If Cust hadn't just been sitting there waiting to be picked up for nothing, this team would be looking VERY bad right now.

I think you are being somewhat unfair - while all of us knew the injury risks, I say the injuries have been much worse than anticipated.  In just about every case, the worst possible result has come up.  
Even the replacement players that come up get injured in freak accidents. (not counting the Snellingstein.)

I suppose we should have figured out about Harden when he couldn't even make it out of Spring Training - or am I confusing one injured pitcher with another?

And if the players in question had been healthy, it'd be a stroke of genius, right? "...it would have taken a complete moron—like a blindly passionate fan, like me—to hold out any hope for success"??? Wow. I realize you are sort of being self-depricating there, but there are quite a few other "morons" out there. The chances for us to win a playoff spot are still very attainable. I find it amusing that Kennedy and DiNardo get trashed and bad motuhed even though they are two of the best 4th and 5th starters in the league (statistically, you can even look it up for yourselves BEFORE trashing them next time), with Haren, Gaudin and Blanton being an extremely solid 1-2-3. I'm sorry, but these kind of diaries remind me of when national sportswriters have no news for the day so they go and construct a poorly thought out and put together piece just to say they wrote something (self-)important that day. All apologies, as usually I think Nico and the gang do good, nay GREAT stuff, but to me, this is just frustration being spouted off into trash. Sorry, and I hope there is better material up later for us A's fans to read.

This is an interesting topic, Nico, because I don't think the real answer to why the A's are underperforming this year is solely because of all the injuries.

Beane has been experimenting recently with the whole "high risk, high reward" thing, and its had mixed success. Thomas and Stewart on the positive side, Bradley and Loaiza on the negative. He clearly thinks these guys are the "undervalued" commodities for him to focus on at the current time.

The A's have always experimented with this undervalued thing--bringing in OBP guys like Hatteberg, trading for quality defense in Kotsay, etc. These players have been important in the A's success, but they aren't the reason for the A's success. They were complements.

The reasons the A's were so successful had far more to do with the young players drafted. The Big 3. Tejada. Chavez. Swisher. Giambi. The players that came up with the A's. I'm not saying Beane had no part in that happening, or that he was simply "lucky". Beane did a lot in turning that core into a championship-caliber team with his additions.

To me, the recent problems have had far more to do with below average drafting than risking it all on injury-prone players. The 2002 draft has been well documented (Swisher and Blanton, yay---the others, not so much). In 2004, only Street and Suzuki are successful out of 6 early picks. 2003 has no been a pretty much a disaster with the loss of Bonderman and Ethier. Also troubling to me was the loss of a high draft pick in order to sign Esteban Loaiza. And what about Latin America? How long has it been since the A's had a successful player come up that way? Miguel Tejada?

A lot hasn't really been Beane's fault. Looking at the 02 and 04 drafts--theres not a whole lot the A's missed. But the fundamental point--that you still have to have a solid core of players--is still true. You can add and tinker and complete a team that already has potential, but you can't really build a contender from spare parts.

Obviously, this is the low point of the season. So, yes, right now the glass is about 1/4 full. It's difficult to imagine the A's being over .500 the rest of the season. Very difficult. A big part of that, though, is because all their awfulness is in full relief. At this moment, there are maybe 7-8 players fans would rally around keeping (Buck, Cust, Ellis, Haren, Blanton, Gaudin, Casilla, Street). Everybody else seems mediocre or worse.

But if we just let this year go a bit, we can feel better about '08 or even '09. Much of what has been plaguing us is likely to go away. Bradley is already gone. Kendall will be. I can't imagine they'll go into another season with Harden counted on in the rotation (we've all been disabused of that illusion, finally). They now know unequivically who Crosby is. What they can do, I'm not sure, but they do know.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that the last 2-3 have been characterized by excessive uncertainty, and I think that next year won't feel so much like that. I'm not saying we'll be a playoff team. I'm not even saying we'll be that good--though there've been some very positive developments for the future (Buck, Barton, Suzuki, Cust, Gaudin, Casilla, Haren, Blanton).

I'm just saying that next year I don't think as A's fans we'll have to deal with all this shit about injuries and false promise, at least not as much as we've had to deal with it the past couple of years.

If you believe "players tend to find their career norms by the end" then the A's should be playing Piazza as DH.  I personally have not yet jumped on the "Cust the Savior" bandwagon.  I would much rather see a future hall-of-famer Piazza batting clean-up than Cust swinging for the fences.  I'm very surprised that Piazza isn't complaining loudly to the media about the way the A's are sitting him.  He has said publically for several weeks that his shoulder is ok for hitting.  The only explanation is there is no room on the roster for both Cust and Piazza and since Cust can't be sent down Piazza's DL is extended.  When he can throw he'll be the backup catcher and Suzuki will be sent down (and at that time the A's will be paying nearly $20mil for their two catchers!).  Piazza has also got to be pissed about what this is doing to his value as a free agent for 2008.

