Billy Beane's Big Gamble

were to be overly optimistic that Duchscherer would be physically able to be the lone veteran and ace…and the other (bigger) miscalculation? Once again, banking on Chavvy being able to contribute anything at all to the defense and the offense. Had this second idea worked at all Nomar would not have been forced to play so often during the first month of the season, nor would Giambi have had to play every day in the field.

Oh, shit, it’s you. Hey Blez.

Yet another guy writing off Daric Barton, huh?

…I never really expected this year’s team to be a bonafide contender, I just expected some fire and improvement… and I haven’t seen that.

I am disappointed that he seems to have put too much stock into Duke and Chavez being healthy. Neither was anywhere close to be i given.

I like your perspective. There’s way too much all-or-nothing attitude on this site. People seem to think that in any given season you must either be “going for it” or else you have to blow up the team and aim for last place in order to get the best draft pick.

I see no reason why you can’t rebuild overall while still making some moves on the side to try to win a few games in the meantime. But the all-or-nothing crowd can’t conceive of such a thing.

One hindsight opinion: I wish Beane would have gotten a veteran starter to help mentor the young arms. A) Because of Duke’s unreliable health, and B) He just doesn’t seem quite like the mentor type even if healthy and starting. (I don’t really have too much to base that on other than what I’ve read and observed). Maybe a “leads by example” is better than nothing though? I mean Curt Young is great and all, but a veteran pitcher would really help the rotation mature IMO.

One future opinion: I say keep Giambi around next year regardless…even as a bench player/part time DH. This is taking into account the theory that he knows hitters well, in addition to his veteran leadership and loose personality. Question is, who’s on first next year and beyond? (Doolittle, Barton, Carter?) If we’re really building toward 2011 realistically, then Giambi could provide a push in that direction next year. He already seems to realize that’s his role, from the quotes I’ve seen from him.

This was the 1st season since becoming a fan 10 years ago that I went into the season thinking we had little to no shot at the playoffs.. but with the new acquisitions (Holliday, Nomar, Giambi, et al), it did give me some hope. My primary concern was with the youthful and inexperienced starting rotation, and that’s with a healthy Duke. For the most part, they’ve done a decent job. Thanks for reminding us that 09 was suppose to be a rebuilding year. With that in mind, I don’t feel as bad the way this season has gone.

“But in order for the A’s to compete in 09, things would’ve had to have broken perfectly.” This statement seem to be a recurring theme for us the last several years. Things did break perfectly for us in 06, which got us into the playoffs. I’ll give Billy credit for at least trying to field a competitive team in 09. but in order for us to be contenders next year and in the years after, we have to plug some major holes at 3B, another big bat when Holliday leaves, and at SS. I don’t want to be relying on some guy by the name of Do Little and a bunch of AAAA specs when we’re fielding a top notch pitching staff. I don’t want to be like the Giants are this year in 2010 & 11.. all pitching, no hitting.

We just made it to 20 wins. Let’s just see how long it takes to get to 30. Maybe they can cut the time in half. I remember reading in the Stockton paper about a month ago, Dallas Braden was saying he had a tough loss but he compared our lineup to a pool of sharks that could strike at any time. I like his attitude.

The most interesting thing—indeed often the only interesting thing— about this team has been watching the young pitchers. And while they haven’t been world beaters, they’ve shown plenty of positive signs.

But I think this post is essentially asking the wrong question. The pressing question isn’t so much “why isn’t this team contending?”; the answer to that question is pretty obvious and it’s the one you give: everything had to break the right way.

The more pressing question is: why does this team have the worst record in the AL and the third worst record in all of baseball?

And the answer to that question has to include some consideration of Geren and his coaching staff, whose names are notably absent from this post.

the players on the A’s are just procrastinating knowing how long the season is and timing out a great finish. Unlike the past, where we seem to do good in the first half. If all the players were young on this team, I wouldn’t consider it. But, we’ve got some old dogs now where this isn’t their first rodeo. Sometimes things don’t come together until they are pressing. As pressing as they seem, it wouldn’t be the greatest comeback of all time. Hence, there is still meaning to games and not too much time to turn this around at the same time. Are they good enough to turn this around is the ?.

There goes Holliday to ATL, but I wouldn’t have traded him for the package the Pirates got for him…stupid pirates

The thing that bothers me about “rebuilding” is that you either better be extremely shrewd in your player choices or get lucky and have someone explode out of no where as a star. If not you can end up with a decade full of futility like the Pirates, Royals, Padres, Orioles, and Devil Rays. I’m not writing anyone off yet (except Crosby), but I’ve been extremely disappointed by the performance of just about any position player that has been called up in recent years. While maybe not the most highly touted prospects I think it all started with two guys who had an almost cult following on AN, Dan Johnson and Matt Watson. When they finally got to the show I think they were maybe the first guys we ever referred to as AAAA’ers. On the opposite spectrum we had a guy in Carlos Gonzalez that was the be all end all prospect, the dang centerpiece of the “rebuilding” project. When he got his opportunity he was inconsistent at best, and apparently struck a chord with someone, and he ended up getting traded. Which in itself would’ve seemed somewhat unfathomable at this point in time last year.

Then there are guys like Barton, Pennington, Buck, and Cunningham who show flashes of life every now and then, but haven’t proven to be major league worthy. At times even being just downright awful. I would love to see these guys at least show signs of improvement, but there hasn’t been any. Cunningham, hasn’t been around long enough to say this, but Barton and Buck could be in their third seasons in the major leagues, but their failure to develop and not jump face first into 3ft pools has been discouraging, and cost them severely. Alternatively you can look at a guy like Suzuki, who I always liked, who turns out to be a really good major league player. Last spring I was really excited for him, but as I recall in one of the first fanposts I commented in on the new AN I was pretty much told he had no future with us, and Powell was really the player of the future. While I’m not of the opinion the A’s got lucky with Suzuki (did anyone watch him the CWS?) I think you could probably make that case given how much everyone around here was so sure he wasn’t an MLB caliber catcher.

That being said, I guess the A’s are actually coming upon a second wave of prospects. We’ll see how that turns out, but I won’t be holding my breath until one of them proves he can actually hit outside of AA or AAA. I’m so random with my thoughts right now, but I guess my point is that I’m not entirely sure why we entered this rebuilding phase in the first place. Was the farm system really that depleted? If so, why? It’s not like they had called up any players that had any kind of impact. It’s totally my opinion, but it seems sort of like the A’s panicked during 2007 after having one bad year and destroyed a team had some pretty decent parts. You trade a proven ace in Danny Haren for a bunch of prospects who might turn out to be good players. But why take your chances on a guy like Anderson when you already have a sure thing? It’s not like Haren even broke the bank with his extension. I understand certain guys like Kendall, Kotsay, and Thomas were on the decline, but Beane was able to swap in Suzuki, and Cust. If you’re willing to deal with Bradley’s crap you had another guy who in 2007 and 2008 was better than pretty much anyone else we had. Keep Scutaro, and again you have better production than what we have now from SS or 2B. It’s somewhat of a moot point, but the line-up could have better production in every position except left field. With better hitters and a veteran starting rotation, with maybe just Cahill or Mazzaro, I’m thinking the team could’ve easily contended in the weak AL West. What is the difference between going to the playoffs in 2008 or 2009 instead of 2010? As the title of this posts states, it really is a “Big Gamble.” I would say it’s like the difference between betting the moneyline on a single game and doing a four game parlay.