A's Get "Productive Out"-ed to Death in 4-2 Loss to Angels

might be injuries, overwork…
But seems like capitulation.
Seattle manages to beat Texas somehow, but the A’s are in extended Spring Training.

Sucks to see our team loose in Angel Stadium.

Now that Geren’s option was picked up I guess he’s good to finish under .500 again. 4 loosing seasons in a row – pathetic. We had a chance to at least take the season series against the hapless Angels. Not even that consolation prize.

As another disappointing season comes to a merciful end, can’t help but reflect on my first Athletics game many moons ago—with Ferris Fain at 1st, Pete Suder at 2nd, Eddie Joost at short, plus Majeski, Valo, Sam Chapman. With Leland Victor Lou Brissie, little Bobby Shantz and Joe Coleman in the rotation…and colorful old Connie Mack wiggling his scorecard all game long, moving outfielders around. It was a proud. gutsy team in a wonderful sport that would become a very big business. I wonder what Mr. Mack would say today about Emperor Nobody’s interesting comment questioning the point or maybe the pointlessness of caring about the Athletics franchise any longer. Hard to say. We are in a new era now. The MLB revenue sharing system rewards lack of success, making a franchise a good business to get into. If you look around, there aren’t many others like it. Win or lose, you win. You can do okay financially by lowering your payroll — dumping your best pitchers and position players in exchange for cheaper players plus cash considerations You’ll watch the losses pile up and the crowds thin out at home games while collecting those cash considerations and your MLB welfare checks….that should make you feel better. They welfare checks are designed to give the little guy a needed boost, using money mainly from the mighty Yankees. Throughout it all, don’t forget to keep spinning the story about building for the future, even if it starts sounding a little shopworn. That spin, plus entertaining ads. root beer floats and great fireworks, may be enough to prevent an all-out revolt among your fans while you continue to game the system. That is, it could be enough to prevent a revolt for a while, but maybe not forever.

is that these games don’t matter and they point out again and again that the A’s cannot get by with their current offense next year. They need to get two bats via free agency. They need to spend more money. If they don’t, I’m guessing I’ll give away all but two or three of my season tickets to clients I don’t really care about. I simply can’t watch this kind junk.

That’s quite an analogy, Mr. Melvin. Had the ownership group been willing to paddle harder in mid-season and plug holes in the offense by spending for a couple of big bats, the Athletics could have had a better shot at passing Texas and grabbing the divisional championship. But that might have meant tapping the flow of incoming cash—which isn’t always the slickest way to exploit a revenue sharing system.. So what we got instead appears to have been a safe business decision to tread more water. It will be interesting to see if the strategy changes in the off-season. Carrying your analogy a bit further, Mr. Melvin: At some point one almost has to stop the treading and start progressing , or else you run the risk of starting to weaken, flounder and drown.