Well... that was disappointing.

I am of course referring to the complete and total lack of action on the part of the Oakland A’s as the July 31st deadline passed. This is a team that has holes in the roster, holes that cannot be filled internally unless the players who are currently digging said holes can turn it around. And seeing as how the primary culprits (Eric Chavez, Bobby Crosby and Mark Kotsay) have all been varying shades of disappointing for going on two years now it seems beyond optimistic to think that a turnaround is forthcoming in 2008. But more than that, I’m tired of giving them more chances. I’m tired of wasting my time and the time of some very good players on this roster. Meanwhile, the likelihood of Beane & Co. going on a spending spree in the coming off-season seems even more remote than the possibility that Bobby Crosby will quit chasing sliders.

But I’m not without hopefulness.

There is still time for Billy Beane to enact the more critical details that I brought up in the first part of this series. The Blanton non-trade could still come to fruition in the coming off-season, so its failure to materialize in the last 24 hours is not cause for too much alarm. (Although I have to admit, I don’t see how Beane can expect to get a better deal in December than he would have gotten during a July playoff push. I worry that Beane might have missed the optimal moment to deal Blanton. But moving on...)

Phase 2

Step 1: Get Piazza moving dammit!

Let me make this crystal clear. Trading Mike Piazza in the next 10 days is the single most important thing that Billy Beane can presently do to improve the future of the Oakland (eventually Fremont) A’s. This seems at odds with my previous diary, in which I said I didn’t care where Mike Piazza got traded to or who the A’s got in return. Well, I still don’t care where Piazza ends up or who we get in return, I’m more interested in the 3-5 draft picks the A’s could sign once they freed up Piazza’s salary.

Today’s history lesson: How the Oakland A’s have spent their draft signing bonus budget for the past 5 years.

Year    Total # 1st Rd Picks    Budget

2003      2 1st/1 Sup 1st        $4.9 million
2004      2 1st/2 Sup 1st        $6.3 million
2005      1 1st/1 Sup 1st        $4.8 million
2006      0 1st/0 Sup 1st        $1.6 million
2007      1 1st/2 Sup 1st        Est. $4 million spent

As you can see, the A’s broke the $5 million mark once in the last four years and that came when they had 4 1st round picks to sign. This year, with only 3 1st round picks to look forward to, it is likely that the A’s budgeted no more than $5 million to sign their draft picks. Expecting the A’s to dip into ownership’s pockets and up their signing budget in order to give above slot bonuses to draft picks with signability issues seems the height of foolishness. However, if the A’s could take the roughly $2.5 million they’d save by trading Piazza and slip it into their draft budget... well, that’s money that has already been allocated by the ownership towards baseball operations. Now we’re talking about moving money from one pot to another, I don’t see why Beane would have to ask permission to spend money he’s already been told to spend.

What the A’s need to do more than anything is restock their farm system with high ceiling talent and that kind of prospect costs money. The A’s currently have 22 unsigned draftees from this year’s draft. Two of those draftees, 12th rounder Gary Brown and 21st rounder Stephen Porlier, were considered talented enough to be taken in the first 3 rounds. There were even some whispers that Brown could be worthy of a Sup 1st round pick. The problem with both is signability. Brown is a high school player who signed a letter of intent to Cal State Fullerton; Porlier is a draft eligible sophomore for the Oklahoma Sooners. It will probably cost anywhere from $600 – 900 K to sign Brown away from Fullerton, which is pretty much the going rate for a Sup 1 pick but well above the norm for your typical 12th round pick. Porlier doesn’t have quit that kind of leverage but he’d probably be expecting at least $350 K to sign. Again, that’s the going rate for a high 3rd round pick (which is roughly where he’d have been picked based on talent alone) but considerably above slot for a 21st round pick.

The A’s could spend the remainder of their original signing budget on Brown and Porlier alone and there might not be enough left to cover even that much. Adding the savings from Piazza’s salary gives Oakland much more flexibility and would allow them to sign more young talent. Now there are some folks who worry about spending too much money on draft picks, who are afraid that doing what I’m advocating will end up costing the A’s more money down the road as the bar will raise for the next crop. There is some merit to this argument, but bare in mind that the A’s are paying Jay Witasick $1.5 million to pitch for the Devil Rays. They cut a $1.3 million check to the Padres so they’d take Milton Bradley and put him in their outfield. And last but certainly not least, the A’s gave the Chicago Cubs $4.5 million to make Jason Kendall a platoon catcher. Oakland is spending $7.3 million (almost 1/10th of their Opening Day Payroll) to make 3 players ex-A’s! If you’re worried about financial Armageddon then spending a few extra dollars on draft picks is not the slippery slope you need to worry about.

This is a time critical action. The A’s will lose all rights to sign their draft picks on August 15th. Having to put Piazza through the waiver wire before dealing him complicates and slows down the trading process. I’m giving the A’s 10 days to move Piazza because they’ll still need some time to negotiate with their draft picks and get them to sign. So the sooner Mike Piazza becomes an ex-A the quicker things can happen with players who could contribute to the long term success of the franchise.

Step 2: Add Michael Madsen, Gregorio Petit and Jason Perry to the 40-man roster.

There are currently 38 players on the 40-man roster and if Loaiza comes back in August that number will bump to 39. This is why I was so anxious to put Chavez on the 60-day DL as part of Phase 1. I want to see Madsen get a cup o’ coffee in the Show, I want to see if he’s got what it takes to help Oakland in 2008. He’ll probably be nearly maxed out innings wise, so he might end up pitching out of the bullpen ala Joe Blanton in 2004. If I’ve counted right, Petit will need to be placed on the 40-man roster before next season anyways to keep him from being snagged in the Rule 5 draft. I think Petit has a good chance of taking over Scutaro’s role as the primary back-up infielder in 2008. I just don’t see the wisdom in paying Scoot $2 million or more next year when he struggles to handle the defensive responsibilities of 3B and SS. Keeping Scutaro as a back-up in 2008 smacks of laziness, nothing else. Again, a cup o’ coffee would give Petit a taste of what life is like in the Show and it would provide a means to measure just how far he’s come and how much more work he needs to put in to stay in the big leagues. Jason Perry is something of a sentimental choice and if there was some kind of roster crunch that necessitated someone else being on the 40-man than so be it. I believe in rewarding the organizational soldiers who end up bouncing between minor league stops to accommodate the parent club’s needs. Brad Ziegler could also be a choice to fill this spot, although I would like to see how well Perry’s bat can handle big league pitching come September.

Step 3: Call up Dan Meyer in September and put him in the rotation.

Meyer is already on the 40-man roster, so when rosters expand in September I’d like to see Meyer get a shot in the big league rotation. Gaudin will probably be gassed so it shouldn’t be too hard to open a spot for Meyer. I want to see how far away the A’s are from actually getting a return from the Hudson trade. And if he actually shows something in September then it will be easier to trade a starting pitcher for a bat (or two) in the off-season.

Admittedly, Phase 2 is more about evaluating the existing personnel than it is about improving the roster. It makes no sense to plan ahead and pursue players, be they free agents or trade targets, without first having an accurate picture of what the A’s have in place. Figure that out and move from there.

Phase 3 opens the day after the World Series ends.