I'm going to say what a lot of us have probably thought since the World Series:

Is our team in danger of becoming completely irrelevant?  (continued after the jump)

Doesn't it seem like everybody and his mother now claims to be a Giants fan?  By looking around, one would hardly even know that the A's exist.

Even if you think the Giants bandwagon will fade, this is a big blow to the medium-term future of our team.  As if the deck weren't already stacked, young fans just getting into baseball now have almost no reason to pick the A's over the Giants.  Compare the stadiums... the cities... the ability to sign known players... well, you get the idea.

Before this, (and I know not all you will agree on this), the prospect of moving to San Jose gave me legitimate hope for our franchise.  But now even that feels like it may not help much, and may not even happen.  (Has a Bay Area World Series win satiated San Jose's baseball interest?)  Unless the A's get back to winning big-time and immediately, I think the tidal wave shift of interest toward the Giants has staying power.

Unless Billy wields some serious off-season magic... Chris Carter and Michael Taylor suddenly become the real deals... Cahill shows that he can somehow continue to outperform his peripherals forever... I think the A's are kind of screwed for the foreseeable future.

F#%$