Not to go all vegasgm on you guys (or whoever has irked the community the most with criticism of the trade), but c'mon.  Who doesn't ask for more talent than this for...talent such as this?  Let's not all be Beane apologists here.  Sure, there are minor salary gains here; perhaps Sean Gallagher is better than Chad Gaudin, let alone Harden, perhaps other dominoes will fall and another trade will be made in short order...but in a vacuum, this is nothing better than a bad trade.  With the inclusion of Gaudin, Beane caved into the needs of a contender that isn't really all that good.  Post-Sabathia, the Cubs are at best second-best in their division--only so because of STL pitching injuries (to their top three starters, basically).  There was no need to make this deal at this time.  No rush.  The irony here is that the Cubs' panic benefitted them.  It netted them one of the five best pitchers in baseball.  Harden, Santana, Webb, Halladay, Sheets.  So I would say.  That may in fact be in proper order.  You do not part with someone like that for subpar talent such as this.  You demand elite talent.  This is better than 2007 Josh Hamilton, and the Reds issued an ultimatum for Volquez in that deal, and had their request honored. 

There is no proper rationalization here.  As a longtime AN poster/reader, I respect iglew/mdl and Taj Adib, but I cannot agree with their justifications of such a mediocre (at best) return here.  Given the current wild card/divisional contention, as a fan, this is downright unacceptable.  There is really no upside here or later.  Where does Gallagher fit in 2009?  As a #3, at best?  If Gio and Simmons were to get hurt, or something?  And unless some team REALLY overvalues Patterson (Dusty, where are you), that acquisition is so useless.  Murton is basically a recalamtion project at this point--potentially good, but hardly (and here I use "hardly" loosely, and perhaps for pun value...) a centerpiece of a trade for a bona fide ace...and he other guy, well, let's invest in yet another young catcher, because we haven't already done that all too many times before, right?  Hopefully he's 40 pounds overweight, too. 

Fucking horrible trade.  A's win in spite of this bullshit.  Go Oakland.  Trade Street and Blanton for nothing, and win more.  Front office idio[syncra]cy.

Here's a short story I wrote recently.  My fiction debut, if you will.  Why not post it on AN?

"The Market of Convenience"

So this man walks into a convenience store.  7-11.  Maybe.  He asks for a few lines of cocaine and a box of Cheez-Its.  Man behind the counter rolls his eyes.  Such a predictable order, especially in this part of town.  

Continue reading this post »

I watched the A's today.  No I didn't, actually.  Somehow they won tonight, even though Swisher shouldn't have played.  Luck luck luck, bork bork bork.

But I watched them a few weeks ago.  They sucked.  The manager is bad.  He really IS the luckiest man alive, Bob Gehrig.  First of all, he lets Kendall play.  This guy can't run, throw, catch, or hit.  He should've played JD Closser that day.  

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Alright, even though it would be really easy to leave them as I copy-and-pasted them, in alphabetical order, I'll organize the teams into their proper divisions:

AL East:

New York Yankees Over 96.5 (-115)    
  Under 96.5 (-115)
Boston Red Sox Over 91 (-125)    
  Under 91 (-105)
Toronto Blue Jays Over 86.5 (-110)    
  Under 86.5 (-120)
Baltimore Orioles Over 73 (-115)    
  Under 73 (-115)
Tampa Bay Devil Rays Over 67 (-130)    
  Under 67 (Even)

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Not going to read the diary, sorry Taj Mahal.  That's quite a structure you've built there in India/Atlantic City, but I'm going to have to ignore it.  I'm cheering for this year's team.  F*** 2009.  F*** 2010.  F*** 2011.  We'll be restocked by then, motherf***ers.  The GM advantage is too much to ignore.  These morons can't ply their trade.  Let's face it.  We're by far the smartest fan base in all of professional sports, worldwide.  No doubt.  We then hold our leaders accountable.  We're in good hands, and shiuld they falter, we seize on that s***.  I'm sick of long-term prognosticating.  We're not equipped to do that.

If AN took over the A's, we'd win the division every year.  Anyone doubt that?  Speak up.

Drunken Socialism reigns supreme.  Always has, always will.

Eventually I'm going to catch up to the Super Bowls...only 37 more entries to go.  If I can make these drunken posts on frigid Feburary nights, than it's surely attainable...by May.  Or perhaps by the middle of March if I dedicate myself to making it a daily routine (neither a bad idea nor out of the realm of possibility...)

American football.  So excting.  So exciting that...it had me asleep by halftime.  Not even the artist fomerly known as...could awaken me from my slumber.  That guy's really really overrated, too.  Unless it's the Bills or has fantasy implicationas, I can't watch the NFL anymore.  It's so generic, so predictable, so antiseptic, if my mind is functioning well enough to use that word properly.  Coaches gameplan 18 hours a day 365 days a year to basically achieve a stalemate.  Even the most exciting athletes in the league (Reggie Bush, Vick, Vince Young, Steve Smith) aren't that exciting to watch because the context in which they perform is so fucking...contrived.  What we're really watching is a bunch of coordinators with laminated playsheets covering their mouths shouting the same shit into Motorola headsets, which has been dissected to death by their opponents in the week prior to he game...I'm sorry, but the NFL has nothing to offer me anymore.  It doesn't excite me.  I've seen it all.  

