

The only way I can understand the A's letting Kendall hit in the bottom of the 7th of a tie game last night with a runner at third and one out is that Kendall must have a hostage somewhere in the basement of his home that he has threatened to kill if the A's upset him.  After all, it's not as if there is a worse player on the face of the earth in that situation, a player with a lower batting average, a player less likely to hit a ball far enough into the outfield to get that run home.  So, because I'm going to assume the A's actually want to win games but are willing to intentionally lose games in such a way as to not upset Jason Kendall, presumably there is a conspiracy going on.  Because if there's isn't a conspiracy going on, then that was the worst game management I have seen from the A's ... in history.  Mystery message to Geren:  Kendall completely sucks!  Got it?  If not, you might want to look at, you know, some statistics or something, in case your mind is inadvertently telling you:  Kendall?  Long fly ball here scores the run.  Yup, I'm counting on it!

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Awesome win!  OK, now my favorite topic:

Given the crap ARod gets for failing in the clutch, can you even imagine what the NY media would do to Chavvy?  As bad as Chavvy has always been in the clutch, as HORRIBLE as he's always been, isn't he, you know, getting worse?

I serously think Billy needs to hire a sports psychologist to work with Chavvy so he doesn't walk to every important at bat with an 0-2 count, usually the result of swinging at a pitch out of the strike zone and then swinging at a pitch that would have been called a ball.  And the other thing Billy needs to do is my going-on-five-years recommendation of batting Chavvy 8th in the lineup.

Why 8th?  Because Chavvy is a terrific hitter without any pressure on him.  He gets most of his extra base hits in meaningless at bats, so maybe if the A's batter him 8th he would think of every at bat as being meaningless and he would be awesome.  Long ago the Brewers had the same issue with Gorman Thomas.  A head case like Chavvy, he hit like crazy when they dropped him into the 8 spot.

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any update on the King Felix injury?  man, that's a totally brutal injury for a proud club that has really struggled the past couple of years, finally seemed to be getting its act together, and now this ...  

imho prior to the liriano injury last year i thought the twins would win the world series. they were just rolling over everybody, and with santana and then liriano, you considered yourself lucky to take one out of three.  then when liriano went down, suddenly there was just no chance of that.  same would be true of the halos without vladdy all year long:  no prayer.

but if felix misses a lot of the season i'd have to think the m's are toast.

We're barely a week in, much too soon to make generalizations, but what the heck?  Isn't it amazing how much this club already looks like last year's club?  Not that there should be any great surprise, but still...

Terrific starting pitching, nasty and deep bullpen, outstanding team defense, uncommonly varied and frequent injuries, inept baserunning, and lousy at bats with runners in scoring position.  Sound familiar?

It's easy to draw generalizations after just a couple of starts, but count me as one of those delighted to see Zito across the Bay.  All of the nibbling just drove me nuts.  How many 0-2 counts ended up full?  With the Giants' geriatric defense, even the absence of the DH won't save Zito that much, I don't think.

According to this morning's CCTimes, Kotsay's back is in terrible shape he's getting a third opinion and Crosby is limping around in obvious pain with ice on his back.

Did I mis-read something, or have the absolutely, positively worst fears been realized on March 3?

Someone please set me straight - these two things can both be true, can they?

Just for fun I went back and checked the 19 geniuses who gave their post-season predictions on ESPN.

Now before giving you results, let's look at the math.  The likelihood of getting a single series right is 1 in 2.  The likelihood of getting two series right is 1 in 4.  And so forth.

So how many ESPN experts correctly predicted the outcome of all four of the four division series?  Since the odds of running the board are just 1 in 16, in a normal distribution of results you might have expected just 1 of the 19 experts to get it all right.  But none did.  Not one.

Similarly, the chances of an expert getting all 4 series wrong is just 1 in 16.  So how many of the 19 got all 4 series wrong?  Six!

I'm normally an A's pessimist, but I still think the A's have a good shot at winning this Series.  Personally, I would prefer to see Haren and not Harden in Game 3, but whatever.  Obviously, if the A's lost Game 3, they're probably gone, which is why I wouldn't risk Harden in there, even if his up side versus Haren is certainly higher.  But if the A's win Game 3, then they have to just split the next two in Detroit.  

Then they come home and play 6 and 7, needing, big deal, a two game winning streak at home with Zito and Loaiza going.  It's so much less stressful in a 7-game series.

