Oakland A's Offseason Thread

Official, Cust non tendered.

So long Cust, you provided some great moments in the past three years especially that first year in 07 where he came out of nowhere and had many clutch hits.

Jack Cust you will be missed...

I do have to say it's not a TOTAL LOCK that Cust can't be brought back at a cheaper price. If he has no offers from other teams to his likings, doubt that, I don't doubt in my mind the A's wouldn't bring him back to the salary he had this past season which I believe was around 2.5 million.

But I believe Cust will get an offer from another team in the upcoming weeks. If he went to a team that maybe looking to add a LH bat who could DH and play maybe once a week in the field, I've been reading around and ChiSox fans would like to see their team make a run since they'll be losing some bats like Dye and Thome this offseason. Cust plays in that joke of a park, I could easily see him hitting 30-35 HRs. I'd bet he loses at least a half dozen HRs playing at the coliseum the past few seasons and going to a very hitter friendly park could do really boost his offensive #s which should make Cust want to leave playing at the coliseum even more.

This is a joke.

Lew Woolf wont out any money into the team because he's so focussed on getting out.

Why can't we have a quality owner in the Bay Area for once?

I don't know about that.

Remember he was the owner in 07 that had the biggest payroll in this franchise's history, around 80 million.

Last year he went out and traded for Holliday who had a 8 figure salary albeit most knew he was a goner by either the trade deadline or after the season, signed Giambi/Cabrera/Nomar. Course those moves didn't work out other than Cabrera who hit very well the last 2-2.5 months he was with the team.

Also the A's have invested a lot of money in the international market with the likes of Ynoa, Solano, Leon, Rosario, Box and others along with actually opening up the purse strings in signing over the slot draftees in the past two drafts.

Wolff may be an ass with the way he's alienated the A's fan base with his attitude and antics since he bought the franchise along with Fisher but don't think you can say he hasn't spent more money to improve the team both at the major and minor league levels than at least the previous ownership.

For a hitting starved team swapping Cust for Fox over a 2 million dollar difference is just straight up being cheap.

Fox isn't even a poor man's Jack Cust.

Neyer makes his case that non tendering Cust was the right move by Beane.

http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/1761/an-era-ends-in-oakland

Lee to the M's, Matsui signs with LAA which finally could end that nonsense that he was gonna come to the A's as I saw no reason why he'd come.

Seems as the AL West is gonna be tough as hell next season.

Originally posted by ninerpride:
Lee to the M's, Matsui signs with LAA which finally could end that nonsense that he was gonna come to the A's as I saw no reason why he'd come.

Seems as the AL West is gonna be tough as hell next season.

With us as the doormat...great

Gotta wait a couple more seasons to see the A's as a potential legit contender.

The next season or two probably are what the 99 season was for the A's a decade ago.

I would jus love to finish at 500 in all honesty.

ML, well the new "editor" posted two pics of what a park at the southern part of the JLS would look like.

First one is what the view for a good part of the fans at the park would look like...



...well it wouldn't look like there would be any chance of "splash HRs" like it happens albeit rare now at both PIT and SF ball parks. The space between RF and the water is way further than I thought it'd be looking at recent aerial pics.


This pic would be the view from the estuary itself...

This would be the view from "JLS west" which would be a couple hundred feet away from the HT site along the waterfront.

Course in this pic, the orientation would then be moved from looking towards the water, albeit there's view of a power station in the way, to towards east where the view would be the Oakland downtown skyline and beyond the Oakland Hill.

Course I still think ultimately the A's will end up in SJ if they do get a new park.

These pics are nice and are something to dream about but in reality, the odds are better they move to SJ next to the Tank than any of these sites along side JLS/waterfront or near downtown Oakland.

Course to remember what the SJ park would look like, here...




...not as visually appealing but if there is the okay from MLB to move to SJ, sure there will be better looking pics of what the park and surroundings would look like.