Back to the real national pastime.  Is it just me, or does the "collective consciousness" of AN gain ground on Billy Beane with each passing interview?  I feel as though this may be the one where we have actually surpassed him in our astuteness and savvy.  Derspite his acknowledged ability to adapt to an ever-changing market, he's still clinging to philosophies that really serve as crutches: it's only my job to get us to the playoffs, I can only exert so much control, the manager can only exert so much control, etc.  He was a visionary at a time, but his time may have passed.  Now, he's stuck in a mindset that may render him average in a couple years' time, maybe more if GM's continue to exhibit the glaring idiocy that they have to this point.  Basically, he's not willing to re-evaulate and further refine/perfect his stances on the minute aspects of the game that he could exert further control over...like in a short series.  He might need to cede some control, because he's obviously not going to make that change willingly.  Has he never seen a fucking WinExp graph?  He certainly can handle the long term, but the short term...he acts as if there's NO way to affect the outcome from a managerial standpoint.  That pisses me off, and strikes me as ignorance.

I am currently writing in the intro copy.  Why it is referred to as such, I have no idea.  I would like some clarification.  Anyway.  Someone just IM'ed me with an Erstad-related link, and the comment "the A's are due for a 75-90 type season".  Here's why this person should go fuck himself.  First off, no major league team plays 165 games.  Tiebreakers are not best of three series; that's the only way you're getting 165.  And 75-90...the Yankees would have to go 152-10, and the Tigers 151-11, to have the A's be in contention at 73-89 or 74-88.  

Second, all my non-A's-fans friends (which is to say, everyone), is anxiously awaiting a slip-up by the near-perfect squad I (and you) root for.  Geographically, I'm in Yankees/Red Sox/rare miscellaneous AL East team fan territory, so as you can imagine, frustration is abounding.  Meanwhile, the one thing I can count on in my life, above everything else, is the A's being in contention, no matter what names comprise the 25-man/40-man/bottom-5-caliber-non-40-man rosters.  I can see where jealousy may arise.  But these people should know better than to try to pounce on a certain signing that even 95% of us faithful diehards are questioning.  As I pointed out last thread, the most plausible explanation, for me, is that Kotsay will now be shopped, perhaps to the White Sox for Danks (that was a completely unfounded guess).  

Ok, finally, here's what I think.  I think, as currenlty constructed, the A's are not a 75-win team, but perhaps a .500 team.  We need more to compete this year.  The Angels, for all their managerial ineptitude, are probably ten games better than us right now.  The Rangers are about equal, and the Mariners are one good move away from being able to say the same.  Let's face reailty here.  We need to gamble to compete this year.  To me, that means starting Gaudin, trading a starting pitcher + Kotsay for hitting, and reshuffling a bit.  Although last diary I somberly called for an end to Mets' trade rumours, I feel like seeing a bunch of reasonable but completely groundless rumours in this diary.  I'll start: Kotsay, Kiko, Kennedy, Kurt (Suzuki) for Johnny Damon.  Gamble on Gaudin, and let the rotation sort itself out by the end of May.      

I had about a paragraph of criticism for "The Scarlet Letter" prepared, until a pop-up arose and demolished it.  I have no ability nor the will to reconstruct it, so I will leave it at this: Nathaniel Hawthorne is the most overrated and overread American author of fiction this side of Papa.  Maybe Hemingway included, even.  That book for which he is known...yeah, it should not be on high school reading lists across this Every Child Left Behind nation...no one understands the historical significance of that classic, and I would dare say it's not worth the effort to understand.  For high schoolers anyway.  Alright, I re-created some semblance of a paragrapgh of criticism of the aformentioned one-hit wonder of fiction, which I did not even intend to do.  the first version was better, but this was decent given the frustration of losing solid prose to a fucking random pop-up.  

I am currently listening to the song "Dogs" by Pink Floyd, off their Animals album.  Sorry Nico, no "Ponies", only Dogs, Pigs (three kinds), and Sheep.  Phenomenal album, best Floyd in my opinion.  "Dogs" is 17 minutes, so beware those with ADHD.  Recommended to everyone else.  Kind of elaborates on the Orwell "Animal Farm" allegory, or at least relates to it...which, as a work of fiction that may appear on high school reading lists, is about ten times as worthy as "The Scarlet Letter."  Puritans no longer exist, if the Mennonites are ignored, while totalitarians, or derivations thereof, do, so...Animal Farm and 1984 live on.  Hawthorne, you can try to resurrect your collectivist utopia all you want, but I will in Orwellian Democratic Socialist spirit repudiate you.

