Oakland Athletics thread

The only positive right now is that it's not an expensive free fall like last season.

I haven't been able to catch all the games, but it looks like they haven't really gelled.
On offense, there are some good individual performances, but they aren't stringing together hits often enough.
On defense, they seem to blow the routine plays.

Oh my, the A's bullpen actually came through, did NOT choke away the lead, and won a 1-run game. And Gray on the hill tonight, could it possibly be...a TWO GAME WINNING STREAK?

Sorta doubt it, but if it is, it'll be like the second if it ain't the first.

Originally posted by socalfan21:
f**k Billy Beane. Seriously,

Aside from the Donaldson trade, none of the offseason trades are the culprit for this atrocious start. It's the pitching and defense, and most specifically the bullpen. They've been just straight up terrible, and they were mostly all here last season as part of a great bullpen.

Originally posted by captveg:

Originally posted by socalfan21:
f**k Billy Beane. Seriously,

Aside from the Donaldson trade, none of the offseason trades are the culprit for this atrocious start. It's the pitching and defense, and most specifically the bullpen. They've been just straight up terrible, and they were mostly all here last season as part of a great bullpen.

AN, where probably 80% of the posters are Beane bootlickers...imo it's not as simple as saying X replaced Y and here's X's stats compared to Y's. Spreadsheets don't pitch, hit, run...and team chemistry is something very real, just ask the Giants. That said, I agree the bullpen has been the biggest factor in what's happened to the A's, and that can't be "blamed" on Beane.

Speaking for myself, my overall frustration with Beane is the constant roster churn, not letting a core group of young players develop...of course Beane's built-in excuse is "small market, can't afford it", and it's pretty much BS. Which is why I'll be shocked if Sonny Gray is still on this team in 2016.

Originally posted by DelCed2486:

Originally posted by captveg:

Originally posted by socalfan21:
f**k Billy Beane. Seriously,

Aside from the Donaldson trade, none of the offseason trades are the culprit for this atrocious start. It's the pitching and defense, and most specifically the bullpen. They've been just straight up terrible, and they were mostly all here last season as part of a great bullpen.

AN, where probably 80% of the posters are Beane bootlickers...imo it's not as simple as saying X replaced Y and here's X's stats compared to Y's. Spreadsheets don't pitch, hit, run...and team chemistry is something very real, just ask the Giants. That said, I agree the bullpen has been the biggest factor in what's happened to the A's, and that can't be "blamed" on Beane.

Speaking for myself, my overall frustration with Beane is the constant roster churn, not letting a core group of young players develop...of course Beane's built-in excuse is "small market, can't afford it", and it's pretty much BS. Which is why I'll be shocked if Sonny Gray is still on this team in 2016.

Is that Beane though, or the people who sign the paychecks?

Originally posted by DelCed2486:

Originally posted by captveg:

Originally posted by socalfan21:
f**k Billy Beane. Seriously,

Aside from the Donaldson trade, none of the offseason trades are the culprit for this atrocious start. It's the pitching and defense, and most specifically the bullpen. They've been just straight up terrible, and they were mostly all here last season as part of a great bullpen.

AN, where probably 80% of the posters are Beane bootlickers...imo it's not as simple as saying X replaced Y and here's X's stats compared to Y's. Spreadsheets don't pitch, hit, run...and team chemistry is something very real, just ask the Giants. That said, I agree the bullpen has been the biggest factor in what's happened to the A's, and that can't be "blamed" on Beane.

Speaking for myself, my overall frustration with Beane is the constant roster churn, not letting a core group of young players develop...of course Beane's built-in excuse is "small market, can't afford it", and it's pretty much BS. Which is why I'll be shocked if Sonny Gray is still on this team in 2016.

Not everything can be blamed on Beane but trading Addision Russel last year is indefensible. Here was a team with a big hole in the middle infield that had a top 5 minor league prospect in all of baseball and someone that could be controlled for 6 years.... and they traded him. You would think that a team with limited resources would value someone like that much more since free agency was so far off.

Originally posted by TheRambler:
Is that Beane though, or the people who sign the paychecks?

