Accepting the Unacceptable
by Taj Adib on Jul 31, 2007 7:17 PM PDT
Email
PrintAs I sat eagerly and watched the non-waiver trade deadline come and pass our battered and oft-beaten Green and Gold warriors without even an acknowledgment that they were once invited to participate in this frenzied day, it become blatantly obvious to me that the mantra for the 2007 Oakland A's must certainly be:
ACCEPTING THE UNACCEPTABLE
For instance:
- Should I, as a fairly easy-going, optimistic and patient fan simply ACCEPT that this season was virtually a total loss from the beginning due to an UNACCEPTABLE myriad of nagging injuries that were no secret to anybody in or out of the organization, but were allowed to (and/or are continuing to be allowed to) fester all season and severely and adversely affect both the tactical and strategic course of this organization?
- Or should I be made to ACCEPT that no team was willing to offer even a decent prospect for a very effective and professional hitter (Piazza) mainly because he was held off of the active roster for weeks in a ludicrous and UNACCEPTABLE attempt to re-hab him as a catcher, even though he was never prepared to catch this season and was ready to consistently hit major league pitching when we badly needed someone who could do exactly that?
- Or should I simply ACCEPT that Bobby Crosby will be our starting shortstop for the duration of his contract (when he's healthy) due to some mythical "potential" that he possesses even though he has put up thoroughly UNACCEPTABLE offensive stats for years now?
- Should we even blink an eye whilst ACCEPTING that no trades were made today involving our team, since it's blatantly obvious to anyone possessing a remotely informed baseball mind that our players would be thoroughly UNACCEPTABLE additions to any other organization and that the windows for them actually being ACCEPTABLE has long since been eclipsed behind their escalating salaries and free-falling stat lines?
- Should I, or any other fan, wholeheartedly ACCEPT the long-term addition of Jack Cust as our designated hitter even though he strikes out in a thoroughly UNACCEPTABLE 48% of his plate appearances and couldn't make consistent contact if his life depended on it?
- Should I, in my eagerness to always believe Billy Beane's word at face value, rush to ACCEPT that since this team is disproportionately skewed towards "pitching and defense" that it is inherently unavoidable that we will perennially field an UNACCEPTABLE offensive lineup?
- Should I, as a fairly rational disciple of statistical-type analysis, just ACCEPT that since Eric Chavez is still slugging .450 and has double-digit homeruns, he is actually still a key contributor to this offense and earning his ever-growing annual salary even though his on base percentage is at a thoroughly UNACCEPTABLE .306 and he can barely keep himself on the field?
- And most of all, should I just realize that since I am an Oakland A's fan, I just have to ACCEPT a certain amount of UNACCEPTABLE organizational gaffes since we just might be, in the immortal words of the Enlightenment thinker Brad Halsey, "a mom and pop operation"?
Well, who knows how much of this unacceptable-ness any human should rightfully accept without losing faith...I, for one, will just enjoy the ride and pose the questions and hope this team can answer some of them in the next two months so that we can hopefully get a glimpse of a product that we can all ACCEPT next season without losing our minds and our optimism to this organization for a second straight year.
51 comments
|
0 recs |
Do you like this story?
Comments
Did you write this paper
For an english 101 class?
He's right
Well, he's right.
I'd have added the Milton Bradley inexplicable DFA to his list, although that tends to get poo-pood with a snarky "that ship's sailed" comment or five.
It's no surprise this team sucks. Things would have had to break extremely right for the A's to have had a chance this year.
It's disapointing that nothing seems to be being done about it. I haven't attended any games since the season ran off the rails, and don't plan to. I won't pay for crappy baseball.
Neither will I. This team doesn't deserve...
...my money right now.
I have better things to do with it - like, oh, pay some bills.
Bravo! Bravo!
Someone in public relations needs to work from this level. My Grandma would grab her cross in glee after hearing you speak. And it is good!
by azagtooth on Jul 31, 2007 8:03 PM PDT reply actions
The Piazza thing is nonsense
and you know it.
