The Beane Beanie, lives on his back?

Before we start, wouldn't  Pirates of the Caribean and the search for Davey Jones' Locker have been more interesting if it had been about, uh, Davey Jones' locker? (don't open that at work)

So - What’s going on with Billy Beane? He’s made some curious moves of late. Jack Cust is allowed walk, Coco bloody Crisp (!!!!!) seems to be about to become an Athletic (though, unlike crocodiles in Egypt, I’m still in denial about this one), none of us are still any the wiser about who might be running out from third to collect Patterson’s throws in from shallow left field.

At least talk of Adam Kennedy seems to have died down. Small mercies. But as I say – what’s going on? I present, for your consideration, some possibilities.

Possibilities that I’ve mostly made up, though one of which is almost certainly true.

1. Beane is actually pretty dumb.

It’s 2000. Michael Lewis has some great ideas about using advanced statistics to identify undervalued players so that small market teams might compete. He knows he can change the face of baseball, but he’s a writer, not a GM. One day, he’s in Arizona, watching spring training and he finds himself at a bar with Billy Beane, and he knows what he has to do. He gets Beane drunk on Tequila Sunrises and dreams of glory, persuades him to let him write this book, with the promise that if Beane does what he suggests, Beane will get all the credit. And Brad Pitt will play him in a film.

Beane agrees, and the rest is history, as written by the spinners. However, of late Lewis, the hand that pulls the puppet strings, has mostly been concentrating on spending his Blind Side cash, and Beane’s had to make decisions for himself. The result? Coco Crisp, who, four years ago, Lewis told Beane was good.

2. Too many other GMs are suspicious of BB when he wants to make a trade. Too many have got too burned too often, so he’s trying to make up for it by appearing fallible in the market by signing some crappy players. Perception of a GM has a value – Beane is trying to maneuver himself into being undervalued, so when he really needs to trade Tim Trevor Cahill for a superstar to play 3B, his calls will actually be answered.

3. Everyone uses sabermetrics these days, so Beane is trying to discredit advanced statistics. Even Brian "Saberean" claims to have ‘some IT types’ who do all crazy math. Obviously, he then ignores this and starts Eugenio Velez, the slimmer’s Coco Crisp, at left field but still. Even he is aware of the existence. To this end, it’s becoming harder to find players that are undervalued by teams, as teams actually do know the value of what they’ve got. If Beane can someone cast the use of these advanced stats into disrepute, then maybe some GMs will have excuse to point at Beane and go "look, even genius Beane admits it was silly not to just look at RBIs, clutchiness and number of seasons playing in Boston, let’s save some money and fire some nerds. Back your bags, nerds! And leave the cheesits!"

The A’s, however, will keep a secret nerd stash, rescued from the great fire of fangraphs, and will rule the world forever.

4. Beane is really, really looking forward to the World Cup this summer and doesn’t want to be bothering with baseball during June and July.

This being the case, he’s kinda going through the motions. He figures Coco Crisp should be good for a few ticket sales to the Bro Sox fans who want to see baseball when their team isn’t in town (wait, what do you mean they don’t like baseball, just being morons? I would never suggest such a thing), and besides, Beckham vs Donovan? Who isn’t relishing that prospect? Eh, Frosty Forsty can take over for a year. Good to let the work experience kids have a chance to experience work, eh? It’s not like this year actually matters, anyway. Back in time to trade Crisp to the Royals for a slumping Zach Greinke at the trade deadline, call it a year. Shame that the US got knocked lost all three of their games, but hey. Who would have thought that Ivory Coast would win the whole thing?

5. Lew Wolff and John McCain have swapped lives and haven’t told anyone, just for shits and giggles.

Long shot this one, I know, but they’re pretty much the same person, anyway, so it could easily be possible. McCain’s wife, Cindy, owns a minority share in the Arizona Diamondbacks (fact alert!). She’s annoyed that the A’s have now have Dana ‘hipster glasses’ Eveland, her favorite of all the fringy lefties.

Add to this the fact that the A’s have Chris Carter, who is probably related to Jimmy Carter, and you can see why "Wolff" has replaced Billy Beane with one of the animatronic cavemen from the most awesome museum in the history of everything, past, present and future.

(Sidenote - they stole the name of one of their exhibits from Michael Jackson. Is nothing sacred? Sidenote to the sidenote, while on the subject of the recently deceased; I really liked Clueless, so I’m kinda sad about Brittany Murphy)

Anyways. If you’ve got some other ideas for the, uh, somewhat erratic and Coco Crisp based moves that Beane’s been making this offseason (actually, it might go back longer than that – how else do explain Matt Holiday, the coy, balding beast?), let’s hear them.