as well as deal a few players who are not nessisary and can easily be replaced, or would do more harm than good, potentially.

Joe Kennedy is having a great season thus far, much much better than the 27.00 ERA he posted in Spring Training. His ERA was 2.50, now 3.50. He's in the last year of his contract, which means 3 of the following possibilities:

a) Let him go and collect Draft Pick, hoping he continues to do what he has been doing.

b) Trade him now and sell high, and acquire a prospects and/or a bat.

I'm more inclined to do option B. I think we can survive Kennedy's departure with Dan Meyer finally healthy and still left handed, waiting in AAA for a shot.

Bobby Kielty has no spot on this team when he gets back, unfortunetly. He can mash LHP, which is admittedly something we could use, but he also has several cheaper, better players ahead of him; Snelling, Cust, Stewart and Buck.

Kielty could be given the Bradford treatment, or even non-tendered.

Esteban Loaiza, when he gets back from the DL, is another problem. With all his injuries this year, and his ineffectivness last year, he doesn't belong in the A's rotation. So if he came back, he'd be put into the Bullpen ideally, and I would be pissed if he was given the chance to start if the Rotation is healthy. But if he doesn't make it back before the trade deadline, we won't be able to trade him at all.

Shannon Stewart's foot problems have cropped up again, and he has had a decent year thus far, on a 1 year contract. It might also be time to sell high on Stewart and trade him in a package to get a new bat.

Dan Johnson's future in Oakland looks iffy. He's losing power it seems, and his hot start is fading into memory. He will have to produce to keep his spot, because he can be replaced by the now hot Daric Barton, who after a baren tundra of an April, has followed with a warm may and a savana june. DJ could be traded in a package to get a bat or prospects, then replaced by either said bat or Daric Barton. Hey, Suzuki's already up!

Mark Kotsay has a year left, and I don't know what to do with him. If Bradley could stay on the field longer than 5 minutes, I'd much rather have Bradley back in 2008 than Kotsay. And hey, they might just give Bradley a 1 year deal to see if he can stay healthy once for a big contract. That said, with all our OF depth for 2008, theres not much room for them.

Rich Harden has yet to stay healthy, and the A's could trade him. But unless we got an absolute bounty, it would be wiser to keep him and hope for potential while paying him next to nothing.

As for Ellis, we have two options.

We can keep Ellis this year and next, maybe not at the $5 pricetag his option is since he would still be Arby eligable. The A's feel Ellis is the best defensive 2B in the league, and that his defense makes him a very valuable hitter. Combine that with average #'s for a 2B and he might be a good keep.

But, there is another option.

Kevin Melillo is in AAA and is having another good offensive year, but has little leather. He kills RHP, and is decent against LHP.

But, Donnie Murphy is average-good with the leather. Murphy sucks vs RHP, and is even better than Kielty against LHP! (we're talking .500 average against LHP).

So you have the makings for a very good 2B platoon right there, with the added bonus of having a utility infielder on the bench at all times, along with Scutaro, if he is still retained.

Which brings me to another point. Marco Scutaro has a lot of value, ironically. Yes, weak hitting utility players don't seem like they should, but he has a reputation accross the league now, and as seen by last years Reds-Nats trade, and the fact that the Tigers actually went after and acquired Neifi Perez, anything has value now, especially with its associated with Grit of Clutch.

Scoot could start getting expensive, and isn't it the Moneyball way not to pay large sums for Bench Players?

And then we have Bobby Crosby. Crosby is Ben Grieve if you flipped the Hitting and Fielding specs in MVP Baseball. Crosby is going to be expensive for a weak hitting, oversized SS, and we can probably do better if we replaced him with someone like, say, Gregorio Petit, or maybe even JJ Furmaniak or the aformentioned Donnie Murphy. Hell, Cliff Pennington is starting to show life in his bat.

Speaking of Pennington, I would expect to see a large chain of promotions comming, with the draft picks signing and people getting pushed up.