Dry-rot up Above

I think that a lot of what we perceive as A’s fans is guilt by association. To start with Geren, he is one of those career devotees to an organization who worked his way up as a manager. He was given a pass for several years in Oakland because of the multitude of injuries which hampered his ability to field the best team available. While managing Sacramento, he still was in a constant flux of seeing players come in from lower levels but he also had access to the best prospects which he had to assess and develop over time. It is reasonable to see that his communication with Beane was at a higher level due to their friendship, but that communication was something that Beane could trust, juxtaposed with Beane’s relationship with Macha who understood player productivity and brought a level of intelligence and independent thinking that didn’t mesh with Beane at times. Macha, a left brain predominant thinker took his engineering skills to baseball and woulnd’t cloud his decisions with emotion. Geren isn’t overly emotional but he comes across as both humble and aloof at the same time. His lack of response to Street’s comment was actually commendable. His lack of communication with Balfour appeared unacceptable.

All of this is to say that while I yelled, “FIre Geren Now” after the first game, he will be our manager until October. I doubt it will be any further.

Beane is guilty of his own mystique, which if her were to asked about it would probably laugh. “In Billy we trust” has gotten us to the point where his moves are scrutinized not so much for his forward thinking but currently for the sting of losing three incredible outfielders who represented the next generation of Oakland position players who have made an impact with their skills. The often injured Nelson Cruz, Carlos Gonzalez and Andre Ethier sting us every time we hear their names mentioned on ESPN or any other outlet. It’s easy to say that maybe we shouldn’t have traded for Bradley…but the point is Beane gave up the very chips that his eye for talent was able to bring into this organization or draft. I blame Beane for a lack of patience which he has given to pitcher development but was lost after Tejada made his way through the organization.

The perspective of drafting college talent has waxed and waned over the last several years but bringing Grady Fuson back was a good move. Let’s just hope we have enough talented people to help Eric Kuboda continue to make good selections.

I like Lew Wolf. Many here don’t. But his "guilt by association " which was alluded to in Monte Poole’s article this morning is interesting. Does Bud Selig hesitate in not acting in favoring a ballpark in San Jose b/c he doesn’t want to be accused of favoritism with Wolf? I think that’s more public perception than anything else. What’s wrong is the Giants " territorial claim" on a space of land 45 miles away from where they play and the lack of conviction on Selig’s part to end this mess. The A’s in San Jose makes business and MLB sense by increasing the opportunity for more baseball revenue…for every team! The reactionary stance by the Giants is myopic and selfish at best, but that is not surprising. I argued recently with Glenn Dickey about this and he still had to point out that the Bay area is the smallest two market area in the country. Rubbish, Bay Area fans will follow success and they have proved that over the past three decades when the population wasn’t as robust as it is now.

I frankly don’t think anything drastic will happen via trades this year, Geren getting fired or Wolf getting the stadium we all covet. Status quo continues this saturday morning.

If the A’s had “traded” Beane to the Red Sox for Youkilis and had DePodedesta take over a’s GM back in 2002.

Draft better. Why not hire more people to draft better? I’m looking at the A’s first round draft picks since 2000… it’s pathetic. You can buy a better staff for a few million dollars and get better hitters with more bang for the buck than trying to sign a bunch of old bums every year. $10 million on over slot players is better than signing bums for $10 million every season.

Interesting note: This link strangely has the A’s drafting Matt den Dekker in 2011. http://espn.go.com/mlb/draft/history/_/team/oak

all characterized by the following: superior pitching, defense, power and speed. They rarely had anyone hit for a high average, but they were always among the league leaders in homers, ERA, and stolen bases. They were also fundamentally sound.

I think Beane’s Moneyball philosophy is ossified and time has passed us by. Time to return to what works in Oakland.

well-documented managerial deficiencies on the field is the potential impact on the A’s ability to attract top talent. The outspoken denunciation of Geren by Huston Street, a former A’s star, indicates that Geren’s reputation is not exactly a well-kept secret around the major leagues. Knowing about Geren’s rotten managerial style just might be an even more critical factor than the stadium issue in dissuading potential highly sought after stars such as Beltre from ever accepting a lucrative offer to join the A’s…..even if they outbid other teams. The renewal of Geren’s contract just might be the “kiss of death” for the A’s future free agent negotiations as well as his poor managerial performance.

if you wrote a post like this the Beaneiacs would respond with flame after flame. So things have changed or the Beaneiacs have gone to that great spreadsheet in the sky.

Beane is competent. Drafts and trades are mostly luck. Beane had quite a run for a few years. Now he has the reverse Midas touch with all but starting pitching. Would a change help the A’s? Sometimes change for change’s sake is actually a good thing. Right now I’d say there’s a staleness to the A’s.

Fire Geren. We are average drafters as an organization. That really isn’t that much of a problem. The draft is kind of a crap shoot with a lot of uncertainty.

a new manager and let’s get some wins.

and someone made a good point: Macha did manage Milton Bradley well

There needs to be tactical skill, but it’s mostly about motivation, getting players to play hard and be serious, and managing egos.
Scioscia seems to be solid. Gardenhire has had a lot of success. the old timers: Leyland and LaRussa are still good.
Who would be a good manager for the A’s?

Problem is, for whatever debatable reasons, he doesn’t have the desire to be. Remember the days when he vested so much in the team that he had to ride the exercise bike during games to calm down? God that seems so long ago. Or when he would actually watch the games when Howe was here and question moves? All fans want to know ownership cares, and Beane needs to show us something to keep our faith.

I can’t really fault him for having interests besides baseball, and it seems unfair to imply that he doesn’t care about the A’s simply because he has a passion for soccer. As far as drafting offensive talent, I think we do okay, but a shakeup in our organizational philosophy might be nice. If only Beane had a skilled assistant that he was grooming for the GM position the way Alderson had Beane.

Now to preach at the choir: Fire Bob Geren. Out of a cannon. Into the sun. I think the bottom line on him is that he’s just not a terribly intelligent guy in general, and he specifically lacks anything but superficial baseball intelligence. He’s had years to learn on the job, and now it is time to give up on him. Unfortunately, I think we’re stuck with him for the remainder of the year. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for 2012.

“Incompetency’s” ?
Then there’s a sentence that starts with “Further” and has way too many commas.

I’m sorry, I stopped reading after that. The level of writing really shouldn’t be on the frontpage of this website.