Switching gears for a moment from all the acquisitiveness lately ... we've all been arguing about what Billy should do by way of roster additions (or deaccessions) this offseason; I got to wondering about the things that he shouldn't do--and whether some of those might be some of the very moves that some folks are arguing in favor of.

Personally, I think over-committing guaranteed money to a known high injury risk (Furcal) in addition to Chavez should be on Billy's "to-don't" list. I think it would be setting us up for a couple more seasons with Hannahan and Petit/Pennington starting on the left side of the infield (which I'm not opposed to per se) while throwing away money that could otherwise have been used to acquire a bat or arm. But that's just me.

And while I'm in favor of signing Dunn, Manny, or Teixeira, some folks would say that over-committing a ton of money to a slugger who's likely to be declining (possibly dramatically) after 2 or 3 years would be a cardinal sin given the team's current situation.

Then, of course, there's the option of doing nothing at all (mitigated somewhat by the Holliday acquisition), which I think we all agree shouldn't be on the table.

(And I'm excluding the ludicrous/improbable/vomit-and-aneurysm-inducing option of "Overpay for an elite free agent closer.")

So what do y'all think? What's the one thing Billy should definitely not do this offseason?

Whether you support the candidate who promises to bring more offense to the middle infield, or the one who promises to bring Bobby Crosby; whether you voted today for Ozuna or McCann; whether you believe that revenue sharing is "socialism" or that Jamie Moyer would be a terrific candidate for president in about 17 years; no matter what your leanings, chances are that baseball and the A's feel strangely insignificant today and I think it would be like ignoring the "Elephant in the room" - hi Stomper!!! - not to acknowledge this.

To put it into baseball terms, today will be a day of either Jackie Robinson or Pam Postema historic significance and that's not even why you care. You care because there are more important things in the world than baseball. And you're here because you need a distraction and you seek out a community of people who are equally in need of a distraction, are equally insane in their passion for baseball and the A's, and are so mentally and verbally unstable so as to be entertaining. We can help.

If the A's pursue a free agent to upgrade the offense, their choices all come with significant downsides for which they must overpay anyway. I kind of sort them (in alphabetical order) as follows:

Casey Blake
Skills (Blake is a good hitter and fielder, not a great one, and is not truly an "impact player")

Pat Burrell
Age (must pay for some decline years)
Defense (must add a poor OFer at a position where there are many good defensive OFers, and potentially good hitting OFers, who would be blocked.

Adam Dunn
Defense (must add a poor 1B/OFer at a position where there are many good defensive 1B/OFers, and potentially good hitting 1B/OFers, who would be blocked.
Left-handed (if you care)
Strickouts!!!!111 (sorry, I had to)

Rafael Furcal
Health (the A's, of all teams, should be wary of health questions)
Slugging (Furcal is the only player on this list who is not a real HR threat)

Jason Giambi
Age (even if he helps the A's get a bit better now, at 38 he will be gone by the time the A's expect to be special)
Defense (at 1B he makes your infield defense worse and at DH he forces you to play Cust in the OF)
Left-handed (if you care)

Manny Ramirez
Age (even if he helps the A's get a bit better now, at 38 he will be gone by the time the A's expect to be special)
Cost (Ramirez will be paid annually like Teixeira, but will have Manny's attitude and defense)

Mark Teixeira
Cost (the combination of Teixeira's ability and Scott Boras suggest that Teixeira will seek upwards of a 10 year and/or $200million commitment, creating a high level of risk and payroll allocation for even big market teams)

Interestingly the A's, whose already small (3rd lowest in MLB) payroll has recently shrunk even more with the departures of Harden and now Embree, could afford to put a whole lotta eggs in one basket and bid for Teixeira, who has the fewest negatives surrounding the combination of age, health, defense, and ability to balance an A's lineup. At 27 now, Teixeira will probably still be a good player in 10 years, when his annual salary will also seem more reasonable in comparison to how it will look on the day he signs his next contract.

It's an intriguing thought that the A's could make one huge splash, rather than several Blake/Giambi/Furcal type ripples, and could do precisely what they generally try to avoid doing: commit a high percentage of payroll to one player who might become the Jermaine Dye of five years ago or the Eric Chavez of today.