Of course then there's that issue of actually winning the games.  Game 2 was what it was and it doesn't hurt that bad.  But boy was Game 1 a complete stinker.  It looked life the first half A's, with the relentless string of automatic outs with RISP, guys taking pitches right down the guy while swinging at pitches 18 inches out of the strike zone - not to mention very makable plays by Chavvy and Jimenez that cost the A's 3 runs.  It hurts to think about playing that bad in an ALCS game.

Nonehteless, cheer up, AN.  This thing is totally do-able.  Not to say it will be done, but being down 2-0 to Detroit with Harden and Haren throwing next ain't so bad.

Of course, if the A's can't figure out a way to get that damn Polanco out, and if they can't figure out a way to beat Kenny Rogers ... but if they can't do that, then there's no use worrying about losing a series they would then deserve to lose.

This is what AN is all about - some really great posts in other diaries, including the scouting report from an AN reader in the Dominican Republic, to the guy making the observation that, had he not broken HIS finger, Antonio Perez would be in the line-up tomorrow - so there's really just one tragegy here.  As for Crosby walking around the mall, I guess you can overlook it, maybe, but even my back starts to hurt when I walk around the mall.  That's just what happens when you stand on the hard floor for too long.  Great point, too, about asking Byrnes for advice on how to run the bases.

Two questions stand out in my mind:  what are these "personal" problems of Jimenez apparently well-known to the people of the Dominican Republic?

And, more importantly, what happened to Jimenez after the 2004 season?  

In 2004, Jimenez batted .270 with 12 HRs, 67 RBIs and a very impressive 82 walks.  The next year he ... lost his job on a really horrible Cincinnati club.  In fact, he didn't just lose his job; he went from being the starter to being off the team.    

Here's a wire story from May 20, 2005:

"CINCINNATI -- The Cincinnati Reds designated second baseman D'Angelo Jimenez for assignment on Friday, the latest move to shake up the struggling team.

Jimenez agreed to a one-year, $2.87 million contract in the offseason, but lost his starting job by hitting .229 with five RBI in 35 games. He made two of the Reds' four errors in Cincinnati's last game, a 10-6 loss to the New York Mets on Wednesday."

Getting cut by the Reds one month after ESPN predicted a break-out season for him:

"Second base: D'Angelo Jimenez, Cincinnati Reds
Jimenez, now 27, has matured as a player and as a person and has become a solid big leaguer. He has a great sense of the strike zone; this will be the year he learns what to do with the 2-0 and 3-1 pitches with which he can do damage because he works the count so well.

Look for a huge jump in his offensive production as he plays a Gold Glove-caliber second base and establishes himself as one of the best all-around second baseman in the game. Expect him to bat in the neighborhood of .300, hit 20 homers, steal 20 bases, score 100 runs and drive in 90."

"Matured as a person?"  Uh oh.  I'm just totally guessing here, but I'm beginning to smell a guy with drug/alcohol problems.

When Jimenez was cut in 2005, it was the second time he had been released.  The White Sox released him in 2003.

Here's the career arch:

August 1, 1994: Signed by the New York Yankees as an amateur free agent.

June 23, 2001: Traded by the New York Yankees to the San Diego Padres for Jay Witasick.

July 12, 2002: Traded by the San Diego Padres to the Chicago White Sox for Humberto Quintero and Alex Fernandez (minors).

July 6, 2003: Traded by the Chicago White Sox to the Cincinnati Reds for Scott Dunn.

October 5, 2005: Granted Free Agency.

December 16, 2005: Signed as a Free Agent with the Texas Rangers.

June 14, 2006: Released by the Texas Rangers.

Makes you wonder...

Forgive the diary on such an obvious topic, but in the unlikely event that Chavvy or somebody else in the infield can't play in the post-season, the A's simply can't play Antonio Perez.

Don't get me wrong.  I like Antonio Perez.  He seems like a nice fellow, and he never complains (does he?) about his infrequent use this year, or the fact that he has struggled the way that he has.

But with the possible exceptions of Mario Mendoza and Charles Thomas (remember him?), Perez has the worst swing I've ever seen.  And it's like he was born with an 0-2 count.  To look at the box score and say, "Gee, Perez went 0 for 3 today..." is to totally miss the point.  The reality is that Perez could have had 20 at bats today, and could have been given 5 strikes in each one of them, and the likelihood that he would have put a reasonably well hit ball into fair play was precisely zero.

The A's and the Angels both have 35 games remaining.  Who has the tougher schedule?  The Angels.  Let's walk through it...

Analysis shows that of the remaining 35 games, 23 are "overlaps."  For example, in addition to playing 7 games against one another, the A's and the Angels both have 3 games left against Baltimore, Chicago and Seattle.  In my analysis, I eliminated these common games and focused only on the strength of disparate opponents.  Each team has just 12 of these disparate opponents remaining.

