records this year?

-Ziggy’s start.
-using the DL
-losing every game in Aug?

well crap… maybe we should just let all the A’s play for the Rivercats and defend their title… maybe the winning will rub off to next year.

If anything, the A’s have had fewer pitching injuries than a typical team lately. So this is probably just a turn of bad luck.

It’s the position players who seem to suffer injuries at a coincidence-defying rate.

As someone who has been following baseball a long time, it seems to me that there are far more MLB pitching injuries these days than there were ten or twenty or thirty years ago.

It’s possible, of course, that the big difference is that two or three decades ago, pitching injuries often took place in the minors, and those pitchers never recovered, so that those who actually reached the majors had a history of being healthy and were likely to last longer.

then go to to that plan of a 6 man rotation, that will be all lefties…if this team sucks, at least make it weird and interesting

Oakland is in a situation where they have to all turnover their roster. Beane has turned “veterans” into “up-and-comers” for years now. Because he has to do this, he has to get a lot of players who haven’t passed the “injury-free” test of playing 7-10 years of pro-ball injury-free.

If Beane was able to sign a lot of free agents, he would be able to say “well Adam Dunn has played 10 years of pro ball without being on the DL so we’ll sign him and pencil him in everyday.”

Because Beane has to get a bunch of young players, he can only say “well we know this kid has only pitched 2 years of pro ball without being on the DL.”

My point is that just like statistics leave a track record, so do injuries. Just like FAs in their late 20s have a track record of production, they also have a track record of health. Like young prospects in their early 20s who lack a track record of production, they also lack a track record on health.

So, Beane really has know way of knowing which players will and won’t get hurt (besides the obvious pitchers who have terrible mechanics.” If Beane was able to sign FAs, he’d have a much better indication as to which ones will get hurt and which ones won’t.

In other words, the A’s will ALWAYS be in this situation is they’re always a small market ball club.

With Gallagher on the DL and Murton and Patterson already exiled to AAA (after all, it’s tough to break into this Oakland line up …), and with Harden pitching great to boot, you’d almost be inclined to think that the people who thought this was a good trade and would help the club RIGHT NOW are wrong by any and all conceivable standards.

Added torture value: if Chad Gaudin were still an A, do you think Geren might have had Ziegler close last night instead of using him to set the 9th up for Street?

The problem wasn’t trading Harden. Or even trading Harden or Gaudin. The problem was what the A’s got in return. Yes, you would think Billy would get all he could – but we know from the Milton Bradley experience that when Billy’s upset he can do strange things – strange things that 12 months later still don’t seem to make any sense. Things that some would be fairly inclined to point to after the fact and say, “the way that was handled hurt the club.”

Go back to the posts on the Harden trade. Those of us who opposed it did so out of a belief that Billy hadn’t played his hand very well. Again, two weeks later, with the A’s in a curiously timed funk (gee, almost the exact same time they trade Harden they went into a huge losing streak – just like last year when they DFA’d Bradley. It’s all just an amazing coincidence), what the A’s got is two guys who got sent to AAA yes, it’s early, but they really seem to suck and a pitcher with a sore arm. That bears the hallmarks of a really horrible trade, and it’s not unreasonable for A’s fans to be dismayed. It might be fair to rely on those who say, “it’s too early to judge” but it seems extremely unlikely these same people on AN will under any circumstances conclude, “gee, the critics were right. this trade did suck.” because they won’t make a similar comment about the Milton Bradley trade. All they can say is, “get over it.” Well, it’s one thing to “get over” trades that sucked. (I’m over the Hudson trade, because Billy did what he had to do and got a top prospect who happened to get hurt.) But it makes no sense to say, “These trades were just fine. Get over it.”

My sense is that Billy just decided he had had enough of Harden and took the offer from the only club that called him up, even though I don’t think it was a very good offer. If that’s the case, then I think the only alternative then was hoping to either get a few good starts out of Harden and then move him or, riskier still, hope he provided good second half numbers and then move him in the winter. I might have been inclined to try a few more outings (as I wrote at the time) because my sense is that Billy sold at something akin to the bottom of the market. It’s easy to say hindsight is 20-20 but we know now that Harden had several very good starts prior to the trade deadline, and it isn’t hard to imagine that A’s having gotten more for him (and Gaudin). But for some it wasn’t hindsight, it was what they were saying the day the deal was announced: what’s the hurry? was the question, and the constant answer was: he’ll be hurt any day now. That’s what makes the Gallagher injury so demoralizing.

If Billy’s record were not so strong he might be more inclined to respond to his critics and say something along the lines of, “once we decided we wanted to move Rich we called every club in the majors and asked for their best offer.” Instead Billy kind of implied that the A’s didn’t call anybody. They got one offer and they took it. Maybe he’s being cool, but I work harder to move second hand junk on craigslist. Again, maybe Billy’s baiting those of us who hoped for more, but the whole thing, to be hopelessly repititious, smells fishy, almost like Billy was as sick of dealing with Harden as he was sick of dealing with Milton and screw it let’s just dump him for whatever.

I do agree with you, Nico, that if the A’s decided to shop Harden aggressively and what they got was their only offer, then my criticism is off base. (I wish Billy would disabuse us of that suspicion.) But if the reality is that they weren’t even intending to move Harden but were simply “bowled over” by an offer of Gallagher, Murton and Patterson for Harden and Gaudin, then I just don’t get that. Among other things, that trade sent a clear message to the guys not dealt, or so I argued from Day 1, that Billy was quitting on the 2008 season, which is too bad, by the way, for those of us who had previously preferred watching the 2008 A’s to pulling weeds. A lot on AN of course argued that, and said that the trade would instead make the A’s better right now, and these are the same people maintaining now that the collapse immediately upon the Harden trade had nothing to do with the Harden trade, that it’s all about the poor hitting and Harden doesn’t bat. Brings to mind that old Groucho Marx line: what are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?

End of the day for me: Huddy trade, Mulder trade, Swish trade, Kotsay trade, Haren trade: good trades. Bradley trade, Harden trade: bad trades.