Piazza has no position. The A's attempted to rehab him as a catcher TO GIVE HIM ONE. Without a position, only contending AL teams needing a DH would give up anything significant for him. There was exactly one team in that position this year, which coincidentally happened to be the arch-rivals of the A's. I.e. not exactly likely to give up a lot to get him. Two more weeks of him hitting wouldn't have done squat to change this.
And for that matter, there's no guarantee he won't be dealt; if the Twins make an improbable run back into the race, he'll clear waivers if the A's want to trade him to them.
[Disclaimer: This post should not be construed as a personal affront, nor to signify that I disagree with all points of the aforewritten diary. And, uh... go A's!]
*that's* nonsense, and you should know it
It's no challenge whatsoever to include Cust (3-base error tonight notwithstanding) and Piazza in the lineup at once if you want to pretend to contend throughout July; if you want to give up on the '07 season (which, I'd argue, Beane signalled with the Denorfia trade), you can just sit Cust's MLB-minimum, career-AAAA-disappointment ass on the bench and showcase Piazza.
Thinking that some GM would be rooked into believing Piazza would have been capable of catching is the height of naivete; and, yes, xbhaskarx, that was certainly just a baseline bargaining position by Beane, not a "real" rehab assignment. To think that the A's vaunted medical staff, with their sterling history of rehabbing arms (pitchers and position players alike), could have gotten Piazza in major-league catching shape after his shoulder injury and a 9-month absence from behind the plate borders on what I couold only express as a personal affront.
Plus, name me the contending NL teams in need of a front-line C. (OK, the Cubs ... heh heh heh.) Even with a month of successful rehab, Piazza hardly would have qualified as a starting C; so you're saying you'd market him as a backup C? And that would somehow garner better talent in a trade than Piazza as a FT DH? And that Piazza would accept a trade (cf his gentlemen's agreement with Beane for a verbal NTC) to be a backup C/PH when he's on a one-year, trying-to-extend-his-career contract?
I'm not saying that it was "the right move"
in so many words.
Merely that the A's had, as of May whateverth, absolutely zero chance of trading Piazza on July 31st no matter what they did. Rehab him as a catcher, bring him back as a starting pitcher, whatever. Didn't make a whit of difference. No team would have come barging down the door demanding Piazza if he had a couple extra weeks of hitting under his belt, for the fairly simple reason that no team (apart from, debatably, the Angels) that was in realistic contention needed him. The ONE chance the A's had to trade him was in the unlikely event that he could catch again, and that didn't pan out.
On 5/31, we had
zero chance of trading Piazza on 7/31? By all accounts, they nearly did yesterday. Maybe the Twins lost a couple too many games to feel they could be buyers; that was hardly destined at the end of May.
But that's not a point of contention I'd argue loudly. The only "DUH" point, to me, is the one Taj Adib made: The whole "rehab as catcher" thing was an absolute farce; one of the more pathetic charades this organization has pulled in years and years. It never made any sense in any way.
the only way it would make sense
is if the organization thought piazza was done, then it would make sense to not expose him to major league pitching by having him rehab. of course if that's the case, the appear to be wrong.
The Twins fading out of contention
was not the result of Piazza not playing. There's no reason to believe that had Piazza played, the Twins would have been in a position to trade for him. That's what I mean when I say it was inevitable-- not that at the time everyone knew it, merely that given the way things were going to work out, the A's were not going to have any chance to deal him.
That said, I don't think they were trying to deal him, I think they were trying to give Cust more opportunity to show whether he was a flash in the pan or not. That seems, IMO, to have worked out OK. The A's were trying to escape criticism for benching their Hall of Famer in favor of a 29-year-old career minor leaguer with some half-assed PR spin. Plausible deniability, you could say. It's par for the course in the corporate world, and you'd be naive to pretend otherwise.
wait, did i say it was a real rehab assignment?
maybe, i don't remember either way...
nah, that was a preemptive strike ...