Relative to the A's, the Angels have one extra game left against Texas, 3 extra against the Yankees, Detroit and Toronto, and 2 extra against Kansas City.  The weighted averaging current winning percentage of opponents in those 12 games is .546.  To think about a .546 winning percentage, remember that right now the team with a winning percentage closest to .546 is the Red Sox, who have a .556 winning percentage.

Relative to the Angels, the A's have 2 extra games against Boston, 3 against Tampa Bay, 3 against Minnesota and 4 against Cleveland.  The weighted average winning percentage of opponents in those 12 games is .493.  The team with a winning percentage closest to .493 is the Giants, at .488.

Thus far, this analysis does nothing to consider overall home and away, strength of schedule home and away, or, for that matter, whose record may not indicate state of current play.  Let's look at these quickly.

Overall, the Angels have 1 more home game left relative to the A's.  So that's no big deal.

Of the "disparates", the Angels have 3 left at home against the Yankees, and the Yankees are a very good club on the road.  The Royals are much better at home, and that's where they play the Angels.  On the other hand, Toronto and Baltimore play much worse on the road, and that's where they play the Angels.

For the A's, they get Boston while the Sox are on the road, and where they have a losing record.  Unfortunately, the A's do have to go to the Minnesota chamber of horrors.  (I'd take 1 out of 3 there.)  The A's also get Cleveland in Oakland, and the Indians are much better at home than they are on the road.  

Finally as to getting teams where they are now, the A's and Angels have equally tough outliers:  the A's have to play Minnesota, the best team in baseball since the beginning of May, whereas the Angels get the Yankees, who have been very tough since the break.  The A's get Boston and Tampa Bay, both of which look like sinking (or sunken) ships, and 4 against a Cleveland team that is officially out of the race.  The Angels get a tough 3 against (a cooler) Detroit club, and even 2 against a Kansas City club that is playing everybody pretty tough right now, especially in Kansas City.

No matter how you slice it, the Angels have the tougher schedule the rest of the way.  What this analysis overlooks, of course, is that if the Angels outplay the A's in their 7 head to head matchups, none of the above much matters.

Last night I went to the concession stand in the bottom of the first.  You can't actually get all of the things you might like in one place, with just one line, so I have to choose.  I decide to go with the Saags.

15 minutes later (fifteen minutes!) I'm at the front of the line, order my sausages, and am told "we're out."  Out?  In the bottom of the second inning?  Well, it's a big crowd tonight, I'mn told.  Yeah, well, wasn't it likely to be a big crowd tonight?  Well, there will be more if I can wait another 20 minutes.

So I order the horrible giant dog, or whatever it's called, and think about working my way over the line to the mustard.  But with my full beer there's no way I'll make it through the mob.  So I go back to my seat with my horrible dog and beer (total cost:  $14.50).  

There's a fine line between paying WAAAY too much for so-so food and simply getting screwed.  

Going into this most recent road trip, the A's were 3-17 since May 1 this year in games in which the opposing team's starting pitcher got the decision and when that same opposing pitcher went into the game against the A's with ...

A.  a winning record; and
B.  an ERA under 5.

When the A's crushed Beckett in Boston, it was a rare win against a pitcher that, per the above criteria, might be regarded as "above average."  That raised the A's record in such games to 4-17.  They then lost to Schilling and Birkins, beat Benson, then lost to Verlander and Robertson.

So now they are 5-21 in games against these pichers with this measure of success, for a winning percentage of .192.

6 of their next 7 games are against pitchers with winning records, though 2 of these 6 have ERAs above 5, so only 4 of the 7 fit.  Still, it should be interesting.

Were you there on June 2, 2004, when Chavvy took that pitch off his hand on that cold night?  If you were, you knew it was broken right away.  The impact made a sick sound, and Chavvy whimpered into the dugout and was gone.  You could only imagine how painful it must have been.  When you later heard the rumors that he was regularly playing video games in the clubhouse with his cast on, it only confirmed your worst suspicions about his immaturity, but that's another worry for another day.

What you'd remember from that time is that the A's had lost 5 of the prior 6 as a result of an anemic offense, and people wondered how they would score runs without their top guy.

