Who else is tired of hearing all the "experts" poo-pooing the A's by reminding readers that "The A's don't win no playoff series.  The A's haven't won since last century."?

I am.  

Screw them!

Yes, we all know that the A's have not won a playoff during the Beane era, but why, why, why do "they" insist on using the A's' history against them when they have so little in common with those past teams?  Do those experts not have anything else to write about?  

One of the few constants in the Beane era has been, of course, Billy Beane.  But what about the teams themselves?  Here are the players who played on the 2000-2003 A's who are still currently with the team:

2000.  Chavez, Zito
      
2001.  Chavez, Zito
      
2002.  Chavez, Zito, Ellis
      
2003.  Chavez, Zito, Ellis, Duchscherer, Harden, Melhuse*

Except for Chavez and Zito and later Ellis, the 2000-2002 A's bore little resemblance to the 2006 teams.  While the 2003 teams had a few more players who are with the A's now, they were still very different teams from the 2006 A's.  The handful of players the A's have kept from those earlier teams have been some of their best players.

The bottom line is that this is a vastly different team from previous A's playoff teams.  The 2006 A's should not feel any more or less constrained by its playoff history than other playoff teams.  

All the naysayers can bite me.