The real knock most people have is the size of the contract.  I haven't seen anyone say "Loaiza is going to take Saarloos's spot in the rotation, and that makes us worse".  Rather, the whining has been that Beane has "overpaid".  Which always strikes me as funny since there's not a single person on this board that has any idea what the realities of the baseball free market are when compared with the person who signed the deal (Beane).  If the signing made us worse then I can see getting upset.  But as it stands, why not just be happy about the fact that the team just improved?

So grover, don't be so blue.  This is a good thing.

The only thing that worries me is Loaiza's BAA vs. Zito's.  Zito has a career .228 BAA vs. Loaiza's .285.  I don't know how much this affects performance, but it only seems logical that a higher BAA would be worse.

What I will point out is that after June 1, Loaiza was 11-6, after starting the season 1-4.  I didn't see anyone point to that upward mobility in Murph21's original diary, and I think it's worth noting.

In years past, Loaiza was a notoriously fast starter, going 18-5 in April in his career.  So for him to go 0-2 and 1-2 in April May, respectively, only to bounce back and go 11-6 to close out the season is a good sign.  For comparison, after being 1-6 through May, zito went 13-7 to close the season and we were all pretty happy with that.  I think Loaiza will be alright, though I do think this points to a Zito trade.  If not, I'll be interested to see Beane's next move.

Home ERA:  2.86
Away ERA:  4.71

Factor in that he is moving out of the NL, and into a division that can hit....it may spell trouble.  But you know what, Billy has proven more than once that you gotta run with him so that's what I'm gonna do.  

Regardless, even if he does become somewhat close (maybe a 4.35 ERA in a bad-case-scenario), Beane still manages to package and trade him off a year later for a quality player (whine about Kendall all you want but he's a top-10 catcher, and if Wolff doesn't mind to pay his and other's salaries who gives a damn how much he gets? Loaiza is just another sign he will pay those salaries.)

DON'T FORGET TO VOTE FOR BILL KING FOR THE FORD C. FRICK AWARD!!!

Only 3 days left!!

It's possible that the A's pull another deal, perhaps for an outfielder or a prospect? When we exercised Payton's option, we also speculated that he could be a trade chip for those who lose out on the free agent bidding war going on. In any case, it's clear that we have some good trading chips should we decide to use them. If not, we have the best rotation in baseball. I can't ask for that much more.

Let's just say we need to keep up the diversity of nationalities among our starters.

I could handle almost anything else, but not this.

That Billy bought up Loaiza as part of a plan to decrease the supply and in turn increase the demand for his other chips.

Who knows if this is what Billy actually meant to do, but it's actually a concept I've thought about in regard to investing in the stock market.  Hear me out:

Because the purchase/sale of stock affects the price (basic supply/demand), I always wondered if one could buy 100 shares of a stock that he already owns 1000 shares of (to have an effect on the market, it would have to be a much higher quantity of shares, but for argument's sake, bear with me), at a higher price than the stock was currently trading, so as to give the impression that the stock he held was worth more.  Then, after driving up the price, the owner could sell all 1100 of his shares at the high price and take the profit.  The problem I've found with investing in the stock market like this is that there is usually too large a quantity of stock out there for 1 individual to successfully have an effect like this.

But because there is a much smaller pot of available quality free agents out there, Billy seemingly has successfully done what individuals can't do in the stock market!  He bought up the available talent in Loaiza so as to drive the market higher, and then he can unload his SP (either in Zito, Kennedy, Cruz, or all 3) while the price is high.  Because there are so few free agents out there (compared with shares of a company's common stock) and players are not nearly exchanged as often as stock shares, the market takes a long time to catch up with the activity taking place, and Beane should be able to dump his excess supply for a large margin of profit.

Again, who knows if this is what Beane was trying to do, but it seems plausible, and in my eyes, if intentional, genius!

He was traded from Texas to Toronto in 2000, and he was horrible for Toronto in 2001 and 2002, the last two years of his bloated contract.  He then signed for nearly the league minimum with a ton of incentives for the White Sox in 2003 and lo and behold he had a monster year.  The White Sox then gave him a huge raise and he got lazy again and they shipped him to the Yankees.

Last year was the last year of his contract, so he decided to work hard, pitch well and hope some sucker GM would sign him to a big deal.  Guess what?  Billy fell for it.

I promise you AN, you will learn to hate this deal.  As I said, I'm not the one saying he's lazy, I heard it from a person high up in the Blue Jays front office.  And the numbers do seem to correspond.

There are so many possibilities, but this does not seem the inexplicable deal that the Hudson deal was or the garbage for garbage deal that the Kendall/R&R was.

Perhaps Beane consulted with Kendall before making the move.

Considering how the pitching staff gave high praise for Kendall this year, could it be that Kendall promised Beane that he could "up" the productivity of Loiza?

I'd say that the Athletics simply need greater strength in the staff, as the A's got down to a crucial, clinching game, and who did we have? Kennedy, and it looked like BP during that game.
(personal obs.)

Kennedy is great in middle relief.  Same with Witasick.  Cannot expect all starters to remain all healthy for six months.  Look at the Cubs, with Wood & Co.  Everyone said they were the most dominant staff in MLB.  All went bad.
Morepitchingmorepitchingmorepitching.

