Rosenthal: A's need to get moving or else

The Vagiants winning the World Series did not help us in these negotiations.

And I don’t just say that as an A’s fan. If the Giants want to get all in a huff over improving the overall quality of the sport, I say let them. Let’s make it a battle of resources and see who folds first.

They’ve already got most of the land purchased and are voting on Tuesday to fast track the last 20 mil of land purchase. Once they own the land and sign a deal with Wolff there’s nothing that moron Moonbeam and his cronies can touch… This potential RDA raid by Moonbeam is a speedbump for SJ’s plans but in the end since they’re not waiting for Selig, it’s not a huge one. And it may even push Selig into a corner since the RDA raid is the death knell for the embryonic plans in Oakland. If the RDA raid is approved in July it would immediately kill Oakland’s ballpark bid (be it Uptown, VC, or even at the Coliseum site) and leave SJ as the only viable option currently in existence. Unless some out of state city got interested all of a sudden.

it kills off the “green technology jobs corridor.” Karma is a bit*h!

http://www.mercurynews.com/nummi/ci_17100633?nclick_check=1

But it goes to show you that the right decision (in this case it was apparently allowing the A’s to develop the area) isn’t always a convenient solution.

Former Fremont City Council candidate Kathy McDonald, who lives across Interstate 680 from the proposed rail facility and fought a baseball stadium from going on adjacent land, said she wasn’t necessarily opposed to Union Pacific taking over the site.

“I knew that the railroads were here before I moved here,” she said. “I don’t know that a railroad yard will be such a tremendous impact to us as residents.”

lol

Rail yards typically are home to thousands of rail cars — some of which contain hazardous materials — that are being put together into freight trains heading throughout the state, Hunt said.

the Giants paid the A’s for it. I think that is fair.

He wanted the most money, The A’s couldn’t give him the most money. But the Rangers could, so he’s a Ranger. Anyway Boras is more than smart enough to realize that if the A’s were in the lucrative San Jose market then they could have offered Beltre a more competetive offer that would have driven up his price tag. The entire Beltre negotiation was complete brilliance by Boras, anyone who knew about the actual negotiations would have known that the A’s, among others, were pressing hard throughout the process (they tried to make ultimatum’s by pulling contracts of the table but everyone knew Beltre’s value was too high for such offers to be acceptable).
Boras seems to have respected the A’s effort, mostly because it made him more money by driving up his clients price. And the A’s seemed to be the team that fit Beltre the best. A FA upgrade at 3b would have been an efficient way for the organization to improve the team while also taking advantage of it’s salary flexibility. But in the end the team just couldn’t justify over $80 million for Adrian Beltre. I believe that Boras believes a San Jose A’s team would have had enough revenue to improve their offer to Beltre and therefore make him more money. Beltre is just the poignant example but really any FA would benefit from a small market team significantly increasing it’s profits. As the A’s would by moving to SJ.

It’s clear that the Coliseum is a huge detriment to any player wanting to come here. It’s a 1960’s stadium that hasn’t had any major renovations to the players amenities in 40 years. And unlike the few older stadiums (LA, Chicago, Boston), you’re not playing in one of the big markets to offset the downsides of the ballpark and its facilities.

you post the San José with the proper accent and you make me love you more.

isn’t beltre’s agent more relevant than “other agents”?

maybe i missed it but the only thing i see is agitation’s “coliseum shithole”… that is not a preference for a ballpark in oakland or san jose, that is a fact. the coliseum is a shithole. he didn’t say oakland was a shithole or that a new ballpark in oakland would also be a shithole.

(That the A’s somehow lack a winning mentality), is not something I have heard before.

The only part of it that has a quote from an anonymous agent is this:

Beane has contended the Coliseum — widely regarded as an outdated venue — drives players away. However, two agents — who each have represented major leaguers for many years — said the A’s stadium gets overblown as a factor that’s kept many free agents away.

