thereby adding 40HRs to the lineup. You have two choices with Dunn: Play him at 1B and eat the defense there, or DH him and put Cust in the OF (and eat defense there along with blocking Buck/Cunningham). Then piece SS together from among Crosby, Izturis, Cabrera, etc. – whatever’s available and affordable.

It’s not ideal, position-wise, but if Dunn’s value really is as low as rumored can the A’s afford to pass it up?

and definitely no to Mulder since this is implying we actually spend ANYTHING on him. Yes to any of the 1b/DH and no to the infielders except possibly Lopez depending on the cost. We really need another SS option.

it’s a market that’s recalibrating. Have you tried to buy or sell a house lately? It doesn’t matter that your pad was worth 200k more in 2007 if you’re trying to sell it today, and since that’s hard for sellers to accept, the pace of deals slows down. Seems like these guys are groping around to find market value in our bailout economy, and in this case the seller is not willing to cut loose of his 2007 valuation.

But lets not forget the risk here for the A’s. Another team could move in and land Furcal, leaving the A’s with a lousy SS. That’s still a viable scenario. The A’s are moving on Dunn because he’s suddenly looking like a bargain. Why couldn’t some other team, a team that didn’t have previous interest in Furcal (White Sox maybe?) at 4 years/mucho millions, suddenly decide that Furcal’s price has suddenly dropped to acceptable levels?

Let’s say that Furcal’s price drops to 3 years/$30 million. Would you really be comforted by the knowledge that the A’s didn’t sign him at 4/44 while he’s playing for another team?

If Oakland and Furcal are still looking later, come back and offer three years, $34-36million – done.

… when he’s really closer to a mildly objectionable dictator. Or the bully who beat you up in 4th grade.

He ain’t good. But he also ain’t gonna single-handedly hold the A’s back from competing. So it’s okay to feel okay about this.

mostly 3, a little bit 1, and not at all 2 – it’s business and you don’t make decisions based on being frustrated with an agent. 4? Don’t know.

Neither Tex or Sabs have signed. Meaning if the A’s come in hard and fast after Dunn or Burrell early in the game then they could sign either bat before the Angels are done fighting the Yankees over Tex/Sabs.

If that’s what happened, it’s time for Beane to find something else to do.

Beane saw the Angels losing a couple important pieces in Rodriguez and Teixeira. They’re going into next year with this:

Mathis/Napoli
Morales
Kendrick
Aybar
Izturis
Aging Guerrero
Hunter
Aging Matthews (aging VERY quickly)
Some guy

That’s a pretty poor lineup. The bullpen started to look old last year. The Angels are catchable. With Holliday and another bat on board, and our young players having had another season to improve, the window has opened. Even if we can’t keep Holliday around after this year, this season sets the tone. We have a shot, starting now, and not ending for a pretty decent amount of time (provided a decent enough number of our prospects pan out).

There is roughly a 0% chance that Furcal’s agent would sign with another team without giving the A’s a chance to beat the offer. If for no other reason than that he’d get a bigger bonus for the bigger contract (not to mention Furcal probably cares about money and the MLBPA would strongly suggest he take the bigger deal)

Or, complications with his back (ex. Trever Miller and past surgery).

Not that I’ve seen anything to suggest that, but it certainly wouln’t be the first time a player has done that.

I also think Chavez will have a very good year. But in his rookie year, Crosby played far better defense than he does today. He’s not the same guy who played his rookie year – when he hit .239 in his “good season”.

from the Kotsay experience, but I see nothing anywhere to make me believe that Crosby’s not even worse than we all think he is.

Since the Twins and A’s are comparable payroll teams and comparably attractive for league, competitiveness, etc., if the Twins got serious I’d give the A’s 50/50 to be the more desirable destination between the two.

Note that Furcal may break down a LOT faster on turf – that alone may still make Oakland a more natural fit.

… this must be what you’re asking the Easter Bunny for:

keep him fresh and off the DL

Beane offered the contract after Renteria signed with the Giants and the Cards traded for Greene, whatever market adjustments were going to happen had already done so. He retracted the offer because Kinzer said “No” and Beane wasn’t going to leave the offer on the table so Team Furcal could use it as leverage during the Winter Meetings.

I’d love to see the A’s go after Hardy, who I think could be attained with a package not involving Cahill/Anderson – albeit a painful non-C/A package.

In any other year, if the A’s had signed Furcal to one of those figures it would be a great deal.

You want to use the “Billy knows the market” argument? Fine, let’s play.

First off, let’s forget about the 3/30 offers for now. Beane offered a 4 year deal, as per Furcal’s request. Beane offered the deal and if Furcal had said OK he’d be an Oakland Athletic today. To me, the A’s willingness to go to 4 years diffuses any serious concern about Furcal’s long term health. It’s an issue but one they think they can manage.

Beane offered 4 years after his principle competition, the Giants and the Cardinals, bowed out definitively. Why did he do this? Because he knew that offering 4 years was his best card to play in order to land Furcal.