... on your everything-Beane-does-is-"optics" hobbyhorse.
which, I'd argue, Beane signalled with the Denorfia trade.
BS.
Also, it was a challenge to put Cust and Piazza in the lineup at once. Bradley was still on the team when that decision was made (and about to come off the DL), and Kotsay was coming back, and it was worth seeing if he could hit at all since he's signed for next year. Piazza wasn't hitting at all when he was healthy at the beginning of the season, and was coming off an injury.
At the time, you said:
Unless mikeA has a better explanation, I think the catcher thing with Piazza is a (smart, sensible) Beane conspiracy to simply stall for time on the roster decisions.
And I had no better explanation.
Piazza is a good, not great, hitter with no position, and is not worth all of the bellyaching.
owned
i prefer your preemptive strike
from june 19.
also see my response to nico above.
remedial reading comprehension
"It's no challenge whatsoever to include Cust (3-base error tonight notwithstanding) and Piazza in the lineup at once if you want to pretend to contend throughout July" [emphasis added]
Bradley was waived June 21st; Kotsay was activated June 1st (and demonstrably sucked for the entire month, thereby proving that he still can't hit despite the fact that he's signed through next year; and his defense has been poor, too).
So, If Bradley wasn't on the team in July, and Kotsay sucked even more than he ever did before, unless we're using Crosby Rules of Reading Comprehension (elide the parts that don't support your argument), I don't see that your argument holds water.
What's more, the very post to which you link has my projected lineups that keep Cust and Piazza in the lineup together and still presume Bradley and Kotsay on the 25-man roster.
I still hold to the roster-stall explanation; I just think Beane left that card sitting on the table too long.
As for your last sentence, I basically agree -- but I think that if Beane had activated Piazza sooner, he could have increased his trade value.
I think it made some sense to
see if Kotsay could put up reasonable numbers. His defense has declined, yes, but he is still far better than Swisher in CF. I think at the time it was a close call on performance (Piazza's expected OPS advantage over Kotsay vs. bad defense in CF and RF), and it was worth seeing if Kotsay could be counted on at all next season. Additionally, Stewart was on a tear throughout late June/early July, so why would we necessarily even expect that Piazza would outperform him? Hence, "no challenge whatsoever" is false. I'll admit that elissions were made, though....
Also, you had Piazza playing against LHPs, and sitting in favor of DJ against RHPs, which is hardly a ringing endorsement.
I think Piazza should have been activated a week or two before he did, but at that point it was too late for this season anyway. I agree that his trade value probably could have been increased (possibly by being able to trade him to Min. before they fell out of contention.)
i have to disagree with the kotsay bit
Piazza vs RHPs
Have you looked at his splits the last couple years?
He was saying that if Piazza is in a platoon ...
it wouldn't do much for convincing folks that he has real value, not disagreeing with the idea that Piazza is better against lefties ...
His 2006 was particularly extreme (the sample size was pretty small) but he has always had a fairly severe platoon split. The sample size is extremely limited but he's actually reversed that this year.
Milton Bradley
Should I accept all of the following:
Bradley < Kotsay
Bradley <Cust <br>Bradley <Stewart <br>Bradley <Swisher <br>Bradley <DJ <br>Bradley <Buck</p>
I can accept 2 of the above... I cannot accept 4 of them.
Should I accept that this Lineup Sucks more...
than the current one:
- Buck
- Swisher
- Bradley
- Cust
- Piazza
- Chavez
- Ellis
- Murphy
- Suzuki
by Colorado Fan on Jul 31, 2007 10:04 PM PDT up reply actions
Bradley WARP3: 3.0
Stewart WARP3: 6.9
Andrew Brown WARP (approx.): 0.9
WARP, shmWARP
Bradley: 320/405/523
I'm sure you ready to bring up health, but don't bother. They've both been healthy for the last month... a stretch in the schedule where the A's really needed Bradley.
by Colorado Fan on Aug 1, 2007 10:04 AM PDT up reply actions
Bradley's been healthy for the Padres
Whether he would have been healthy for the A's or the Royals is a whole other question. Methinks his health and his moods are not so different sometimes.
which makes one wonder
what happened in the clubhouse, the trainers' room, the front office, or wherever, that might have caused Bradley to not love the A's organization as much as he quite clearly expressed last season?