No doubt Cust will be the DH in 2008.  I'm fine with that but not as the clean-up hitter. He's got too many holes in his swing and strikes out too often to bat cleanup.  Typically a high HR/strikeout hitter bats 5th or 6th in the line-up.

This post is well-argued, but I still think the A's were in the hunt ... until the Bradley DFA.  I'm not speaking from hindsight - I said at the time it was an unmitigated disaster that had better have a really good explanation.

According to Peter Gammons today, there really isn't a very good explanation:

"As for Bradley, when A's manager Bob Geren told him his playing time would be limited, with Nick Swisher, Mark Kotsay and Travis Buck in the outfield and Jack Cust crushing at DH, he says he asked to be traded. "They were frustrated by my injuries, and I don't blame them," says Bradley. "I was frustrated, too. I want to play. I want to win. I'm a free agent at the end of the season, and I'd like to play.

"The A's were good about this. The original trade was to Kansas City, and I told Dayton Moore that I had an oblique problem and might not be able to play for a few days. So the deal was off. But as it turned out, San Diego might be the perfect place. We really have a chance to win here."

So there's the potential real answer:  there was no room for Bradley because the A's needed space for Kotsay and Buck in the outfield, and, presumably, DJ at first

Can you find the small problem with this thinking?

To some degree there is limited things a GM can do from season to season.  To some degree your stuck playing the hand your dealt or dealt yourself the 3 years prior .

Harden is too cheap and talented to give up on you have commited yourself to Crosby and Chavez. The free agent  market and especially SP pretty much exploded.  Once Meche set the market price the A's were done with bringing in a free agent pitcher.  

The bottom line is that the A's built the team to get a average SP to go 5-6 innings give up 3 runs and maybe give the pen a break on Harren and if healthy Harden's starts, then have the bullpen to come in a shut teams down. (personally I think this setup was why Zito excelled go 5-6 give up 3)  But what was supposed to be a strength has turned into a weakness with Calero's ineffectiveness, Dukes and Street. which has caused Embree to be used out of position.

one of my worries with the a's team is that billy and the a's management cut a little too much slack for the "senior players". i'm talking about kendall, kotsay, chavez, crosby. these players get a bye for non-performance on the field for the "intangibles" that they bring whether it is "leadership in the clubhouse" or "calling a good game". in the past, the a's have been able to get the right mix of seniors with a positive work ethic and a winning attitude.

i dont mind cutting a little more slack for past performance and prior track record of success but there comes a limit when the seniors should step up and earn their right to lead this team. i dont know what's happening behind the scenes but i sure do hope that billy and geren set the tone as they have in past seasons and light a fire under some of these senior players who earn a fat paycheck and just dont produce in key situations and lead by example on the field.

but he's making it very difficult. I don't know if he's still getting over injuries, or if the long rash of injuries is messing with his head or what his mental state is that's preventing him from getting to his potential, but he's a black hole on that team. I do think he has huge potential, and maybe it's right to be patient with him. It's not like he's bringing down a first place team (ala Lugo), so there's not as much pressure to turn it around. But I can't help but shake my head whenever I watch the guy. His body language has "head case" all over it...maybe the non-english speaking pitchers won't be able to read it written all over him.

With Chavy we always hear the line "30 homers, 100rbis every year", and I love the guy, but is he gonna produce like that again? Maybe his glove is enough to offset that.

First base probably needs to get figured out, and I would imagine that's gonna be a DJ trade. By the way, for those of us that are too lazy, how are Barton's AAA stats comparing to DJs AAA stats? Is he projecting to be better than DJ? I seem to remember DJ tearing up AAA for a long time, and we all thought he was the next coming of Mattingly...

I thought Kotsay was gonna go on a tear once he got back. I'm still waiting. It could still happen, but maybe he does need to be a bench player now.

The surprises this year have been wonderful, and keep me watching. I don't know if I've rooted for a guy as much as I root for Cust. Suzuki, Buck, Casilla, gaudin, all have been great to watch. I wish I could say the same of Braden and Komine and Ryan Glenn, oh, I mean Colby Lewis. That's about 50/50 which is a pretty good percentage.

If anything, I think the A's should really go with the youngsters for the rest of the season (not like they aren't already I guess), and find someone to play SS to put some pressure on Croz. Hey I went to Long Beach State, I want the guy to do well. Largely I'm looking at outfield spots (Kotsay) and catcher (Kendall) to get more time from youngsters to see how they perform.