“What is frustrating for them is that none of them believe that they can win (with the A’s),” said one agent, requesting anonymity. "A lot of players potentially are only going there to get their money. You look at Minnesota, other small-market teams, and they don’t have that attitude. They go in thinking, ‘We can win this thing’ “… and players don’t feel that way in Oakland.”

One sentence in that entire article from anonymous agents should have as much credibility as Scott Boras flat out saying what the issue is, that happens to coincide with what pretty much everybody else also says?

I don’t buy that one bit, sorry.

…should be necessary. Short maybe some nominal one-time payoff… which even then I think would be unnecessarily generous… nothing else in the form of a ‘deal’ should occur.

A weak A’s team no one want to play for, is one less team he can sell his products to.

A’s retro dual use stadium was a great family experience

retro? i don’t think you understand the meaning of that word. the tigers and giants ballparks are retro, ours is a decaying hunk of concrete.
you use “dual use” like it’s a positive thing… more teams should try out these awesome dual use stadiums, they’re all the rage!
what makes the coliseum a great family experience relative to other mlb ballparks? or do you mean compared to san quentin?
basically what you’re saying is wolff should be lying to a’s fans?

also how are wolff’s statements about the state of the coliseum responsible for the decline in attendance when those fans have been to the coliseum for themselves in previous years to see first hand what a great family experience retro dual use stadium it is?

The A’s can’t make upgrades to the facilities (like the locker rooms, etc…) because they don’t own the facility…they’re leasing it.

Is that accurate?

What did Meta ever do to you!?

tickets are cheap because no one wants to go

It’s not an “IN” thing to do. Giants games are…

Mind you, I go to 30 games a year, but…

Plus at least your Metrodome was downtown, and was protected from the elements. The Coliseum for good portions of the year can get darn cold (admittedly not Candlestick cold, but it’s not exactly pleasant). And it is in a neighborhood that is best described as an industrial wasteland, and worse described as bordering an urban war zone. And that’s saying something about a park to say the Metrodome was a better overall value for the team that played there.

It’s not like this was an article about where Adrian Beltre will be playing next year.

indeed, its actually extremely murky financially, i.e. who the hell pays for it? By comparison, SJ’s financing and process is pretty easy to see.

RDA is going to go soon. When that happens, Oakland won’t be able to acquire the land at all (even if they could). And then who would pay for the stadium anyways? The A’s certainly won’t. Oakland won’t. There’s no corp support in Oakland.

A stadium in SJ makes more money for ownership than a stadium in Oakland. Since they are ponying up a lot of the cash for the investment they want to make it the best investment possible. It’s possible they don’t think they can get the return on their investment in Oakland. Whatever the case, its their money and if they don’t want to spend on Oakland, that is their choice. If the ruling comes down that it has to be done in Oakland, they will likely sell the team to someone who wants to pay for that… and that person might not exist at which point we have to consider contraction.

The people are great, the view is good, and if you get there early you can sit in the front row.

the bleachers are amazing fun. Definitely try and get there a little early or meet the people who will save you seats, that’s proved helpful for me before :)

Until the Raiders start playing. Then it degrades into a pitted dead grass nightmare that would be passable as a little league field.

That would be a nice feature.

Why would other MLB teams vote for it? Because the A’s are taking their money in the form of revenue sharing. The A’s moving to SJ means another team off of the revenue sharing bucket, and perhaps putting money into it.

Also, NL teams would be more in favor of the A’s moving to SJ and cutting into the Giants profits than AL teams, as the AL teams have to compete against a presumably better A’s team, while the NL teams would compete against a worst Giants team, in your scenario. Either way, the teams will vote with their wallets.

The only thing I can see that would hold it back would be teams fear that it could be more precedent to teams moving into their territories (ie: NY), except that in this case, it is very much less relevant because the A’s are already in the area, and it would simply be making the Bay Area market the same as the other markets.

I have heard of San Fransisco threatening, but it ultimately is a complete bluff, as they would not even pass the sniff test in a court case.

Also, suing would ultimately help the A’s, as if the Anti Trust Exemption is challenged and removed, nothing would block the A’s from moving in the first place.