I'm tired of Cust.
I think I'm supposed to be all excited about his power, and accept that "powerful hitters can also strike out a lot", but I'm not excited (or even confident), and I don't care to accept that. He's either hot or cold, and his defense is dodgy. And, sorry to be even more subjective than I normally am, but there's something about him that just doesn't agree with me. I don't know what.
I'd gladly sacrifice a few homers for...
...more consistent hitting.
According to Jeff at Lookout Landing
that something is something he has in common with Bonds, McGwire, Giambi, and Canseco.
I wonder how.
Cust reminds me much more of a Dave Kingman/Rob Deer type.
Cust, like McGwire, Bonds and Giambi
walks a lot.
Kingman and Deer didn't.
Cust isn't as good as Mac, Bonds or Giambi, but he is much more in their mold than in Kingman/Deer's.
Steroids help you draw walks?
[scratches chin]
Interesting...
Personally I think Cust was more likely on the juice earlier in his career. Apparently back then he was a lot meaner. He seems to have mellowed out a lot these days.
It makes sense circumstantially-- players who are on the edge of breaking into the majors are more likely to use than players who have more or less lost hope.
But given that there's no evidence either way, I'm not going to discount his accomplishments this season.
In Soviet Russia, Cust tired of *you*
If I'd been sitting in the bleachers last night,
Cust would've been tired of me by the middle of the 1st inning.
I don't find it hard to accept ...
that this team has contended for eight consecutive years, making the playoffs five times.
I do find it hard to accept that fans outside of New York cannot deal with the fact that no team (outside of New York) can be good every single year, not even the Braves.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I was a fan of the A's in mid-90s, when Ernie Young was patrolling center field ... in Las Vegas and Ariel Prieto was our ace.
Six straight losing seasons were certainly a drag ... but they sure made 1999 and 2000 pretty damn sweet.
I kind of feel like a lot of fans on this site are getting spoiled ... like fires are essential for renewing an sustaining a forest, a little bit of losing is equally essential to remind baseball fans what makes us love this great game.
Not Spoiled
Of course every team cannot be in playoff contention year in and year out. I think 90% of readers on this site acknowledge that. But what those readers, myself included, can't accept is when a disastrous season (like the current one) occurs based mainly on a preventable series of events orchestrated over a long period of time.
I've done my best to highlight what I've felt were the preventable organizational miscues that led to our losing ways...not necessarily bitching about the losing ways themselves. If the team was bad, I'd say, "we deserve to lose." But this team, and especially guys like Piazza, don't deserve to lose or even lose playing time due to ill-advised management decisions.
In contrast, take the 2005 season. From what I can recall, there wasn't a whole lot of bitching and moaning about that team, even though it was a below-.500 squad for much of the season, finished with less than 90-wins and missed the playoffs.
AN readers realized that that particular squad was not expected to reach the playoffs or contend for a division title. But even in that environment of low expectations, Beane went out, shook up the team a bit, added some key pieces for the 2006 (Kennedy, Payton) and worked the vets in well with the rookies to formulate a strong 2006 squad.
I haven't seen that same type of pragmatism this season in any personnel moves. And that's what I'm concerned about, not our Win-Loss record.
Except for a few teams (the Royals)
that aren't really trying -- virtually every team that is out of contention is out of contention because of bad decisions and bad luck.
Yes, you should accept that injuries happen and sometimes they derail seasons and that an unhealthy Chavvy is much better than a healthy Marco Scutaro.