But an inning later the A's won the game in extra innings, and they were 1-0 without Chavvy in the lineup.  They won the next day to sweep the White Sox, then took 3 out of 4 from Toronto.  Then they swept the Reds, and then they swepted the Pirates.  And suddenly a team that hadn't been hot all year was very hot indeed.  Though they unravelled later in St. Louis and Chicago, the losses were entirely attrbitubale to massive bullpen break-downs.  (Remember those days?)  The A's played pretty well the rest of the way that year, especially without Chavvy.  Only Mulder's bizarre September meltdown allowed the Angels to take the division from the A's.  (What happened, by the way, to Mulder?  Is there any logical explanation for how a guy who used to win all the time suddenly became a guy who didn't?  Almost overnight?)

What I remember vividly about 2004 is that the A's offense seemed to come to life with Chavvy on the D.L.

This year, on balance I think the A's are a stronger team with Chavvy in the lineup;  but only if he bats seventh or eighth.  He shouldn't bat third or fourth.  And my prediction is that the A's will do just fine without his bat in the lineup.  They may not get a lot better (though I think they will be better without him than they were with him), but I'm certain they won't be worse.

Tonight was pretty sweet, though.  Bradley looked awesome.  My only annoyance with today was Ellis swinging away, with the A's up 7-2, runners on first and second, and nobody out.  Aren't those extra runs pretty nice in Fenway?  Isn't a bunt appropriate there?

I'm delighted by the A's taking 3 out of 4 in the last week, but I have to say I can't really understand why the Tigers and the Angels have issued so many walks to the team with the lowest batting average in the American League.  I'm delighted, but it's strange.  You walk Barry Bonds or Jason Giambi and people can say good idea, bad idea, whatever.  You walk Jason Kendall and you're clearly an idiot.  What are you worried about?  That he might hit a single instead?

Look at the recent winning streak.

In the first game against the Tigers, the A's scored in two innings:  two runs in an inning in which they got two walks (why anyone EVER walks Kendall, who got one of them, is a subject for a PhD. dissertation in psychology), and three runs in an inning in which they got one walk.  

In the second game against the Tigers, the A's again scored in just two innings:  they got one in the first after two walks, and they got one in the 10th after two more walks.  Absent the walks, the A's probably don't score in the whole game.

Finally, in the third game against the Tigers, the A's against scored in just two innings, although here, up 7-0, the Tiger pitchers didn't walk guys.  As they should, and with the big lead, they threw strikes and the A's hit several balls hard - though 4 runs doesn't win many games against the Tigers, and indeed it didn't here.

Then of all teams the Angels did it, too, last night:  the A's got two in the first after two walks (and an error), the A's got two in the fourth (no walks!), and they got two in the ninth, after one walk.  Ixnay the first inning walks and K-Rod is on the hill in the ninth with a 2-run lead (yes, I know, all else being equal...)

If you were pitching against the A's, wouldn't you just throw balls down the middle of the plate as soon as you got behind 2-0?  Yeah, you'd give up a few more hits, a few more home runs, but you'd still improve your chances of winning.  Isn't that one of the main reasons why the A's struggle so much against guys like Kenny Rogers and Brad Radke (the whole Twins staff, really) - because if you don't walk the A's, you beat them?

Blez notes in a separate diary that you could see it coming, that the A's struggle to score "when facing a hot pitcher."  That's spot on.  In fact, I think it could be amended.  With very few exceptions the A's struggle when facing any "good" pitcher.  They don't have to be hot. They don't really even have to be that good.

(As an aside, let me say that the beloved Ken Korach, who is really terrific, just fabulous, I love him!, has only one annoying trait, and that is to note, seemingly night after night, that the opposing pitcher is "pitching beautifully."  Well, maybe.  But there's an alternative interpretation:  maybe the A's just can't hit.)

And let's face it:  this club can't hit.  Last year's club couldn't hit, either.  And until the A's get over the fact that runs won't simply "happen", that they won't win games by 5 runs by drawing walks and then hitting home runs, and thus they might actually want to think about manufacturing a run here and there so that they can ride what promises to be a terrific and deep cadre of arms in the second half ... then it's tough to see how this club does anything but limp along, modestly above .500, only to get destroyed by any and all comers in the first round of the playoffs.

Just look at the facts.  The season is now about half over, and the A's are 26th in the league in runs scored, 24th in OPS, 26th in slugging, and 29th (29th!) in batting average, at .251. Only the minor leaguesque Tampa Bay Devil Rays have a lower batting average than the A's.  Yeah, I know the Coliseum is a tough place to hit because there's so much foul territory.  But what do the A's hit on the road?  .248!  At night the club hits .239!  And many baseball games are now played at night...

Yeah, you say, but once we get healthy ...  

