Slusser: Eric Chavez Considering Retirement

If I can’t have Rickey, I’ll take Chavy as manager. He’s a smart player.

Part of it is being around the game so long, but he was paying attention for all those years. There hasn’t been a smarter baserunner in an A’s jersey since Rickey Henderson, and to me, smart baserunning=smart at baseball. If you can think baseball and know baseball well enough to run the bases better than most, you deserve a shot at managing a baseball team.

….virtually every player in our lineup is filler. How I long for players who are…gosh, I don’t know…above league average in some discerable way, perhaps? This lineup is simply atrocious.

….and since you seem to be really enjoying the organization’s Kool-Aid, you can have the cup they’ve poured for me. I’ll pass on the Kool-Aid this time.
        To painstakingly target players who have a documented history of being well below average (and no one can tell me that OBP’s in 3 consecutive years of .299, .302, and .300 are anything but consistently and utterly DISMAL), and to give up valuable assets to acquire such underperformance is simply poor management. I’m no Jeff Baisley fan, but how much worse than a .302 OBP could he possibly deliver? It would have cost the team NOTHING to put Baisley there, or Rosales, or practically anyone with a pulse.
        The kid arriving in Seattle tonight, Chris Carter, has us all brimming with excitement because he has two things we haven’t seen in an A’s uniform in a very long time: POWER and UPSIDE. He could actually improve and become something special. Why is our organization targeting players with zero upside? Does a 3-year OPS record of .299, .302, and .300 promise anything in the way of upside? Kouzmanoff is an average MLB 3b with the glove, has below average power, has no clue how to work a count or manage his AB, and has never given any indication that he will “come into his own”. What a joke! Why are we constantly picking up garbage like this—and giving up prospects to do it, no less?
      You mention that you were born in ‘77. It’s too bad that you missed out on this team’s Golden Era. I’m glad I didn’t. I watched this team go from the glorious summit of ‘72-’74 to being laughably horrendous later in the decade. It’s always boom or bust. There actually is something even worse than the bust part of the cycle, and that’s the phase we have been in for the last several years. The A’s are irrelevant, faceless, and boring. The brutal lineups that we trot out there every night hoping to somehow win 2-1 or 3-2 are bordering on unwatchable. We have exactly ONE position player (Suzuki) who would be a starter on a decent team. THE ENTIRE REST OF THE LINEUP IS FILLER!
       I would really like to see BB target players that have upsides. He seems to have made a point of that in this year’s draft, which is a step in the right direction. Anyone remember when we were mentioned as a potential trade partner a few years back for Cincy (for Harden or Blanton, I think), and the players Oakland was supposedly targeting were Joey Votto and Johnny Cueto? It sure would be nice to have “high upside” players like that on our team. Note to BB: STOP throwing $5 mil at junk like Crisp when you can run Rajai out there for $1 mil, and HE IS THE SAME PLAYER! Also, Billy, while we’re at it, STOP throwing money at retread has-beens (read: Sheets, Piazza, Nomar, Giambi, etc.etc.) even if Bud tells you we must spend the revenue-sharing $$ on payroll. And above all, STOP giving up talent for useless stiffs who will OBP .302 from the cleanup spot!
      There—I’m finished now. I feel much better.