We know the financials were between $35-40 million, which quite honestly sounds about right if not low. We know that Renteria, a player that Furcal is younger and better than, signed for 2 years/$18.5 million guaranteed. Therefore there is absolutely no reason to think that the market for Furcal’s services will drop below $9 million annual. If anything, it is perfectly reasonable to look at the market and say that Furcal deserves a higher annual salary than Renteria. For now, let’s say that number is $10 million a year. (What can I say, I like round numbers and, oh by the way, ‘tis what the A’s offered!)

There has been some speculation that perhaps the murky dollar figure (35-40) is because of bonus money tied to Furcal’s ability to stay on the field. OK, let’s assume that is true. We can then say that Beane, having looked at the market and finding himself as the only suitor willing to give Furcal a 4 year contract, was willing to pay a healthy Furcal $10 million annual. Unless the information we’re basing all this on is completely inaccurate there is no reason for anyone to dispute what I’ve said so far.

Furcal turned the A’s down. And here’s where things get interesting.

Nico, you say this now presents the A’s with the chance to potentially sign Furcal for a lower overall figure at a future date. This could be true, especially in term of years committed but there is very little reason to believe that the annual figure will drop. The A’s had an advantage in being the only team willing to go to 4 years for Furcal. Even though the Giants and Cards have dropped out there are still teams looking for a new SS and we’re all agreed that Furcal is more attractive as a 2 or 3 year buy. Let’s focus on a 3 year deal for now.

The potential is there for 1 or more teams to suddenly look at Furcal again because he’s now, presumably, more willing to sign a 3 year deal. If everyone, the A’s included, are now discussing 3 year deals then the key is no longer to offer long term security but to provide the most bang for the buck. Increasing the number of suitors increases the likelihood of Furcal getting more than $10 million annual. That’s basic economics, a higher demand leads to higher prices.

And if you don’t think that could happen, then you have no reason to believe that the A’s are now looking at Dunn or Burrell.

OK, so now we’re conservatively talking $11 million annual for Furcal, or 3 years/$33 million. That’s not far off from the $36 million the A’s were guaranteeing over 4 years. But Billy knows the market right? What do you think he thinks is more likely, that a FA would take slightly less over all money to earn free agency again a year earlier or to spread out a little more money over more years? I think Furcal would prefer the $33 million over 3 years vs. $36 over 4, because if he believes he’ll stay healthy over 3 years he’ll earn more than $3 million in the 1st year of his new deal. And if he doesn’t, well, it wasn’t that bad of a loss.

So how do the A’s counter this? Well, if they’re confident in Furcal’s desire to play in Oakland they can make a matching offer and let things play out. Here’s the thing… why would we presume that Furcal truly wants to play in Oakland if all the dollar figures are equal? I think it becomes a case of offering the most cash and the A’s have already thrown away their hole card by pulling the 4 year deal off the table. They’d have to pony up like everyone else and paying, I don’t know, $13 million annual would do a lot more to affect the A’s ability to pursue other players than spending $10 million.

‘Course, the A’s could always pull out their 4 year offer and guarantee the $40 million, but by then Furcal could be looking at 33-36 million overall.

Nico, you keep calling Kinzer dumb but Beane’s actions have potentially given the agent exactly what he wanted, a bidding war between multiple teams!

Here’s where I think Beane screwed the pooch. (You’re a goat lover, I figure you won’t be offended.)

Beane was willing to pay a healthy Furcal $40 million over 4 years, why not pay $44 million to close the deal? Look, what are the odds that Furcal’s performance over the next 4 years would be good enough to make $40 million acceptable but bad enough to make $44 million look like a waste? Slim to none in my opinion. Beane could have guaranteed the $40 million and tacked on $1 million in incentives each year for plate appearances and Furcal is a good enough player that if he met the incentives his performance would have helped the A’s win baseball games. And if Furcal wasn’t healthy enough to meet the incentives then the A’s aren’t out the extra $4 million and it probably wouldn’t matter if Furcal was making $9 or $10 million a year because it would most likely be a sunk cost and either number hurts!

Dammit, I did the math already and the extra $1-2 million annual Beane saved by not guaranteeing the $40 million and kicking in another $4 million in incentives is not going to make a bit of difference in signing Dunn or Johnson or extending Holliday. Beane’s already either under budget and has the cash (Dunn, Johnson) or is going to need to make some serious room (Holliday) to make things work.

And here’s the kicker! I swear it, this part just might kill you. If Beane had ponied up the extra $4 million I think it would have taken to sign Furcal then he’d have been free and clear to trade Crosby. And what would that bring in return? Remember, I’m the pessimist here and I foresee the A’s needing to kick in cash to get a deal done. In my dream world trading Crosby frees up $2 million and brings in a decent prospect! It’s like getting a rebate to sign Furcal, so the A’s weren’t really kicking in an extra $4 million guaranteed… they were kicking in an extra $2 million and getting a 2nd, cheap talent in return. Hell, if someone was feeling muy optimistic they could even argue that maybe the A’s would have been able to free themselves from Crosby’s entire $5.25 million salary if they’d been willing to take a non-prospect in return! That right there would have covered the bump for Furcal.