The most obvious possiblity is that Billy is going to trade Zito and that signing Loaiza means that he does not have to get a young starter back as he did with Hudson and Mulder last year. In this scenario, he believes:

Loaiza at 3 yrs/$21mm + players in Zito deal > Zito at 6 yrs/$63mm (I tacked 10% on to the rumored Burnett deal and added it to Z's '06 salary) + draft choice

Beane would be spreading a smaller amount of financial risk over more players, which generally makes sense for a low-payroll team.  However, Zito's age (six years younger than Loaiza), performance and durability means that if you have to put all your eggs in one basket, Barry is a good candidate. For me, this scenario only makes sense if Beane has an obviously compelling Zito trade all but sewn up, with multiple attractive options in case this signing leads another GM to believe that Zito must be traded now.

The other potential scenario is that Beane didn't like the offensive alternatives for the money spent on Loaiza, so he decided to make a reasonable deal to improve the pitching, then trade non-core pitching assets and prospects (Saarloos, Kennedy, Melillo) to plug the DH hole cheaply (maybe a Choi/Kielty platoon?). Then the A's can take their best shot with Zito in '06 and still feel good about their rotation  in '07 (and, by the way, net one extra draft pick: -1 for Loaiza, +2 for Zito).

Whatever happens, it will be fun to watch Billy play it out.

I think Kennedy definately gets traded though... that deal never made sense from a roster perspective in 2005, and Kennedy still has little to offer the A's in 2006.  But on the trade market, he's a ~27 year old left-handed starter at $2mm per with decent but not great stuff... a #4 type with potential to be a #3 on a mid/low budget team.  Someone will find that valuable in this market...

The question isn't whether this puts the A's in a good position to acquire talent by trade. . . it puts them in a great position to acquire talent. They now have a surplus of quality players (all at below market contracts) in the two most grossly inflated markets in baseball: relief pitchers and starting pitchers.  The real question is: what does BB do with the opportunity?  If he stands pat (as some have suggested) then this signing is a colossal waste of talent and money. If he gets a young, inexpensive ML ready bat that keeps our offense looking better for years to come, this signing makes all the sense in the world (Moorad should have his head examined if he gives up both Jackson and Quentin for Zito, but maybe we get one of them plus a younger prospect with upside).  Beane can now let the market come to him and know that, worst case scenario, he'll face only a minor downgrade in our staff.

Dodgers get: Manny Ramirez
Padres get: David Wells
A's get: Ryan Klesko (who would supposedly waive to go to Oakland) and Dodger Prospects
Red Sox get: Barry Zito, Jeff Kent, JD Drew and Dave Roberts

Maybe BB has every intention of signing Z to an extension, but he needs bargaining chips to trade for that young power bat.

Loaiza + propspect/s might be enough to get it done.  Especially with the team knowing they would have Loaiza locked up for 3 years at a relatively bargain price.

Just thinking out loud... and I haven't heard anyone mention this possibility.

Cool! I may like this Loaiza deal after all. Very deep rotation.

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylt=AvgtbWqP1LOxLwFx_rFzzeERvLYF?slug=ap-athletics-loaiza&prov =ap&type=lgns

Balance: 1L
bk- 0
wp- 4
e0 #1WR pitcher-2 starter(6)@    
hold +0
relief(3)/N@  

Whaddat mean?

--Throws slightly better against LH hitters
--Doesn't balk much
--Expect four wild pitches in a season
--Better than average starting pitcher
--Good for 6 innings starting, subject to fatigue after that
--Good for 3 innings of relief (my use for him right now)
--Average at holding runners to base
--There's some junk related to which field he's pitching in and whether he will get an out or give up a HR which I don't want to know about since I bought a computer for a reason

I picked him up today so we'll see.  Have been having problems with relievers (not to mention Barry Zito repeatedly melting down in the first 2 innings), so maybe this will help.

This is also a good time to state that my team, the Alameda Athletics are in second place in the Central Division in TSN_8503, 7GB a suspiciously-lookalike Ahn-hels team called the Los Angeles Burds.  Who just swept 3 from me, causing me to drive to work in a funk today.

Any Strat-O-Matic baseball fans in AN?

Here's my team:
Hudson, Tim
Harden, Rich
Mulder, Mark
Haren, Danny I
Zito, Barry
Contreras, Jose
Affeldt, Jeremy
Loaiza, Esteban
Lidge, Brad
Mesa, Jose
Herges, Matt

Miller, Damian
Flaherty, John
Broussard, Ben
Ward, Daryle
Uribe, Juan
Hill, Bobby
Chavez, Eric
Tejada, Miguel
Crosby, Bobby
Lugo, Julio
Cruz, Deivi
Matsui, Hideki
Kotsay, Mark
Suzuki, Ichiro
Cruz, Jose

I can't even trade players on my Roto Babeball team.  

"So, if (and it's a big IF) Billy Beane decides to trade Barry Zito, he actually creates stability in the rotation for the next three seasons with Harden, Haren, Loaiza and Blanton locked up." --AN.com

Whoa, whoa, whoa... Stability??? LOAIZA!??? Those two words usually aren't used in the same sentence. I do not know the financial situation of the A's, but if they trade Zito now or do not re-sign him, this signing is CRAZY! You'd be better off giving Zito 10M/year then Loaiza 7M/year.

I'm not totally against this signing, but you've got to understand that Loaiza's track record shows he is either going to be really good or really bad--and odds are really bad. Not only were his Home/Road splits uninspiring, his WHIP over his entire career has been dreadful. The only way I can see this signing working out is if the A's feel the big foul grounds will be extra benficial to him somehow. He doesn't walk a lot and obviously puts quite a few balls in play despite his great K/9. Perhaps there's something they know what we don't. Perhaps they hope they can get that one great year out of him and trade him. But that's asking for a lot, so my initial reaction: not a quality signing.

I have to say this was a shock, but I like the signing.

Sub 4.00