Ok, to the A's.  Erstad bewilders me.  I've put some thought into this, and I really am perplexed.  I want to see how this plays out.  I really think there's a likelihood that he starts in the OF and DJ sits...and also a likelihood that Kotsay is traded, which no one has mentioned.  I think Beane may very well see Erstad as a "Kotsay-replacement-player" for 1/7 the cost, or so, and then will shop his shell of his former self for prospects.  If he does that, and lets Erstad replicate Kotsay's production for a fraction of the cost, it's ingenius.  No two ways about it, if he does that, then Beane's done a phenomenal job.  But if anything else is driving this signing, pure depth included, then I am not a fan.  

So I've gone out drinking 6 of the past 9 nights.  Am I an alcoholic...maybe we'll poll this.

Ok, next topic, as Max Kellerman once said on Around the Horn.  Mets' trade rumours (British spelling because it's so sweet)...let's let them die down, until there's reason to let them be resurrected.  Beane and Minaya, though at opposite ends of the spectrum for GMing ability, are both among the few most active GM's in the league, transaction-wise, so naturally these rumours will surface.  But let's not feed the NYC media machine.  There's just as good of a chance that Beane makes a trade with the Indians as there is that he trades with the Mets, in my opinion.  Definitely don't see Lastings starting 2007 as a teammate of Barton's in Sac, giving the Oakland offense a run for their money.

Beckham to LA...awesome.  I will see him in Columbus as soon as the schedule is released.

I am going to write a book, of the science fiction genre.  I am also about to help launch a massive Internet endeavor that my friend and fellow visionary dreamt up.  Keep an eye out for further details.  Sobriety tends to aid the delivery of such details.  For now, all I will say is that my book's underlying premise is quite depressing.  Hester Prynne symapthists may, irnoically enough, be drawn to it, heh.

Go Oakland.  Listen to Animals by Floyd.  Way better than Dark Side or even The Wall.

Writing about actual dreams, as opposed to inspirational visions of the MLK variety, is not the most masculine activity to undertake, but I'm going to fearlessly proceed.

Rarely do I remember a dream after waking up.  If I consumed any significant amount of the, um, "drugs" I consume on a semi-regular/regular basis (caffeine, nicotine, alcohol; with my tolerance level, basically a milligram of any of those is significant...6 foot 1 and a buck fifty, I guess you can call me a lightweight), then there's a much greater chance that I'll remember a dream.  If I don't indulge in any sleep-altering substances soon before sleep, though, the chances of remembering a dream are slim to none.  And if I have one, it's probably going to involve people that I'm close to, or wish I was close to, heh.

But today, December 12th 2006, I had a dream about the Oakland A's.  This has never happened before.  I don't claim to be any expert in the area of the subconscious, but still, I'm wondering why, of all times, I dreamt about the A's now.  Sure, I was on AN last night, made a few posts, but that's kind of a regular occurrence.  I did sleep excessively (over 12 hours...I don't have responsibilities), so that's more REM sleep, more potential dreams...

Anyway.  All I really wanted to do was share the absurd nature of the dream (more absurd than having the dream itself).  What I first remember is seeing Swisher drive in a couple runs, adding to a huge A's lead.  As always as an NRAF, i was watching Memorex-style, not live.  I don't know who the opponents were; it's a dream, so we'll say that it was the both the Angels and the Yankees, combining forces to try to keep their mutual pesky, low-payroll nemesis out of the playoffs.  Yes, it was definitely a cross between those two teams.  And it was the 163rd game of the year, playoff berth on the line...  

Ok, so the circumstances weren't clear, but I only got a brief glimpse of the game action anyway.  Then I was transported to a large, seemingly living box score (this should be listed as a side effect of reading the book "The Game of Numbers" by Alan Schwarz, which I'm in the process of doing right now), which had the familiar (for me) Yahoo format.  I saw the score was A's Lots, Opponents Few, and I was happy.  I excitedly scrolled down the box score, which apparently by now had been deprived of its life and shrunk to its conventional size on my computer monitor, to see who had done the damage during the part of the game I missed.  First, I checked the heart of the order, only to be surprised that there was no production there...nothing out of Chavez and Crosby (yes, the latter was in the heart of the order in my dream).  Wow, lots of runs scored for there to have been hitless games by the key guys.  Then I saw a couple names who had ridiculous numbers in the RBI column, I think like 7 for the first guy: Scott Spiezio and Bobby Kielty.  Even subconsciously I knew this was strange: Spiezio?!  He's on the 2007 A's?  Beane must have been desperate to fill out the roster.  Kielty had a huge game, finally?  Fuck yeah.  Basically the box score was overflowing with crooked numbers around the abyss of Chavez and Crosby; the 7 other guys had had huge games.  I didn't find out who most of the names were; but that's only right, isn't it?  There's a lot of time before the season starts, and the status quo never lasts long in Oakland.    

The time has come, the song is over, thought I'd somthing more to say...

I am going to try to create the most non-sensical diary every written here.  With members like Mychael Urban to our credit, that may be too difficult a feat for me to accomplish but I'm still going to make an attempt.

The A's are going to win the World Series this year.  The probably now defunct Blue Ribbon Panel is going to interrupt the World Series in the middle of Game 3 and award the honor to the A's, out of respect for their overcoming financial advrsity.

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FUCK THE ORIOLES