barton is super young. it might take him a year or two to become an above average major leaguer. but if we wait it could pay off. see pena 2007.

I really doubt this move was a salary dump.

My reasoning is that by replacing Blanton with someone like Braden and you essentially have a wash, while if you replace Blanton with someone like Gio if he’s ready, you improve likely improve the rotation.

Getting rid of Blanton is addition by subtraction, the team got better today.

is that granted, we could have upgraded Blanton’s spot in the rotation simply by letting Blanton progress towards his mean – in other words, Blanton post-ASB 2008 is probably going to be an upgrade from Blanton pre-ASB 2008. But that doesn’t change the fact that someone else (be it Gio, or Saarloos, or DiNardo) can probably pitch as well as Blanton had pitched, even if not as good as he may pitch the rest of the way.

So while we may have foregone the upgrade that is Blanton for himself, we haven’t gotten any worse. We lost most of Blanton’s starts before the ASB and played about .600 ball when it wasn’t his turn on the mound. So our chances to hang in the race appear to hinge more on the ability of Duke, Smith, Eveland, and Gallagher to continue excelling, more than they depend on whatever happens in Blanton’s spot.

I’m starting to have some FSU/Loria-esque suspicions that Wolff and/or Fisher may be looking to cash in their franchise-appreciation chips: clearing the decks of big salary commitments would be a good way to entice new principal owners (and who knows—Wolff may be ready to either throw in the towel on Selig Acres at Fremont, or to disarticulate the development from the ballpark).

And, these suspicions are based on what exactly? Harden’s trade? Blanton’s trade? We all knew (or, at least, supposed) that both of these guys were on the trade block sometime during this season. Everything I see the A’s doing this year points in exactly the opposite direction of your suspicion.

Billy’s assembling a pitching superpower to dominate the West for at least half a decade. The Inoa signing bonus of $4.25 million strikes me as rather an odd move for an ownership ready to cash in its chips. The franchise appreciation hasn’t been even close to fully realized. This team is undervalued and Wolff knows it.

When Cisco Field opens in 2012, Lew will be a happy man.

Since it’s obvious Beane isn’t “IN IT TO WIN IT” this year (but it would be nice) I definitely think we should hold on to a guy like Barton. Why not wait him out, honestly? He is extremely young and has tremendous potential, anyone who saw him in Sacramento would agree (not to mention the tear he went on when he got called up last season). And yes…he is in a slump, sort of a premature sophmore slump, but I believe he will pull himself out of it before the end of the season and remind us why he is here in Oakland.

And letting go of Duke would mean having no true solid veteran prescence in our starting 5. He is our most experienced starting pitcher now, even though he is by no means a true veteran, and provides an almost guaranteed chance at winning games every time he starts.

I just think letting go of those two would be a mistake. I would like to hold on to SOME of our players at least, and let the team grow.

I was surprised by this trade. Not that we would part with Blanton, but that another team would offer an attractive package for him given his performance.

Before today, I would have been surprised to see Street and Duke traded. Street because of his meltdowns and Duke because he’s performing like a top 5 pitcher, but others around the league will see him as 30+ soft tosser who doesn’t get strikeouts and has chronic back issues. After today I guess all bets are off.

I also think you have to be mailable.

What if another team offers the A’s two blue chip prospects for Duke?

I mean, if Duke can net us a Doolittle/Carter type prospect, an Anderson type prospect, and a C+ level throw in I think you have to take it-no matter how much you want Duke to stay. This system may be deep, but it just doesn’t have enough high celine talent-especially in position players.

I think whether Duke stays as our Ace or no depends on the prospect packages Beane gets offered for him between now and the 31st.

The Fremont Plan is currently ungergoing the EIR, started in December, and should take about a year+ to complete as per standard California operating procedures. There’s been no info on if the EIR has shown that the Ballpark Villiage is actually a haunted ancient indian barrial ground thats going to be underwater in 2009 because of Global Warming, yet.

If anyone has any information that the EIR process has actually flopped, then produce it.

I wonder if/when Joe will next update his blog....

Come to think of it, I wonder if he ever went to NYC, or if he was told to pack his stuff in Oakland and wait by the phone…..

3-3 with a HR so far.

Perusing the stats:
His .812 OPS this year seems excellent, but not mind-blowing, however:
1)The FSL is the toughest of the three A+ leagues for hitters.
2)He ranks second in all of A+ (even in a tough hitters league) in hitting (wOBA) among players in their age 20 season.
3)His peripherals are also superb, in contrast to our other top hitting prospects.

So, I would say that he is easily our top position-player prospect.

This year, the rumors floating around on deadling deals seem to have come to fruition rather quickly…..Harden to cubs and Blanton to Phillies. I wonder if the Street to Rays deal is imminent….

we could probably get him cheap and he would no doubt be a big bat in the lineup

“Adrian Cardenas is the best of the three prospects going back to Oakland; in a perfect world, he becomes a solid-to-average offensive second baseman with an average glove. He has a short enough swing to make plenty of contact, but he’s not physical and won’t hit for much power. He’s not fast out of the box, but shows above-average speed going first-to-third. He’s also a perfect 16-for-16 in steals this year.”

Man its like pulling teeth for him to say anything good about players we have gotten over the past few years.

I liked Kentucky Joe. He seemed like a nice guy. Seems like we got a good amount for him, though. Cardenas looks really good. I’m psyched for the Gio callup hopefully soon. And I really hope we keep Duke and Ellis.

i’d like to see
1) braden
2) gio
3) meyer