Honestly, I think it's mostly Beane...now I'm not saying they have a huge TV deal, or that they DON'T play in a s***hole ballpark, or that they can spend like the Dodgers, Rangers, Angels, etc. But the A's have money...by Forbes' reckoning they went from about $470M in 2014 valuation to $725M this year, and I think Bloomberg would give them an even higher number.

John Fisher is majority owner, he's one of the richest owners in MLB. Thanks to being cheap and revenue-sharing, the A's routinely turn a profit. Lew Wolff has basically said the contracts are up to Beane, who by the way, has a small but not insignificant ownership stake in the A's, thus he's technically "signing paychecks" and has a vested interest in saving money.

That's not to say every trade, every decision he makes is with an eye towards his own pocket, but it's not a fact to be ignored. I think if he would've went to Wolff/Fisher and said hey, let's spend some money to keep Donaldson and Cespedes (or whoever), they could've got it done. But he's got this compulsion to constantly seek out "value" that sometimes works but in the grand scheme hinders developing a nucleus to build around.

Originally posted by Ninerjohn:
Not everything can be blamed on Beane but trading Addision Russel last year is indefensible. Here was a team with a big hole in the middle infield that had a top 5 minor league prospect in all of baseball and someone that could be controlled for 6 years.... and they traded him. You would think that a team with limited resources would value someone like that much more since free agency was so far off.

I admit that at the time I was okay with the Samardzija trade as I thought he could be enough to get them to the WS, although I did realize they gave up a lot in Russell. Now if we're talking Cespedes or Milone-for-Fuld....

But water under the bridge...A's will take their lumps this year and maybe for another 1 or 2 seasons, just hopefully when Beane starts the inevitable fire sale in a month or two he gets a few nuggets who can help the A's win a few years down the road....before, of course, they themselves are dealt.

I also didn't mind the Shark trade. And things were still good for the A's after that trade - they had chemistry, energy, and they won. It was the Cespedes/Lester trade that screwed up the team in 2014. So once that collapse happened and the offseason was a re-branding through multiple trades I was fine with it, because the screwjob happened with shipping away Cespedes, and the stink that followed needed to be disposed of. And that was successfully accomplished.... for the offense. But now the bullpen has gone completely off the rails, and who could have predicted that?

Originally posted by captveg:
I also didn't mind the Shark trade. And things were still good for the A's after that trade - they had chemistry, energy, and they won. It was the Cespedes/Lester trade that screwed up the team in 2014. So once that collapse happened and the offseason was a re-branding through multiple trades I was fine with it, because the screwjob happened with shipping away Cespedes, and the stink that followed needed to be disposed of. And that was successfully accomplished.... for the offense. But now the bullpen has gone completely off the rails, and who could have predicted that?

That's the thing. Coming into the season I thought we'd still compete for a playoff spot. Who woulda thought the bullpen would go full retard?

Listening to Houston sports radio to hear what they're saying about Rockets-Warriors, and then they started talking about the Astros' chances for the playoffs, and one of the points being made was that they get to beat up on the A's to pad their record. Reversal of fortunes....the past couple seasons it was the A's licking their chops for those 19 games vs. Astros.

My bet would be Kazmir pitching for the Astros by sometime in July...hopefully he does well until then to drive up his price, and Astros do have a lot of talent, almost no way they'd give up Carlos Correa (SS) but still some good prospects.

Poetic justice...Coco Crisp, one of the guys the Beanius SHOULD have got rid of way back end of 2013 season when he had value, he's played only a handful of games this season and like the swallows returning to Capistrano, he's hurt again..and this time it might be career-ending.

...and this team just might lose a hundy this year.

Cards interested in Kazmir?

Eh?

No Addison Russell trade, no Marcus Semien

Originally posted by jrg:
Cards interested in Kazmir?

Eh?

Houston seems to be the perfect landing spot for him, and since I like the Giants would prefer he stay in the AL...but, if Beanius doesn't f*** it up then would welcome a trade with the Cards....Cards have a lot of pitching prospects, and Stephen Piscotty might be someone Beane would target.