It's even exciting to think that by making one huge commitment one time, the A's could consider Daric Barton as expendable as Huston Street and the young lefty starter of your choice, and could dangle an awful lot of talent in order to solve deficiencies in areas such as SS.

And spending that kind of money on a single player, no matter what position they play or how the rest of your payroll looks at the moment, is almost always a mistake and is the kind of mistake that can haunt and cripple a team for years. Would it be this time, with this team?

Lewis Wolff, the managing general partner of the Oakland Athletics, was kind enough to sit down and do an interview with me last week.  The interview is long and pretty much covers all aspects of your team.  I want to just publicly thank him for giving me nearly two hours of his time and blatant honesty.

So rather than comment more on it, I'll just let you read the first part of what will be four parts that will run this week every morning on Athletics Nation.  I hope you find it as interesting to read as I did to participate in.  Enjoy Part I.

Blez:  First of all I want to thank you for sitting down with me.  It isn’t every owner of a sports franchise that will sit down with someone who runs a blog about the team.

Lewis Wolff:  It’s a very good blog and I know it’s the only one Billy (Beane) really looks at.  I look at it when I have time.  The only other one I look at is A’s new ballpark.  I think the guy is an architect or something. 

Blez:  He posts on Athletics Nation a lot.  His name is vertig0 on AN.  He’s pretty awesome and does a great job with the ballpark.  He’s obsessed with the process of the new ballpark getting done.

Wolff:  Well so am I (laughs). 

Blez:  (laughing) I can understand that.  Let me start off with a bit of a retrospective question.  You’ve owned the A’s for more than three years now and have had some serious peaks and valleys during that time.  2005 was a tough year, the team then goes to the ALCS in 2006 in a really fun and exciting year, and now a down year last year due to the record-setting injuries that led to the rebuilding which, in turn, led to a tough year this year.   How difficult has it been from an owner’s perspective to go through those peaks and valleys?

Wolff:  The difficulty comes from being a fan, which I am.  I’d rather win than lose.  Thanks to some great people here, I’ve experienced so much in the last three years that some owners who’ve owned teams for 20 years haven’t experienced.  It was a condensed experience.  We produced a winner and got to the final four which hasn’t happened with this team in a long time.  That was on my watch and it was because of Billy and all his guys.  That was a thrill but it didn’t really impact our attendance or fan interest at the ballpark as much as I had hoped.  I’m not criticizing them but we didn’t sign as many season ticket holders going into the next year as everyone in the league thought we would.  It taught me that demand in the area was inelastic.  I’m not sure if we won the World Series if we’d see a bunch of people sign up for the next year.  I mean we have 7-8,000, and I don’t even know if it’s that many, the Giants have in excess of 20,000.  What’s the difference?  The ballpark is the difference.  Barry Bonds was the difference.  In terms of record and performance, I think we’ve outclassed them since 2000.   It’s been a great learning experience.  We’ve had our ups and our downs and our payroll was over $80 million.  One year it produced a lot and the next year it didn’t produce anything.  I’ve seen the theory that Billy and his team have taught me about aging players and at my age, anyone under 60 is young (laughs).  I’ve learned a lot very quickly and I think the A’s are fortunate that we’re flexible.  We don’t have any real complicated decision making.

Blez:  What do you mean by that?

Wolff:  Well if Billy calls and says, “What do you think of this?”  I’ll ask him what he thinks of it and he’ll say it’s great and then we’ll just say, “Let’s do it.”  There’s no one else to interject.  Billy is very analytical and by the time he calls me, he’s analyzed all the potential results.  He’s got great people.  It’s a tight-knit organization and what I need to bring to it is an organization that everyone has a great time in if we can.  But still in a size that fits the market.  We’re the smallest two-team market in baseball.  I can’t go out and build a 60,000-seat facility.  In fact most of the ones that have added an extra 10,000 seats, such as Seattle, Colorado, Arizona, they’re ruing the day they did that.  We have to look at our market.  If we were by ourselves…

Blez:  It’d be different.

Wolff:  It would definitely be different.  But that isn’t the cards we’re dealt.

Continue reading this post »

You know, I'm kind of celebrating this move as I think Kotchman is better than people think.  Jayson Stark confirms it on ESPN as well.

VS.

Tex is better right now, but I think Kotchman is just coming into his own.