gallagher with his great minor league track record at 22, hopefully will be good.
murton/patterson may be useful mlb ready players, but i doubt cubs miss them
donaldson may have regained his status as a top tier catching prospect.

beane was willing to throw in gaudin, just to get gallagher who cubs kept untouchable.

cardenas is a top 30 type prospect, he’s the caliber prospect you want deals built around. for a struggling blanton thats the best they were able to do. the issue is he’s a bit further away and nor at a huge position need. if he was able to show that he’s a capable ss/3b, that would take care of one need over the next 6 yrs or so.

outman/spencer werent really names we heard about at all. but seem interesting prospects. if only they couldve tricked phillies in adding jason donald SS for embree, they declined. for results on the blanton deal is maybe 2 yrs away to judge that deal. compared to the cubs deal, weve seen 3 players but give it some time. though it looks worse now since harden/gaudin are dominating

Too much is being made of “Beane’s moves” because of an important coincidence of timing: Beane traded Harden and Gaudin and then Blanton, and right about the same time the A’s embarked upon a hellish 2-16 stretch, which makes it look like Beane “blew up the team.” That perception is mostly incorrect, however.

What’s changed, really? Two things, primarily: Braden is taking Blanton’s starts, for one. That’s pretty much been a wash, since Blanton wasn’t pitching well and Braden hasn’t been awful. On the other hand, Gallagher has not been as good as Harden, but how much is that worth, really? Maybe two games so far, if that? (After all, Harden probably loses to Halliday yesterday too, because the A’s offense scored one measly run – and remember that Harden’s relatively short starts left considerable room for things to go bad after he left the games.) So maybe Beane’s move turned a 4-14 skid into a 2-16 skid, at worst. Either of those skids would be sufficient to end the team’s postseason hopes. Some will point to the psychological effects of the trades, but I don’t have much patience with those kinds of arguments, and even if I did, there’s no plausible way psychology can account for the vast difference between 2-16 and some acceptable record: 2-16 reveals some serious weaknesses. This team had a bad offense, several important injuries, some pitchers that were due to regress a bit and who also had some looming fatigue issues as they approached career IP highs, and a brutal second-half schedule. The A’s were walking a tightrope and due for a tumble (which I’m sure has a lot to do with why Beane felt able to make the moves he did – while it wasn’t impossible the A’s could have somehow kept dodging bullets and stayed in contention all year, the odds weren’t good enough to justify interrupting the master plan).

The last few weeks have been painfully ugly and disspiriting, and they followed two big Beane trades – but despite appearances the ugliness has been only to a quite small degree a result of those trades.

I am not sure that is official, I am thinking they read in Rotoworld that he is a strong candidate.

Sure would be nice for him to get some early runs and build his confidence with a victory. This will be the one bright spot of the second half.

On another note:

Since the AS break I notice we have scored 45 runs which is 66 runs less than the leading team (30 of 30)

Our team ERA is over 5.

Seeing this, it is amazing we have won 2 games. There should be a penalty for being bad like deducting 1st half wins. (LOL)

dominate with the cubs while Gallagher has just completely sucked for the A’s is hard.

The trade was necessary and had to be made at some point before Harden was re-injured. Gallagher is a good to very good pitcher with potential to be a star. Murton is a good buy low candidate if we were looking for cheap upgrades to our outfield. As a replacement for DFA, he’s fine but not someone major we would trade for. Patterson is a good but not great prospect, who’s getting old and has not succeeded in the majors. Another buy-low candidate. Donaldson, at the time, was a throw-in. We would have been consenting but not ecstatic with Harden for those four guys, as Gallagher looked like the only great chip.

For Gaudin to be thrown in, we wanted one more stud prospect. We wanted Vitters, possibly at the extent of Patterson/Murton. If we didn’t get that stud, we could send a guy like Braden as the “insurance” on Harden.

This is the second year in a row that Billy Beane has made a key midseason move, after which the team fell apart. Last year the A’s were holding it together until Bradley went, then whoosh, in the toilet. This year, it was combination of the Harden and Blanton trades (no matter what one thinks of the quality of either trade). I don’t think it was a coincidence, despite all the comments about the cruddiness of the team’s offense.

I have some problems with stat-guy arguments because I don’t trust a number of the more complex statistics, but I can go with them. I have a huge problem with two philosophical holes in their arguments, holes that have no basis, statistical or otherwise, for existing.

The first hole is the idea that anything that is not quantifiable does not exist. Thus, “clutch” doesn’t exist. Thus, “intangibles” don’t exist. Thus, “clubhouse cancers” don’t exist. I have a problem with this one, but not within this thread.

The second hole is the idea that the ONLY thing motivating a player is his personal career, with the attendant idea that team spirit doesn’t matter, success breeding success doesn’t matter, depression doesn’t matter, any motivation other than personal greed doesn’t matter. A player is a professional and always tries his hardest, no matter the circumstances. People only play for themselves and their families, what the team does doesn’t affect them because it’s irrelevant to their psychological motivation. Thus, the A’s were bound to fall apart whether the trades happened or not and it’s just luck they played better before the trades.

There is ABSOLUTELY NO reason to buy this argument. There is no statistical reason, there is no psychological reason. The Diamondbacks and Rockies played over their heads all last year, and went to the playoffs. Many teams have played over their heads because of the motivation of getting to the playoffs.

My own feeling: Beane, as an objectivist/libertarian (based on comments from Michael Lewis), buys this philosophy. It is not in his make-up to think that the trades destroyed the team and the team’s chances, just has it’s unlikely for him to believe that his Bradley dump last year had any psychological effect on what happened subsequently.

Billy Beane no longer has any clue at all as to what he’s doing.

... I don’t care for mediocrity, not sure where you got that? I would be happy if we put a team on the field that had a chance to win the World Series this year, and, every year in the foreseeable future. I’m not happy that we’re now the worst team in the league and I’m not happy if we make it to the first round of the playoffs and get consistently bounced… been there, done that. I want to win it all, now, and every year after it.

I couldn’t be more serious!

We should’ve got Manny for Gaudin and Cust. That would’ve been “genius”. The Dodgers gave up far less to get him. Other moves like that as needed would be nice too! I don’t like consistently giving up, and/or, throwing away players for some fictional future that has been promised for years now.

You have to have all-stars on the field, it gives everyone confidence knowing that there is equal (or better) talent on your team and players raise their game because of it and play their key roles. Harden was the kind of impressive player that makes the rest of the team believe in itself and raise the level of their performance. Just as Thomas was that kind of player in 2006.

I don’t have to mention the tens of other star players that Beane let go for nothing, do I (well just a few: Giambi, Tejada, Hudson, Thomas, and Dye. Plus, to a lesser extent, Ethier, Bradley, Guillen, Durazo, Stewart, Payton, Kotsay, Scutaro, and on and on)? I leave Zito and Loaiza off the list for obvious reasons plus Damon and Rogers because they’re pussies who didn’t want to play in Oakland.

I liked the Haren trade because we only gave up one pitcher and got a good return and still had pitching depth (which didn’t last long once Beane went crazy). Same goes with the Swisher trade (good return).

So, to review. I want to develop AND KEEP great players and trade for super-stars as needed to win the world series every year. DEAD SERIOUS.