If you were paying attention to the A's home page over the past couple of days, and you were good at math problems, you might have been able to piece together a dose of what is going on in the mind of Billy Beane right now.
On May 4, Billy Beane was interviewed about the current hitting problems on the team. He said he expected the team to return to normal proven production eventually. But he also said this:
"We're not hitting for a lot of power right now, to say the least," Beane said.
Then, Mychael Urban follows up with the Reggie Sanders rumors today.
Sanders is not someone who will get anyone jumping for joy, especially at 37 years old. But remember, this is a guy who has gone many places where winning has followed. Not only that, he's got a career .488 slugging percentage. Eric Chavez, the A's $66 million man, has a .495 career slugging percentage. Granted, Sanders isn't exactly known as a prototypical A's hitter, but Beane himself says the A's are lacking for power. And Urban makes a great point that once Crosby comes back, it would make for a nice L-R-L lineup all the way down.
Of course, I still think Austin Kearns would be a better choice because he's cheaper and has a lot more career to go. But the cost for Kearns by comparison to Sanders would probably be astronomical.
My question is, how would many A's fans who've come to love the hustling Byrnes take to him being dealt? And would it help the team the way it would be intended to?