FanPost

In Billy We Trust: right AN?

OK, I've been browsing through the threads tonight, and I'm absolutely appalled by the Billy-bashing I've seen going on.  I'm not a big fan of senseless bashing of the A's players and personnel to begin with, but Beane is the single reason for the A's success over the last few years.  All of a sudden, he's doing horrible and is to blame for everything wrong with the A's?  I find that hard to believe.  

Our offense sucks right now, anyone can see that.  I guarantee you this is not Billy's fault though.  He's put together what should be a very solid team.  When I saw the pre-season projected lineup for the A's after Beane's moves this winter, I was excited.  It looked to me to be a much better offense than we've had in the past.  What's wrong now? Well...

  1.  We're not taking a good approach at the plate.  In an earlier thread we talked about the philosophy of taking the first pitch vs. zone hitting.  We're getting behind in the count too often and are being forced to hit a "pitcher's pitch" rather than a "hitter's pitch."  Any hits we happen to get off of these "pitcher's pitches" will most likely be singles as a result.  If the A's looked for pitches to drive earlier in the count, we may have more success.  That's not Billy's fault, that's coaching and player mentality.
  2.  Almost every player in our lineup is underperforming.  Chavez, Kendall, Durazo, Hatteberg, Byrnes...all these players are traditionally much better hitters than they are showing.  Should Billy flip out and start trading away everyone because they are slumping.  Probably not...that would be irrational, and Billy's not.  Now yes, we may need to make a trade here to solidify the offense, but we can't do much until everyone turns around and gain some trade value back.  When all your players are underperforming, that's not the GM's fault, and there's not much you can do except wait for them to snap out of it or make one move to spark things (which I'm sure he's working on).
  3.  Swisher and Crosby are injured.  They were supposed to be key parts to the lineup this year, and now we'll have to wait for them to get better.  Once again, not Billy's fault for players getting hurt.
So, please, Billy has done a good job putting a team together who should be able to compete with our payroll once again.  And, I'm sure he's working on a multitude of possible moves...one of which will help solidify the offense once he decides it time.  It's May, we're slumping at the plate, and we're still in contention.  Let's not freak out everyone, everything considered, we're doing fairly well!

AN's motto has been "In Billy We Trust," and I still believe this to be true.  So, let's all put our faith back in Billy and see what he comes up with.  He hasn't led us astray before, so there's reason to believe he'll be able to fix this ship as well!  So, stop the senseless Billy bashing and lets get back to cheering for our beloved A's!