Dream on, though, because it isn't injuries, either.  In fact, one could argue that the A's have been "lucky" on offense this year.  Swisher has been much better than expected, and I didn't think Kendall would hit as much as .275 (with a home run!), did you?  The Big Hurt has 16 home runs, and Chavvy is where he always is - because he never gets worse but he never gets better, either.  (And it doesn't look like he's getting healthy, either.) Sure it would be nice if Bradley were healthy, but he has been healthy for all of 1 of his 7 years in the league, and in that season he batter about what Kielty is hitting now.  OK, a health Bradley might really have helped, I admit it.  (Andre Ethier can sure hit, though...)  Sure it would be nice if Crosby were hitting, but he really hasn't hit a lick since the league figured out that he can't hit breaking balls away.  (Gee, do you think he'll see a curve ball that starts on the outer half of the plate and then moves down and away, out of the strike zone, for a flailing strike three?)   Kotsay's numbers have trailed off very modestly, and DJ is hitting great lately after starting the season like he ended last.  In short where are the big "disappointments" as a result of "injuries"?  Beyond Ellis, it's hard to say.  And did you think Ellis was going to hit .316 again this year?  (Actually, I did; but I'm so pro-Ellis it's ridiculous.)  It would be nice if Payton had more power this year, but over his career (not counting the one season in Colorado) he has homered about every 35 ABs.  So on that basis his 3 HRs this year could have been 7.  Yet his batting average is higher this year than it was the prior three.  So, again, hard to say where the disappointment is, unless one wants to measure against dreams.  The fact is that in 2005 the A's had an OPS of .737.  This year's club is at .736.

I love my A's!  I love my Billy Beane!  But Giambi is gone and so is Miggy and this club still tries to play the game as if it weren't so.  Chavvy will never carry this club and neither will Milton Bradley.  

So put down a bunt, for crying out loud.  Steal a base.  Hit and run.  Squeeze, for heaven's sake.  Play the game as if you hit .251 as a team under the best of circumstances, as if your club bats .228 in games that are "close and late", and as if your club bats .220 with runners in scoring position and 2 outs.  Play the game that way not because you want to but because you have to.  Because all of those things are true, and the truth shall set you free!

I love Billy, but I can't shake the nagging suspicion that he's on a dealmaking losing streak, and that perhaps he drafts better than he trades - certainly recently.  And the free agent signings mostly stink, too.  I won't discount the outright thievery of deals of earlier years, but the record the past couple of years has been pretty dismal.

Let's start with the exception:  certainly the Mulder for Haren trade appears to be a total victory, the rare stud trade.  The A's killed the Cards on that one.  If Barton develops, it's just sick what the A's got in talent and salary dump.  Calero has had a tough season, but my arm hurts when I throw every day, too.

But let's face it:  the A's got absolutely nothing for Huddy.  We're talking about Tim Hudson, people.  The heart and soul of the team.  Look at a healthy Meyer's stats, folks, and get over it:  it ain't going to happen.  Hudson-for-nothing.  The question is, would you trade Mulder and Hudson for Haren and Calero?  Of course not.  (Some will want to bring up salary dump, but they'll then choke by having to admit that the A's probably could have kept both if they just hadn't signed Kendall, so let's leave salary sort of aside for a bit.)

And though we can discount the first injury plagued months of the season, who would you rather have the rest of this year, and perhaps the next several years as well, the oft-injured and always-volatile Milton Bradley, or Andre Ethier?  (Or, to dredge up an old one, Chavvy or Miggy?)

As for recent free agent signings, Ginter is a zero, Loaiza has been a zero (and keeps suggesting he doesn't really feel he's hurt) and Kendall is the weakest hitter I've ever seen.  (Statistically, Kendall is the single weakest hitter in the game since joining the A's.)  Forgetting Kendall's $11 million price tag, which is hard to do, who would you rather have, Kendall or Damian Miller?  OK, now throw the price tag in!

The A's threw in Bonderman to get Lilly, who was an all star (for another team) the year after the A's traded him.  Bonderman is a total stud.  The A's dump Lilly and his salary for Kielty, who has delightful red hair, an ingratiating spirit and, sadly, an inability to hit.  Would you rather have Kielty out there or Eric Byrnes?  Or, for that matter, Jermaine Dye?

Yeah, it's really easy to pick and choose and be critical with the benefit of hindsight.  But when I look at what the A's had and what they got, it doesn't look pretty.

Let's hear it:  shall we adopt a defensive it's-too-soon-to tell?  Or am I just plain wrong?  Or am I right?

And, by the way, I still love Billy!