I think it's very odd that the A's continually get bitten with the injury bug along with the no offense bug no matter who is on the team. Kotsay used to hit the hell out of the ball, so did Kendall...no matter who comes to this team (Johnny Damon, I'm looking in your direction now) they stop hitting. Big hurt being a nice exception, at least for 2/3 of the season.

wow, what a rant...did I even make a point?

Start with Harden and Bradley, arguably the A’s ace and #3 hitter going into the season. Had Oakland cut ties with these guys in the off-season, perhaps Beane would have been compelled to find suitable replacements. Instead, we spent most of the season’s first three months eagerly waiting for Godot and Godoter—while trotting out Kennedy and DiNardo, Langerhans and Kielty, because help was "on the way soon". That’s just a dumb way to build a team, folks, especially if you’re a low payroll team that can’t afford to book 6 quality starters and 4 quality starting outfielders.

One should have expected Bradley to play around 100 games.  Harden was a wild card, but what he's done since spring training is pretty much worst case scenario.  What would you have done with these two players?

Kennedy was likely to be in the rotation whether or not Harden was.  Anyway, Kennedy and DiNardo have put up a 3.95 ERA as starters this year.  That's excellent work from the back of the rotation.

Langerhans played one game for the A's, and Kielty hasn't played all that much either.  Yes, it sucks that they had to play Putnam and such so much.  They had Kotsay, Bradley, Swisher, Stewart, and Kielty as OF to start the year with Buck and Bocachica available in AAA.   The should have expected injuries, especially with Kotsay and Bradley, but they couldn't really have expected Kotsay and Johnson to both be out in April causing Swisher to move to 1B.

When was the last time Esteban Loaiza pitched effectively two years in a row? Despite the fact that this is Loiaza’s 13th major league season, the correct answer is, in fact, never. This is less surprising if you realize that ELo’s career ERA is 4.62, that he has only won more than 12 games in a season once, that 4 of 7 times he has won in double figures he has also lost in double figures, that 4 of his season ERAs since 2001 have been 4.89, 5.70, 5.71, and 5.02, and that what he has been best known for in his career is his inconsistency. Obviously, the A’s thought Loaiza would be healthy, but actually history suggests that if healthy ELo would likely be underwhelming us with his performance one way or the other.

I don't know what trotting out double figure wins totals and cherry picking poor seasons is supposed to prove.  Loaiza had a pretty good injury history when he came to Oakland.  He also projected to be a better than average SP (an excellent 2003, a mediocre 2004, and a very good 2005).  Expecting him to suck or be injured for all of 2007 was very far from a given.  Yes, you may have thought that Loaiza would suck, but you also thought Johnson would suck.  The numbers suggest otherwise.

But the A's had a ton of SP options should Loaiza--or any pitcher--get hurt.  They had Halsey, Gaudin, DiNardo, Windsor, Braden...

Yes, many of these crapped out, but the A's have gotten very good work out of all of their SP outside of 5 starts from Braden/Lewis.  I don't really see what you're complaining about.

Beane is fond of saying that you need to build the team you believe in and then don’t panic halfway through, because players tend to find their career norms by the end. Does Billy realize that Bobby Crosby’s career norm is to be a very poor hitter?

Entering 2007, here's what we knew about Crosby's hitting: Excellent 2003 in AAA, averagish (for a SS) rookie year in 2004, very good shortened season in 2005, and an awful 2006.  He has hit like 2006 again, but that wasn't his career norm.

The sample is now 19 months and Crosby’s average has been below .250 in 12 of the 19 months, while his OBP, currently a whopping .309 for his career, has been at .316 or below for 11 of the 19 months (and .333 or below for 14 of the 19 months).

What is the point of splitting a player's career up into months?  Is it simply to devalue his excellent month in 2005?  Do you think this gives a better overall view of a player than his stats as a whole, or do you think it just emphasizes your point better?

So the A’s, who believe strongly that players, over time, will find their career norms, decided to rely heavily on two starting pitchers, an OFer, and a SS, who have given the A’s exactly what they should have expected: absence and disappointment.

Can you please point out what career norms suggested Loaiza wouldn't pitch at all?  Or that Bradley would have his most injury-riddled year yet?  Or how Crosby's pre-2006 somehow no longer exists?

Just to be clear, what would have been "good planning" to you?  Buying average players to be backups at every position?  Do you know how much an average player costs on the open market?

The A's are far from a perfect team, and Beane has made many mistakes, but this mostly isn't valid criticism.