Yes, you should accept that BB took a calculated risk to expand the market for Piazza's services -- it didn't work out -- it happens.
I don't think BB will accept handing Crosby the starting SS job going forward. There'll be competition for the position in '08 -- it's just not something that is reasonable to fix on the fly midseason.
You should absolutely accept that, with the exception of Kotsay (I don't get that, either), all of our players worth keeping are around for the medium to long term and that the players who aren't contributing won't be here long, anyway.
You should accept that Jack Cust, to this point in the season, has struck out in 42% of ABs ... as long as he's on pace for 45 hr and 150 walks per 162.
You should accept that our offense probably won't be great, but, as I've outlined separately, projects to pretty close to league average, going forward. Nearly everything went wrong this year with the offense this year ... it happens.
You should accept that a league average hitter who plays plus D is a valuable player, even if he isn't as good as we've all hoped he would be.
You should absolutely accept that mistakes happen and the A's make fewer of them than most.
Fair Enough
But don't I still have the right to point out mistakes when they are made and not just "accept" that they happen sometimes.
If I make a mistake at MY job, I get yelled at, and I'm fairly sure that at least on one or two occasions, people around me have stated, "I will not ACCEPT that mistake happening again."
Now, I'm not saying that Beane should be fired if we continue to lose games this year, but you as a fan have the right to criticize mistakes that are made or are being made and to expect better results going forward.
And for the record, my concerns are not that we've had a "few injuries" this year, it's that we've had a system-wide problem with injuries and systems of dealing with injuries for the past few seasons that have not been addressed sufficiently, in my, and actually some players', opinions...THAT is something I can't accept, not just that Chavez misses a few games here and there.
And you admit that our offense is "probably not going to be great"...well, why can't it be with a little initiative? I'm not saying that it can just be turned around with two months left in the season and the walking wounded out there everyday, but it really is asking a lot for fans, not to mention our pitchers, to watch this team consistently lose games 1-0, 2-1, 4-3 for months (or arguably, years) at a time.
I just want to see some initiative being taken to address some of these issues. Will I accept that sometimes they CAN'T be addressed in the short or medium term? Yes...but will I turned a blind eye to organizational-wide problems that need to be rectified? No...
I am concerned about health issues as well ...
That said -- I'm not sure how much of that is a convergence of a couple realities -- younger pitchers (who make up the bulk of our decent pitching prospects) are far more at risk of injury than older pitchers; and accepting risk in order to give the potential for greater rewards involves, well, risk, sometimes it's with attitude (Milty), most of the time it's with health. Over the last couple of years, in response to market dynamics, we have increased our investment in these two groups. Things might not seem as bad if we hadn't made those decisions.
Our offense IS likely not going to be great for 3 reasons.
- Offense is easier to project. The kind of players that great offenses are built around get drafted in the first handful of picks. High end pitchers can be found much later.
- We need our picks to work out at a high rate in order to feed our major league team, we cannot accept the risk of more raw potentially great players, because they are far more likely to be busts.
- In order to secure good value from our drafts and other acquisitions, we focus on flawed players (a Jack Cust or Nick Swisher for example) who have the skills to contribute at a high level in certain areas, despite their deficiencies in others.
As long as we can continue developing some of the best pitchers around, though, our offense does not need to be great.
Your final statement is somewhat contradictory -- you demand immediate action to fix these problems, while agreeing that it might be impossible to fix these problems in the short term. To me, that's the kind of thing that the Giants would do.
Health, etc;
Well, I'm not that concerned about our "young pitchers" who seem to be hurt all the time, since really the only two that are both "young" and a "pitcher" are Street and Harden.
Harden is a case unto himself, while Street is just such an under-sized body that it's no wonder he gets himself into health trouble.
But what about Duchscherer? Not "young" by any standard. Or Chavez? He's not young nor a pitcher. Or Crosby, same deal, except he's actually broken form and taken issue with the kangaroo doctoring going on in the trainer's room. Same thing with Brad Halsey and Joe Kennedy. These guys are not 21, 22, 23, 24 year old pitching prospects blowing out their arms with bad mechanics. These are established players with more or less normal health histories who have been coincidentally struck down whilst playing a year or two for the A's. Seems fishy and yes, unacceptable to me.
As far as "taking flyers" on injured players, Beane actually has a pretty good track record with that, especially in the last two years, with both Frank Thomas and Shannon Stewart staying abnormally healthy for most of their time with the A's. So that's not really an issue.
And as far as being contradictory in my last sentence, what I'm trying to get across is that I'd like to see, in the short term, at least a public acknowledgment of the problems this organization is facing and maybe a plan for a long-term way to deal with these issues. And in the short term, a more proactive approach to get "younger, better and more explosive", i.e., trading away veterans at the deadline, might not be a bad thing either, as opposed to just accepting that "Oh, well, even though the offense wasn't that good when people were healthy, we're going to just go with the flow and keep everything as-is since we're a pitching and defense-oriented team anyway."
That attitude just seems like you're setting this team up for failure - at least in the offensive department. Why not trade from a strength (pitching) to get some offense...in the medium or short term. (i.e., getting three A-grade position player prospects with plus bats for Blanton does not seem like that bad of an idea for starters).
re:
Kotsay, although he was acquired a while ago, is also an example of a player acquire cheap (or so we thought) because of his injury history, so is Piazza, so was Milty ...
By young pitchers, I was actually more thinking about prospects than Street/Harden.
As I've detailed elsewhere, I think we've got something pretty good here. The pitching staff and 'pen are first rate and the offense, with average health and a little luck, could easily be in the top half of the league next year. That's a recipe for success.
I'd be reluctant to be too interested in trading from our strength. Having a strength is a good thing. It's better to be strong in one area and less strong in another than not to be strong anywhere.
I agree
I've been an A's fan since 1980, and have stayed a fan through the fat and lean years. The A's have been in the playoffs or with a good chance to get in til the end, since 1999. That's a good run.
(My first childhood team was the Mets -- and believe me, they majorly sucked for years...made the good years all the better.)
On Acceptance...
Should I, as a fairly easy-going, optimistic and patient fan simply ACCEPT that this season was virtually a total loss from the beginning due to an UNACCEPTABLE myriad of nagging injuries that were no secret to anybody in or out of the organization, but were allowed to (and/or are continuing to be allowed to) fester all season and severely and adversely affect both the tactical and strategic course of this organization?
The A's had several players with lengthy injury histories entering Spring Training: most notably Harden, Crosby, Bradley, Calero, and Kotsay.
The injuries the A's have actually suffered have been worse than should have been expected. Kotsay missed the first two months, Johnson missed the first month, Bradley missed almost all of the first 3 months, Loaiza has missed the whole year, Duchscherer is out for the year...
What I don't get is the "allowed to fester" part. Are you saying the A's should have dumped the injured players, or that their medical staff should have prevented the injuries and/or sped up the recoveries? I don't see any evidence for the latter, nor any support for the former.
Or should I be made to ACCEPT that no team was willing to offer even a decent prospect for a very effective and professional hitter (Piazza) mainly because he was held off of the active roster for weeks in a ludicrous and UNACCEPTABLE attempt to re-hab him as a catcher, even though he was never prepared to catch this season and was ready to consistently hit major league pitching when we badly needed someone who could do exactly that?
When the A's badly needed a hitter, Cust was hitting much better than we could ever have expected Piazza to. With Cust's terrible OF defense, I don't think the A's lost anything in terms of performance by holding Piazza back.
Piazza may have had more trade vlaue had he come back earlier and hit as he has now. I think he'll still be traded by the August 31 deadline. But an averagish DH who cost as much as Piazza would just be a salary dump, without much of a prospect coming back.
Or should I simply ACCEPT that Bobby Crosby will be our starting shortstop for the duration of his contract (when he's healthy) due to some mythical "potential" that he possesses even though he has put up thoroughly UNACCEPTABLE offensive stats for years now?
By "years now," I assume you mean the past season and 3/5ths.
Two years ago today, Crosby had an .825 OPS through 250 PA, and he was playing great defense at SS. He was coming off a slightly disappointing rookie year and a tremendous year at AAA. At 25, he was emerging as a star. Then, he was bad and hurt in 2006 and bad and healthy in 2007. Giving up on him after his bad 100 games of 2006 would have been premature.
This year, the A's still don't have a reasonable replacement in the system (Murphy's batting projections don't have him much above Crosby, and his defense is supposedly much worse). If Crosby's sucking again in the middle of next year and the A's have done nothing, I'll feel you.
Should we even blink an eye whilst ACCEPTING that no trades were made today involving our team, since it's blatantly obvious to anyone possessing a remotely informed baseball mind that our players would be thoroughly UNACCEPTABLE additions to any other organization and that the windows for them actually being ACCEPTABLE has long since been eclipsed behind their escalating salaries and free-falling stat lines?
The players the A's were looking to trade are mostly journeymen who haven't seen their salaries escalate with Oakland. Or are you talking about Chavez, Kotsay, and Crosby?
And I think several of the players the A's were looking to deal would be perfectly acceptable on other teams, but the A's didn't feel they were offered enough for them. Piazza, Stewart, and Kennedy could all be Type B free agents and return compensation picks this winter, so the A's shouldn't just throw them away for any old offer.
Should I, or any other fan, wholeheartedly ACCEPT the long-term addition of Jack Cust as our designated hitter even though he strikes out in a thoroughly UNACCEPTABLE 48% of his plate appearances and couldn't make consistent contact if his life depended on it?
He has a .916 OPS! Where's the fire?
A strikeout is about 1/100th of a run worse than a BIP out. They hold is batting average down, but his walks and power more than make up for it.
And he's only K'd in 34% of his PA this year.
Should I, in my eagerness to always believe Billy Beane's word at face value, rush to ACCEPT that since this team is disproportionately skewed towards "pitching and defense" that it is inherently unavoidable that we will perennially field an UNACCEPTABLE offensive lineup?
Does anyone believe that? Has Beane said anything like that?
Should I, as a fairly rational disciple of statistical-type analysis, just ACCEPT that since Eric Chavez is still slugging .450 and has double-digit homeruns, he is actually still a key contributor to this offense and earning his ever-growing annual salary even though his on base percentage is at a thoroughly UNACCEPTABLE .306 and he can barely keep himself on the field?
As a stathead, or any type of fan, you should accept that Chavez has been a slightly below average 3B this year, once defense is factored in. He isn't coming close to earning his salary, but he's no black hole.
- And most of all, should I just realize that since I am an Oakland A's fan, I just have to ACCEPT a certain amount of UNACCEPTABLE organizational gaffes since we just might be, in the immortal words of the Enlightenment thinker Brad Halsey, "a mom and pop operation"?
Yes, you absolutely should accept that the front office is not perfect. And, as an aside, I think Halsey has legitimate beef.
Comments For This Post Are Closed
Secondary Sidebar
User Tools
FanPosts
Community blog posts and discussion.
Recommended FanPosts
Recent FanPosts
Baseball Nation Recent Stories
In Association With
Big League Stew - MLB - Yahoo! Sports
- Chris Johnson’s glove webbing had a Spidey sense at Coors Field — for one play, at least
- Jonathan Lucroy breaks hand after suitcase falls during search for sock
- The Juice: Long Adam Dunn homer punctuates Chris Sale’s 15 Ks, Mark Trumbo goes deep after Jered Weaver goes down for Angels
- Leyland begs media to make umpires ‘accountable’ for bad calls (VIDEO)
- Get a grip: Reds’ Todd Frazier loses bat, still connects for home run (Video)
